Seven suspected H1N1 flu cases reported from Nizhny Novgorod.

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, August 18 (Itar-Tass) - Seven children and an adult
accompanying them on a holiday at an international children's recreation
centre in Bulgaria are in hospital in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod with
suspected H1N1 flu, sources from the regional department of the Russian
Rospotrebnadzor consumer rights watchdog told Tass on Monday.

A group of 15 children and two adults accompanying them arrived in
Moscow from Bulgaria by plane on August 13. From Moscow they headed for
the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod on a bus. On the way home some of
them felt symptoms of a respiratory infection. Rospotrebnadzor specialists
decided to hospitalise the whole group.
Nine children and two adults are in hospital. They feel satisfactory
and receive antiviral treatment.

.Moderate quake registered off eastern coast of Kamchatka.

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, August 18 (Itar-Tass) - A quake measuring
4.4 on the Richter scale was registered on Monday off the eastern coast of
the Russian Kamchatka peninsula. Nobody was injured, there was no
destruction and no tsunami warning was announced, sources from the
Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of
Sciences told Itar-Tass.
The quake was registered at 23:53 on Monday local time (14:53 Moscow
time). The epicentre was approximately 150 kilometres northeast of
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, at the depth of 82.3 kilometres.
Earth tremors measuring up to 2 were felt in some parts of Kamchatka's
regional centre.

.Russian-Chinese rescue exercise to be held on Amur River.

KHABAROVSK, August 18 (Itar-Tass) - An international exercise
involving rescuers and fire-fighters from the Russian Amur region and the
Chinese city of Heihe, ships of the Amur port and the maritime safety
department of the Heilongjiang province will be held on the Amur River on
Tuesday, sources from the Amur region's chief department of the Russian
Ministry for Emergency Situations have told Tass.
They said "over 300 people, 40 vessels, two helicopters and an An-2
plane will take part in the exercise". Special units from two countries
will be engaged in an operation to liquidate the aftermath of an imaginary
collision of a passenger ship and a tanker on the Amur River, rescue
people, put out fire on ships, pump oil from the tanker and liquidate oil
spills.
Residents of the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk will be able to watch
the exercise from the embankment. The river between the Russian and
Chinese banks is about 800 meters there.

.Ingushetia to take additional measures to ensure security - min.

NAZRAN, August 18 (Itar-Tass) - Additional measures to ensure
stability and security will be taken in Russia's southern republic of
Ingushetia, Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said after a
session of the emergency headquarters of the republic's anti-terrorist
committee on Tuesday.
"We have set a mission to take additional measures to ensure stability
and security in the republic," the minister said. Necessary documents to
report to the Russian president will be prepared within the next two says,
he said. Nurgaliyev also stressed that "the Russian and republican
interior ministries will draw necessary conclusions and will deliver a
blow like the one that gunmen received recently during joint operations of
the Ingushetia and Chechnya interior ministries".
He said police in Ingushetia remains on alert. The minister said that
20 people were killed and 136 were injured during the terrorist act in
Nazran on Monday. He said 62 injured people are in hospitals. Fourteen
people were airlifted to Rostov, one - to Vladikavkaz and nine to Moscow.
"Experts say that the explosive device in the vehicle of the suicide
bomber was equivalent to about 400 kilogram TNT," the minister noted.
During his trip to Nazran, the interior minister visited the hospital
where the injured people are undergoing medical treatment, the site of the
blast, as well as met with the leadership of power-wielding agencies and
the republican leadership.
A Gazel light truck rammed through the gates of a local police station
in Nazran on Monday morning and exploded in the inner yard.

.Anti-terrorist squads to be set up in Ingushetia - Nurgaliyev.

NAZRAN, August 18 (Itar-Tass) - Special squads of policemen having an
experience of work in the North Caucasus will be set up in Ingushetia,
Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said on Tuesday.
"We shall be setting up in Ingushetia temporary operational teams of
high-skilled staffers, having an experience of work in the North Caucasus,
people who know firsthand about anti-terrorist fight, as well as know what
criminal methods terrorists use," the minister stressed.
He also said that on the whole Ingushetia's police have potential and
are good professionals, but additional training and assistance is needed
nevertheless. "And this assistance will be targeted and concrete," he
stressed.
Acting President of Ingushetia Rashid Gaisanov, for his part, said
"concrete measures aimed at improving the activity of the republican
interior ministry and the efficiency of law enforcement agencies will be
worked out within the next two to three days".
"These measures will make it possible to noticeably improve the
situation in the law enforcement sphere and ensure security of the
population," he stressed.
A suicide bomber rammed a light truck into a police station in Nazran
on Monday, killing 20 people and injuring 136 in the worst attack in the
republic in years.
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