Search for Tu-142 plane crashed in Far East continues.

MOSCOW, November 8 (Itar-Tass) - The search for the Tu-142
anti-submarine turboprop crashed in the Tartar Strait, Russia's Far East,
on Friday, continues.

There were 11 people aboard.
The Defence Ministry sent the Alagez rescue vessel with two
deep-diving vehicles onboard to the area of the crash. Eleven divers are
engaged in the operation, the ministry's spokesman, Alexei Kuznetsov, told
Itar-Tass.
"The ships of the Pacific Fleet and civilian vessels are engaged in
the rescue operation," he said.
"All versions of the crash, including technical faults, are being
studied," Kuznetsov said.
On November 6, the plane made a combat training flight, when it
disappeared off radar screens at 14:17 Moscow time.


.Second wave of crisis unlikely in upcoming 2 years - Kudrin.

ST ANDREWS, November 8 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Finance Minister Alexei
Kudrin believes that the second wave of the crisis is unlikely.
"The second wave of the crisis, second recession is unlikely at least
in the upcoming sixteen-twenty four months," he told a news conference on
the sidelines of the meeting of the G20 finance ministers in Scotland.
"But we always have to be wide awake."
"Different economists have different positions. There had been no
crisis like this, probably, for fifty years, since the Great Depression,"
he said. "It is impossible to measure it with the same yardstick, but we
have an opportunity for assessing prospects."
Speaking about Russia's strategy for getting out of the crisis, Kudrin
noted that the situation in Russia significantly differs from that in
other countries. The difference is that Russia entered the crisis with the
overheated economy, "with its own economic bubble" and a very high
inflation rate exceeding 13 percent.
"At present, we do not need to considerably increase expenditures. We
kept them at the planned level, but our revenues heavily declined - by 25
percent. Our task is not to boost expenditures not to cause the growth of
the inflation rate. Russia's key task is low inflation and low interest
rates. In fact, we could not resolve this task of decreasing inflation to
5-7 percent for 15 years. Without tackling this task we will be unable to
upgrade our economy," he said.
Kudrin underlined that in 2010 the government would continue to fight
unemployment, to support the banking sector and the real sector of
economy, in particular to subsidize interest rates on credits. Moreover,
further support will be provided to the country's car-making industry.
He did not rule out possible support for banks through the mechanism
of federal loan bonds. This package of support was developed to meet the
growth of bad loans on the banking balance.
"This was our reserve that we had no intention to spend on a
compulsory basis. The situation in the banking sector does not worsen. We
believe that it is stable. And such support is needed to a lesser degree
or will be not needed at all," Kudrin said adding that in 2010 the problem
of bad loans will remain. "The main thing is to keep them from growing."


.Japan to stop humanitarian aid supplies to Southern Kuriles.

TOKYO, November 8 (Itar-Tass) - Japan's government has taken a
decision to stop humanitarian aid supplies to the Southern Kuriles as of
the next financial year that begins on April 1, 2010, diplomatic sources
told Itar-Tass on Sunday.
"The aid we had provided was humanitarian and it will not be supplied
in a compulsory manner," a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.
In August, Russia's Foreign Ministry said "it had informed the
Japanese embassy in Moscow that the Russian side had taken a decision to
stop receiving Japan's humanitarian consignments intended for two
municipal entities of the Sakhalin region."
The Japanese side "was given sincere gratitude for assistance it had
been providing since the beginning of the 1990s that helped to overcome
social and economic problems in the Southern Kuriles aggravated by the
devastating earthquake of 1994." "The Japanese partners were informed that
there was no need for receiving humanitarian aid supplies from Japan in
the future."
What Russia calls the Southern Kuriles are known in Japan as the
Northern territories.

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