Bezymyanny volcano eruption starts on Kamchatka.

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, December 17 (Itar-Tass) - Bezymyanny
volcano's eruption started on the Kamchatka Peninsula on Thursday. Ashfall
has been registered in the Kozyrevsk settlement (30 km from the volcano).
The local population has been advised to cut their time outdoors.

The Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) told Itar-Tass
that the eruption started at 09:45, local time (00:45, Moscow time). There
was an explosion on the volcano and ash blowouts started. Half an hour
after the beginning of the eruption the ash spewed by the giant mount
reached Kozyrevsk, however, it poses no threat to this settlement.
It is impossible to determine the height of the ash spews from the
volcano's crater because of limited visibility in the area, scientists
say. They are monitoring the eruption.
Bezymyanny is one of active volcanoes of Kamchatka. Its height is
about 2.8 thousand metres above sea level. Its eruptions are explosive.
They happen one-two times a year and may last from several hours to
several days. Scientists have recently been rather precisely predicting
periods of the volcano's activity intensification.
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.Building of new power line completed in Khakassia rep.

GORNO-ALTAISK, December 17 (Itar-Tass) - The construction of a new 220
kv Beya-Aksiz power transmission line (LEP) has been completed in the
Khakassia republic. On the eve of the New Year peak load it will ensure
uninterrupted electricity supply in the republic, as well as the
neighbouring Tuva with the total population in both 850,000. The power
line's opening ceremony is scheduled for December 22 and will be timed to
coincide with Power Engineering Day, the press service of the Khakassia
government told Itar-Tass.
According to it, the need for the new power line construction arose
after the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant accident when the Khakassia
republic turned from a donor of electricity into its consumer. The new
power facility with the length of more than 55 kilometres has been built
in a record short period of time - in two months. It usually takes a year
to build such a power line, specialists said.
After the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP accident the RF government
instructed the Federal Grid Company to take a number of measures to
increase reliability of the Siberian energy system, including to build the
Beya-Aksiz line. The new power transmission line is the second section of
the Oznachennoye-Aksiz transit that had been designed back in the Soviet
period. This line increase power capacities coming to Khakassia and
diminishes the probability of automatic cut-offs. The power line will also
make it possible to run heavy electric trains from Khakassia to the
Kemerovo region and Krasnoyarsk Territory and back.
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.Lavrov to discuss with New Zealand FM bilateral coop prospects.

MOSCOW, December 17 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov will discuss with his New Zealand colleague Murray McCully on
Thursday prospects for the expansion of bilateral and international
cooperation.
"Priority attention will be focused on the bilateral relations, as
well as interaction in the international arena, including within the UN,"
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said.
"The ministers intend to discuss the situation in the Asia-Pacific
region, including the southern part of the Pacific Ocean," the diplomat
noted. "They will possibly exchange views on cooperation of Russia and New
Zealand in the Antarctic," he added.
The meeting agenda includes "issues of non-proliferation and
disarmament, in particular, in the context of the Iranian nuclear
programme, nuclear problem of the Korean Peninsula, 2010 Review Conference
of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
(NPT)."
Nesterenko specified that the two ministers "will also discuss
possibilities of more efficient use of the potential of bilateral
relations in countering new challenges and threats, including building up
practical interaction in the sphere of combating international terrorism."
"New Zealand has become the first economically developed country with
which Russia successfully completed talks on the admission to the World
Trade Organisation (WTO)," Nesterenko noted. "Since 2004 Wellington has
been taking part in the financing of the chemical disarmament programme in
Russia within the framework of the Global Partnership of the Group of
Eight," the diplomat added.
"We are certain that the forthcoming visit of the New Zealand foreign
minister to Moscow ill become an important contribution to the progressive
development of Russia-New Zealand cooperation in various spheres,"
Nesterenko stressed.
New Zealand has an embassy in Moscow and an honorary consulate in
Vladivostok. Russia has an embassy in Wellington. Both countries are
members of APEC.
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.RUSNANO head to familiarise with new nanotechnology ideas.

KRASNOYARSK, December 17 (Itar-Tass) - State-of-the-art projects of
Krasnoyarsk scientists in the sphere of nanotechnology will be presented
to head of the RUSNANO Corporation Anatoly Chubais who is arriving here on
Thursday, the press service of the territorial government told Itar-Tass.
Projects bidding for getting financing from the corporation will be
presented to Chubais. They include a shop for the production of
single-crystalline silicon on the base of Russia's leading enterprise for
the production of non-ferrous metals - Krastsvetmet company, the method of
getting magnetic nanoparticles with tailor-made properties and new medical
technologies created with their application by scientists of Siberian
Federal University. In the view of the developers, projects for getting
especially pure germanium for nuclear radiation detectors, production of
wound dressings on the basis of collagen-chitosan nanocomplexes. The
latter project is presented by specialists of Krasnoyarsk State Medical
University.
The programme of the working trip of the head of the state corporation
includes visiting an exhibition of nanoprojects of enterprises and
organisations of the territory at the Sibir business centre, at
Academician Reshetnev Satellite Information Systems Company and
Krasnoyarsk Aluminium Plant.
It is planned to sign on the results of the visit a protocol on the
development of cooperation between RUSNANO and the Krasnoyarsk Territory
in the sphere of nanotechnologies and nanoindustry.
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