Medvedev to attend first youth Winners Forum opening in Moscow.

MOSCOW, December 17 (Itar-Tass) - Over 20 thousand young people will
take part in the first youth Winners Forum that will open at the
Olympiisky sports complex in Moscow on Thursday. Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev will attend the event.

"Young people from all over Russia who became winners of Olympiads,
competitions, contests, as well as who have done socially significant
deeds, will gather at the forum," the Russian Federal Agency for Youth
Affairs (Rosmolodezh) told Itar-Tass. It specified that an exhibition of
works created by the forum participants will be opened at 09:00 here, and
at 12:00 the culmination of the forum will begin - the Breakthrough Prize
awarding ceremony. There are 25 people nominated for the award selected by
the forum's expert council comprising, in particular, RF Minister of
Sports, Tourism and Youth Policy Vitaly Mutko, Rosmolodezh head Vasily
Yakemenko, deputy of the State Duma lower house of parliament, Olympic
Champion Svetlana Zhurova, film director Fyodor Bondarchuk.
The prize will be awarded in eight nominations: innovations, society,
media, business, art, tourism, sports and profession. Among the nominees
is 2008 Olympic Champion in modern rhythmic gymnastics Yevgeniya Kanayeva,
resident of the Ryazan region Dmitry Korolkov who saved a woman from a
drowning car, journalist Yevgeny Poddubny who reported about South Ossetia
war, programming specialists of global renown Yevgeny Yuzhakov and Fyodor
Tsaryov, mathematician Alexander Yefimov, worker of the Sevmash production
association Andrei Sorokin who won the interregional professional skill
competition of 2009, military serviceman Vyacheslav Vorobyov who has been
decorated with the Hero of Russia Medal for the liquidation of a banding
group in the Northern Caucasus.
"It will be not just a meeting of winners. We are changing the state
policy towards these young people: here each of them will sign an
agreement envisaging representation of the interests of the participant
before state and private corporations, development institutions,
ministries, services and departments," Yakemenko said. The Rosmolodezh
agency head stressed that "thus Russia will develop a targeted, personal
support for talented young people and their projects."
Yakemenko added that Rosmolodezh has already signed an agreement with
a number of corporations and ministries on support, including financial,
to the forum participants. "We are now only launching this project,
certainly there will be difficulties, but I am sure that in several years
a talented young person in Russia will be able to rightfully count on the
state's help in the fulfilment of his potential," the agency head stressed.
Dmitry Medvedev regularly addresses youth problems. This July he held
a meeting of the RF State Council devoted to the youth policy. "Naturally,
there is a strategy of the state youth policy for the 2006-2016 period,
there is a special part in the concept of the long-term socio-economic
development, we have a special department that is engaged in the youth
affairs, but this does not mean that we have settled all the questions -
on the contrary, it is only the beginning," the RF head of state said
then. "The youth policy issue will be in the focus during the whole year;
we will regularly return to these matters," Medvedev promised.
In his state-of-the-nation address to the Federal Assembly the head of
state also noted the important role of the younger generation in the life
of the country. "I hope that Russia's well-being in a relatively not too
distant future will directly depend on our successes in the development of
the market of ideas, inventions, discoveries, on the ability of the state
and society to find and encourage talented and critically minded people,
to bring up the youth in the spirit of intellectual freedom and civic
engagement," he said, in particular.
Invited to the forum are also deputies of the State Duma and a number
of governors. The event will end with a major concert of Russian pop and
rock stars - Mumy Troll, Dima Bilan, Zveri, Bi-2, Pelageya and others.
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.RF govt to amend laws on responsibility of officials at transport.

MOSCOW, December 17 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian government will consider
at its meeting on Thursday amendments to a number of legislative acts
toughening responsibility of officials for ensuring security at transport.
The RF Transport Ministry has prepared the corresponding proposals, a
government source told Itar-Tass.
According to him, "These decisions are aimed at the improvement of the
legal foundations of responsibility for failure to comply with
requirements concerning ensuring transport security, traffic safety and
exploitation of all kinds of transport." First of all the point at issue
is "raising the level of legal responsibility for failure to comply with
these requirements." He also noted that the introduction of the
corresponding amendments to the RF Criminal, Criminal Procedure Codes and
Code of Administrative Offences will entail "toughening responsibility of
both individuals and legal entities for the violation of the norms of
ensuring the protection of the transport complex from illegal interference
acts, norms of safety of traffic and transport exploitation."
The source stressed that "these issues have become particularly
important in connection with the growing threat of committing terror acts
at transport infrastructure facilities and persistent facts of
unsanctioned interference in transport activities."
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