Yabloko party congress to outline new tasks.

MOSCOW, December 20 (Itar-Tass) - A congress of the Yabloko party will
be held in the Moscow region on Sunday. It's supposed to work out a new
political line ahead of a series of new regional elections.

The party's chairman Sergei Mitrokhin will deliver a report on the
party's tasks, while its former leader Grigory Yavlinsky, who now sits on
the party's political committee, will speak about the political situation.
Mitrokhin believes that the party should work out the basics of a new
democratic project.
Yabloko has lost two elections to the federal parliament and is losing
support in regions. The last blow was dealt by its defeat at elections to
the Moscow City Duma on October 11 when it gained just 4.7 percent of the
votes and didn't surpass a 7-percent threshold.
The Congress is also to decide whether the party is going to
participate in regional elections in March.
"Under such circumstances we need to pass a special political
decision," said Yavlinsky, who stepped down as the party chairman in the
summer of 2008 but is still its informal leader.
Officially, it's going to be the second part of the 15th congress (the
first part was held several months ago). The congress will elect the party'
s governing bodies.


.Lavrov, Egyptian FM to hold fifth round of consultations.

CAIRO, December 20 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov and his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Aboul Gheit will hold a fifth
round Russian-Egyptian strategic dialogue within the framework of Lavrov's
working visit that starts on Sunday. A plan of consultations for 2010
between the Russian and Egyptian Foreign Ministers will be signed.
"The Foreign Policy interaction between Moscow and Cairo is based on
the convergence and closeness of views on the way to settlement of urgent
international issues and regional problems; it is also a vital factor
which produces a positive impact on the Middle East processes," a Russian
embassy source in Egypt told Itar-Tass.
The talks will focus on bilateral cooperation project that are to
upgrade the Russian-Egyptian ties to a new level of strategic economic
partnership.
"Despite the world financial crisis the positive dynamics of the
Russian-Egyptian cooperation in the trade and economic sphere has been
preserved," the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said
at his briefing on December 18.
"Mutual trade turnover between our two countries stood at 2.06 billion
dollars in 2008 and considerable growth is expected in 2009," Nesterenko
emphasized.
Sergei Lavrov will visit the headquarters of the League of Arab States
where he will meet the LAS its Secretary-General Amr Moussa. They will
sign a memorandum on the establishment of the Russian-Arab cooperation
forum.
During his stay in Cairo on December 20-21 Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak will receive the Russian foreign minister.
Sergei Lavrov will award the Order of Friendship to the Egyptian
foreign minister, the LAS secretary-general and the Speaker of the
Egyptian People's Assembly Ahmed Fathi Sorour, who is also chairman of the
Egypt-Russia association. All of them have been awarded by decree of the
Russian president for great contribution to developing cooperation between
the two countries.