Japan's PM seeks progress in territorial row with Russia.

TOKYO, December 27 (Itar-Tass) - Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama
said he planned to seek progress in the talks with Russia on the
territorial issue next year.
At the meeting with journalists of Japan's northernmost island of
Hokkaido on the eve of Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada's visit to Russia
Hatoyama expressed confidence that his intention to resolve the issue was
much stronger than that of any of his predecessors on this post. He meant
that he was a grandson of ex-prime minister Itiro Hatoyama who signed the
Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration in Moscow in 1956.
Yukio Hatoyama stressed that he would like to hold bilateral meetings
at the high level more often and to continue discussions on the issue.
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, who begins his first visit to Russia
on Sunday, told reporters that the conclusion of a peace treaty with
Russia through resolving the issue on the four disputed islands will
normalize Japanese-Russian relations. Speaking about the opportunity for
stepping up bilateral relations without signing the treaty, he expressed
an opinion that "such an approach will not gain nationwide support."
He made clear that this time he had no plans to discuss Hatoyama's
visit Russia.
"There is no concrete plan. The talks will become fruitful if there is
certain progress in the territorial issue," Okada said.
Along with this a Japanese diplomatic source told Itar-Tass that the
schedule of the future high-level contacts will be on the agenda of Okada'
s talks in Moscow.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and President Dmitry Medvedev have
already met twice this year on the sidelines of international summits in
New York and Singapore. A meeting in Copenhagen was planned, but it did
not take place over complicated common discussions on the global climate
change, the source said.
The source noted that in the future it was the Japanese prime minister
who should pay a reciprocal visit to Russia.



.Parliamentary elections begin in Uzbekistan.

TASHKENT, December 27 (Itar-Tass) - The race for a seat in the lower
house of parliament and local legislatures begins in Uzbekistan.
Around 8,447 polling stations opened their doors to the country's
voters at 04:00 Moscow time and another 44 stations started working at
Uzbekistan's diplomatic offices in foreign countries, an official at the
central election commission told Itar-Tass on Sunday.
"The elections will be valid if over 33 percent of eligible voters
cast their ballots," the official said.
According to the latest information, the ballot papers include the
names of 17,215.7 million of Uzbek citizens.
The republic's mobile operators remind voters of the election through
text messages.
Voters will have to choose one of the 506 candidates nominated by four
political parties - the Social-Democratic Party Adolat (Justice), the
Democratic Party Milli Tiklanish (National Revival), the Movement of
Entrepreneurs and Business People - Liberal-Democratic Party and the
People's Democratic Party.
Under Uzbekistan's amended election legislation, the number of seats
in the lower house was increased from 120 to 150. Of them 135
parliamentarians will be elected by territorial electoral districts on a
multi-party system. The remaining fifteen parliamentarians will be elected
from the Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan by its supreme body - the
conference that will take place on Sunday. A candidate who will get more
than half of the votes will win.
The elections will end at 18:00 Moscow time. The outcome will be made
public at a news conference on December 28. The final returns and the list
of parliamentarians should be published before January 7, 2010.
The central election commission registered over 270 observers from 36
countries and missions of four international organizations - the OSCE
Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the CIS Executive
Committee, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Organization of
the Islamic Conference.
Over 630 journalists of local and foreign media will cover the
elections.
"We will hold the upcoming elections properly and will once again
demonstrate our political maturity to the world community, because modern
Uzbekistan and its people is not the state and society it was in the
past," Uzbek President Islam Karimov said.

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