The Russian Information Agency Novosti begins Hotline coverage for Tuesday, September 28, 2004.
MOSCOW
* Poland's President Aleksander Kwasniewski is arriving on a routine visit in Moscow.
* The federal Transport Ministry has an enlarged-attendance Board session on Russian transport guidelines and prospects. Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov attends. He is departing on an official visit to the Netherlands, afternoon.
* An annual conference, Russia: Investment in the Progress Economy, is going on. Today's agenda concerns the fuel and energy complex as related to the transport infrastructure, petroleum extraction and petrochemistry, ore mining and iron-and-steel and non-ferrous metal industries.
* The CIS intergovernmental council for construction partnership is opening session.
* The Organising Committee of Faith and the Word, maiden international festival of Orthodox Christian media outlets, opens session. The federal Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications is hosting. Alexander Sokolov, Minister of Culture and Mass Communications, and Clemens the Metropolitan of Kaluga and Borovsk, charge d'affaires of the Moscow Patriarchate, are co-chairing. The festival will gather in Moscow, November 16-18.
* The Federation Council, parliament's upper house, holds the following:
- a house Council session to prepare a 134th senatorial plenary session;
- a Council Presidium session on house teamwork with the Legislators' Council, which represents regional diets. House Speaker Sergei Mironov, Legislators' Council president, is chairing. The agenda concerns interbudgetary relations regulation.
* The State Duma, parliament's lower house, has hearings on the implementation and ratification prospects of a protocol to the Russian Federation/European Union partnership and cooperation agreement. The protocol was signed, April 27.
* The Russian Party of Life holds a National Council session on civil society'sopportunities on anti-terror efforts. Sergei Mironov, party president and Federation Council Speaker, offers a central report, "Civil Resistance to Terror as Russia's Political Objective on the Democratic Road".
* Vladimir Sokolin, Federal State Statistical Service president, and Konstantin Laikam, his deputy, address a RIA Novosti news conference on, "Experimental Agricultural Population Census: The Way It Was."
* Andrei Isayev, in charge of the State Duma labour and social policies committee, and Evgeni Fedorov of the Duma budget and fiscal committee address a news conference on "Social Aspects of the 2005 Budget" at the Izvestia media centre.
* Professor Alexei Malashenko of the Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) under Russia's Foreign Ministry addresses a news conference on, "The Chechen Conflict in the Global Terrorist Context: Myths and Reality". The Independent Press Centre is hosting.
* The Moscow Carnegie Centre is convening a conference on, "South Asian Mass Destruction Weapon Proliferation Problems in the Current Situation". Alexei Arbatov, in charge of programme, NCB Nonproliferation Problems, and Gennadi Chufrin, Deputy Director, Institute of World Economics and Foreign Relations under the Russian Academy of Sciences, are principal speakers.
* A two-day conference, "Russian State Administration Reform Strategies and Implementation at a Regional Level" is opening at the State University/Higher School of Economics.
* Michael Lambert, US Federal Reserve System Board of Governors cash asset manager; Michael Merritt, chief of the Paris-based European Office of the US Secret Service; and Tom Lanier, finance attache of the US Embassy to Russia, address a news conference on new 50 dollar notes introduced. The conference is motto'ed, "The New Colour of Money: Safer. More Technological. More Reliable".
* The Gasprom Directors' Board is holding session. The agenda includes prospects for an extraordinary shareholders' meeting with an upcoming Rosneft petroleum mammoth's merger with the gas monopoly.
* The Interfax news agency offers the following news conferences:
- "Russia's Chrysotile Industry Wins Export Rights". Addressing the audience are Yuri Kozlov, Chrysotile Association Co-president, Uralasbest Co. Director General; and Boris Kurlyandsky, Director, Rotterdam Convention Russian Register of Potentially Dangerous Chemical and Biological Substances under the federal Health and Social Development Ministry;
- "The Russian Construction Complex as Tentative Disaster Site" by Alexander Krivov, President, National Urban Construction Society;
- Ruslan Aushev, previous Ingush republican President, on, "The Beslan Tragedy and North Caucasian Developments".
* The Moscow International Music House hosts its president Vladimir Spivakov's news conference on the next concert season, shortly opening.
ROSTOV-ON-DON
* The State Duma commission for North Caucasian issues holds session in this provincial centre in European Russia's south, Vice-Speaker Vladimir Katrenko chairing. Dmitri Kozak, presidential envoy plenipotentiary to federal district South will address the gathering.
ST. PETERSBURG
* The 7th All-Russia Hydrological Congress is opening, to last into Sunday, October 3.
* The Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute is hosting an academic conference, "Russia in the Arctic: 21st Century". Alexander Bedritsky, World Meteorological Organisation and Russian Hydrometeorological Committee President, is expected to make a communication.
CHEBOKSARY
* A 2nd All-Russia Congress of GPs/Family Doctors is opening, to last into Thursday, September 30. The agenda concerns the contribution of first medical and sanitary aid to Russian health service updating efforts, and financing general practitioners' work through compulsory health insurance.
SVETLOGORSK, KALININGRAD REGION
* An international rescue seminar is opening, "TransborderAlliance in Emergencies". Sweden's Accident Rescue Service will offer imitations of troubleshooting in case of dangers most likely to occur in frontier areas. The event is gathering experts from Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine. Russia's Ministry for Emergency and Calamity Relief will be represented by experts from Moscow, Kaliningrad and elsewhere in the host country.
BRUSSELS
* Russia and NATO are starting their maiden procedural war games, to finish September 30. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO Secretary General, offers personal monitoring.
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