.Putin to chair govt panel meeting on foreign investments.

MOSCOW, April 13 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
on Tuesday is to chair a meeting of the government commission for control
over foreign investments in Russia.
It is planned that those present at the panel's meeting "will
examine six applications from foreign investors about deals concerning the
development of economic minerals, finances, defence, and other sectors,
and hear information from Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) on
fixing a number of deals in a simplified procedure", the government press
service reported.
Foreign investors continue to evince interest in acquiring the shares
of Russian strategic enterprises, a press service official pointed out.
"Over 80 applications are currently under consideration in FAS," the
official said.
At five previous meetings, the Commission made decisions on tentative
coordination of deals and the establishment of control on the strength of
over 30 applications from foreign investors. The panel examined a number
of proposals from foreign companies from Singapore, Switzerland, the
Netherlands, and Cyprus on the acquisition of the shares of Russian
enterprises in the spheres of energy, the development of economic
minerals, including that in Far North areas, transport,
telecommunications, and banking.
The purpose of the Commission's work is to monitor foreign investors'
capital inputs into economic entities that are of strategic importance for
the ensurance of the country's defence and state security.

.Medvedev arrives in Wash for nuclear security summit.

WASHINGTON, April 13 (Itar-Tass) - President Dmitry Medvedev of the
Russian Federation has arrived here to attend a Summit on Nuclear Security.
An aggregate of 47 countries, as well as the United Nations, the
International Atomic Energy Agency, and the European Union are to take
part in the Summit, which is intended to help the world community to
enhance the state of preservation and safety of nuclear materials, and
prevent them from getting into the hands of those who can use them for
terrorist or other criminal purposes. The Summit bids fair to become the
major international forum in the US ever since the UN founding conference
in San Francisco in 1945.
Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko said, "As a result of the
Summit, two final documents are to be adopted: a communique and a work
plan".
"It is supposed that within the framework of the Summit, each
participating country will circulate a national memorandum on nuclear
security themes. The memoranda will be posted at the Summit website,"
Prikhodko added.

.Bodies of 45 victims of aircrash at Smolensk identified-Min.

MOSCOW, April 13 (Itar-Tass) - As of now, the bodies of 45 victims of
Saturday's air crash near Smolensk have been identified, Tatyana Golikova,
Russian Minister of Health and Social Development, told journalists on
Tuesday after working meetings with representatives of the Polish side.
"As of the present moment, the bodies of 45 victims of the air crash
have been identified. The body of the Polish President's wife has been
identified as well," Golikova said.
She said work is under way in conjunction with Polish specialists to
arrange for the transportation of the air crash victims' bodies to Poland.
"We believe that on Tuesday morning the body of the Polish President's
wife will be brought to Warsaw," Golikova said. She specified that the
procedure would be continued to identify victims for those 54 relatives
who had arrived in Moscow on Monday.
Golikova pointed out that Polish specialists had joined Russian
forensic medicine experts in the effort to identify victims' bodies.

.RF cruiser to call at Syria's Tartus for business visit Tue.

BEIRUT, April 13 (Itar-Tass) - The heavy nuclear-powered
guided-missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky (Peter the Great), which is on a
voyage to the Mediterranean Sea, is to call at the Syrian port of Tartus
-- where a material and technical support station of the Russian Navy is
located -- for a business visit on Tuesday.
According to information that came from the Russian Embassy in
Damascus, the flagship of Russia's Northern Fleet (NF) will stay at Tartus
for two days. It is planned that a Syrian military delegation, headed by
Defence Minister Ali Habib, together with Sergei Kirichenko, the
Ambassador of Russia to Syria, will visit the cruiser.
The logistical support station at Tartus was established in the 1980s
and now remains the Russian Navy's only base point in the Mediterranean.
The basing point currently undergoes modernization to become a modern
naval base facility. Infrastructure is being established to ensure an
uninterrupted provision of Russian ships that call at Tartus with fuel,
water, food and other material means. The bulk of the work is to be
completed in 2011.
An NF naval squadron, led by the heavy air-capable cruiser Admiral
Kuznetsov, called at Tartus in January. The amphibious ships Azov and
Yamal visited Tartus later on.
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