GM Europe chief says Magna most likely Opel buyer

.

BERLIN, September 4 (Itar-Tass) -- General Motors Europe President
Carl-Peter Forster said in an interview Canadian Magna with its Russian
partner Sberbank are the most likely buyers of Opel.
"I believe Magna is the most likely buyer, as all preconditions have
been fulfilled, talks on agreements held and financing determined," he
said in an interview with Die Welt newspaper published on Friday.
Forster admitted Magna demands higher guarantees than the Belgian
competitor RHJ International, however it also offers better strategic
possibilities.
Still Forster said Opel may remain with parent GM. "If General Motors
succeeds to create international standards and preserve regional freedom
to produce cars that offer successful combination for the corresponding
market, then Opel may prosper within General Motors," he said.
He admitted relations with Russia may chill if Magna and its Russian
partners Sberbank and GAZ Group lose the bid. "I am very concerned that
such a decision can be misinterpreted in Russia. Russian partners are
deeply interested in the development of their industry," he said.

.Belarus, Poland, Ukraine to discuss military cooperation.


MINSK, September 4 (Itar-Tass) -- Chiefs of General Staff of the armed
forces of Belarus, Poland and Ukraine will meet on Friday in the
Belarussian city of Brest to discuss prospects of trilateral military
cooperation.
The defense ministry of Belarus, which is a member of the Russia-led
Collective Security Treaty Organization, said Belarussian Chief-of-Staff
Sergei Gurulev and his Polish and Ukrainian counterparts, Franciszek
Gongor and Sergei Kirichenko, will discuss the construction and
development of the armerd forces at the two-day meeting.
They will visit the 38th brigade and the memorial complex Brest
Fortress, which was the first to be attacked on the Soviet territory by
the Nazis in 1941.
Belarus and Ukraine have been active in military cooperation,
specifically in exchanging peacekeeping experience, controlling air
traffic along the border, and training army engineers. Several years ago
Belarus bought from Ukraine a batch of training aircraft. Ukrainian
military are interested in Belarussian military hardware modernization
experience.


.G20 finance ministers to promote recovery.

LONDON, September 4 (Itar-Tass) -- Top finance officials from G20
countries will meet on Friday and Saturday to design further economic
recovery measures for approval of the summit in Pittsburgh late in
September.
They will try to coordinate plans for an eventual withdrawal of
stimulus efforts worth trillions of dollars and discuss further financial
reforms such as international accord on increasing banks' capital reserves.
"We must be careful to avoid laying the foundations of new global
imbalances. Therefore we should work on exit strategies to be implemented
in a coordinated manner as soon as the crisis has ended," British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German
Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote in a letter to European union colleagues.
The host of the meeting, British finance minister Alistair Darling
said "there are still uncertainties and risks that we have to confront.
And the biggest risk is to think that the job's done -- that recovery is
guaranteed. No country can be complacent."
US Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner said in Washington there
were "first signs of positive growth now in this country and countries
around the world. We've come a very long way but I think we have to be
realistic, we've got a long way to go still."
Representatives from Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) will meet
on the sidelines of the London meeting and Geithner is expected to join
them. Russia is represented by Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
-0-nec