Russian truck maker Kamaz to restart assembly line after break.

KAZAN, September 7 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's truck maker Kamaz will
restart its main assembly line on Monday after a month-long break, the
director of the company's information policy department, Oleg Afansyev,
told Itar-Tass.

"The main assembly line suspended on July 29 is ready to begin work at
full capacity," he said adding that during the idle period the assembly
line underwent routine maintenance.
Against the backdrop of the tumbling demand for trucks Kamaz suspends
the production on a sliding schedule to save labour and energy resources,
he said.
In January-August Kamaz produced 15,000 trucks. By the end of the year
another 10,000 trucks will roll off the assembly line.
"The orders that the company gathered during the idle period would be
enough to work in two shifts until the end of the month," Afanasyev said.
Kamaz ranks eleventh among the world's leading producers of heavy
trucks and eighth by the output of diesel engines.
Russia's leading truck maker comprises 96 companies and employs over
50,000.



.Karamanlis confirms Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline to be built.

ATHENS, September 7 (Itar-Tass) - Greek Prime Minister Costas
Karamanlis confirmed that the construction of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis
oil pipeline would be continued.
At a news conference in Thessaloniki on Sunday the prime minister
denied journalists' suppositions that at present, no diplomatic steps are
being taken to promote the Burgas-Alexandroupolis project.
"I cannot agree with this," Karamanlis said. "Our main policy is to
turn Greece into the center of energy. For this purpose such projects have
been developed - Burgas-Alexandroupolis, extension of the Turkey-Greece
gas pipeline to Italy, the construction of the South Stream gas pipeline
that will run from the Black Sea region to the Balkans and Greece as well
as the project to build a gas pipeline between Greece and Bulgaria and lay
it further to Romania and Hungary. The last project was signed several
days ago and was included into the EU budget."
"The project on the construction of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis
pipeline goes ahead and will do this in the future. All participating
parties express their political will for this. If some aspects that I
would not call key ones exist and need to be coordinated at the talks
between Bulgaria and Russia again, this is the issue that they can discuss
on their own. However, I believe that all parties recognize importance and
strategic value of this project and they have a political will for the
project advancement," the prime minister said.
The yet-to-be pipeline will transport Russian oil to the Mediterranean
terminals bypassing Turkey's Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits. The
pipeline will stretch over 300 kilometers and have annual throughput from
35 million to 50 million tonnes of crude.


.Economic measures needed to stabilize situation in Caucasus -expert.


MOSCOW, September 7 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's top investigator Alexander
MOSCOW, September 7 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's top investigator Alexander
Bastrykin believes that a raft of economic measures is needed to stabilize
the situation in the North Caucasus.
In an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper said the
Investigative Committee calls for "canceling taxes in those regions of the
North Caucasus, where miserable economic conditions and high unemployment
force young people into the ranks of militants."
"It is necessary to create something like emergency economic zones and
oblige state corporations to enter these zones with their own economic
projects and regions of Central Russia - to conclude cooperation
agreements," he said.
"First of all, economic rebound is needed," the head of the
Investigative Committee said.
In his comments on recent terrorist crimes in the North Caucasus he
stressed he did not believe that "this is some special reaction to
unjustified actions of police." "These are usual militant attacks and
their activation is linked with the financing as big money for militants
again flow from abroad."