Duma to gather for first plenary meeting of autumn session.

MOSCOW, September 9 (Itar-Tass) - The State Duma lower house of Russia'
s parliament on Wednesday will open to the strains of the national anthem
its autumn session. Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov will tell lawmakers about
the session's main tasks.

At a plenary meeting the deputies intend to discuss the issue of
assessment of activities of state power bodies of RF regions in the
exercise of transferred to them powers in the sphere of forest relations.
The leadership of the Agriculture Ministry will speak within the framework
of the Government Hour of questions and answers.
Aside from this, the parliamentarians intend to pass in the first
reading the bill on Moscow Lomonosov State University and St. Petersburg
State University that will give these two higher educational
establishments a special status. They will be given the right to implement
their own educational programmes, as well as to hold, aside from the
unified state examination, additional entrance examinations. The rectors
of these universities will be appointed by the RF president for a term of
five years.
Duma deputies will also consider in the first reading presidential
amendments to the law on defence related to the use of the RF military
contingent abroad.
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.Russia does not think that 6-way talks process dead - Logvinov.

SEOUL, September 9 (Itar-Tass) - Consultations between the
participants in the six-party talks on denuclearisation of the Korean
Peninsula continue and Russia "does not think that this process has died,"
deputy head of the Russian delegation at these talks, RF Foreign Ministry'
s Ambassador at Large Grigory Logvinov told Itar-Tass in an interview on
Wednesday.
Noting that the "normal diplomatic work is underway and there is
nothing extraordinary in it," the official stressed that he is "far from
simplifying the picture." "The situation is, regrettably, complicated and
so far the developments are contrary to the desired direction," he added.
The Russian diplomat expressed regret in connection with the fact that
"our colleagues from North Korea have made a new step - refused to give
explanations on a number of aspects related to fulfilment of Resolution
1874 of the UN Security Council - stating once again that they do not
intend to observe its clauses and that they are already close to the
completion of the uranium enrichment technology development." Besides, the
North, he noted, "is developing for military purposes all plutonium it
extracted from depleted fuel rods of the Yongbyon reactor."
"So far we do not observe any movement towards the return to the
process of denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. One way or another
all this creates serious challenges in the context of the situation in the
Northeast Asian region. This also poses a problem no less serious
regarding ensuring efficiency of the global nuclear non-proliferation
regime," he said. "It is easy to guess that many members of the
international community are monitoring with practical interest the
developments around the Korean Peninsula's nuclear problem viewing all
this as a possible precedent for themselves," the diplomat stated.
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.Intl exhibition on offshore oil and gas projects opens on Sakhalin.

YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, September 9 (Itar-Tass) - The international
exhibition "Oil. Gas. Infrastructure/SIGOLD" that is devoted to
infrastructure of offshore oil and natural gas projects opened in
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on Wednesday. During three days the forum will become a
venue for meetings and talks of specialists of the oil and gas industry
and allied sectors.
According to specialists of the Sakhalin-EXPO company, the exhibition
displays advanced technologies of the development of oil fields, materials
on the work of the mining and petrochemical industry, transport and
communications, projects of ecologists in the sphere of the environment
protection in the prospecting and recovery of mineral resources. The "days
of the economy of territories of the Sakhalin region" will be held within
the framework of the exhibition and a meeting of mayors of cities of the
Far Eastern federal district of Russia.
Starting from 2009 Sakhalin has become one of the major suppliers of
oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) to international energy market. This
year it is planned to produce on the island about 15 million tonnes of
oil. Sakhalin is expected to produce 9.6 million tonnes of LNG annually.
The main buyers of the island's hydrocarbons recovered on the shelf of the
Sea of Okhotsk are Japan, the United States, South Korea and China.
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