Construction works resume at Sochi after summer season break

.

SOCHI, September 30 (Itar-Tass) - A moratorium on construction works
that was imposed as of June 1 and stayed in effect during the summer
holidaymaking season is lifted as of Wednesday, September 30 in the Sochi
seaside resort area.
The moratorium was declared at the initiative of Sochi mayor and it
received support from the city hall, local administration sources told
Itar-Tass.
"Construction works at major sites located in the areas where most
holidaymaker stay traditionally, as well as on embankments and at beaches
were suspended for the period of four months," an administration official
said.
However, the measure did not affect the facilities being built for the
2014 Winter Olympic Games in the remote parts of the resort city.
According to the data from the city's department for capital
construction, full-scale works are due to resume Wednesday at the sites of
several major residential compounds - the Royal Park, Red Square and
Millennium Tower. The list also features a residential compound around the
Zarya holiday center.
The summer season moratorium embraced 25 construction sites, while the
total number of hotels, business centers and residential compounds being
built in Sochi stands at around 250.

.US DoE, Russia's Rosatom discuss security of nuclear materials.

WASHINGTON, September 30 (Itar-Tass) - Security in the field of
nuclear materials and cooperation in civilian nuclear technologies were
the highlights of discussions in the course of the first meeting of the
Russian-U.S. Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Security Working Group on Monday
and Tuesday at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National
Security Complex in the U.S. in Tennessee.
The Russian delegation at the meeting, the first one since the
establishment of the working group by the Bilateral Presidential
Commission at the July summit in Moscow, was co-chaired by the director of
Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation 'Rosatom', Sergei Kiriyenko and
U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu.
Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman also took part in it, the U.S.
Department of Energy said in an official report.
"This visit is devoted to an in depth discussion of the issues of
nuclear energy and nuclear security as stipulated by the mandate from the
Presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States," Sergei
Kiriyenko said."We are looking forward to the expansion of our bilateral
cooperation on these issues."
"The United States and Russia have a long and successful track record
of cooperation in the area of nuclear security," Daniel Poneman said.
"These meetings and our visits to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and
the Y-12 National Security Complex demonstrate how seriously our countries
take our shared responsibility to promote peaceful uses of nuclear energy
while combating nuclear dangers," he said. "I look forward to continuing
this record by expanding our cooperation in fulfillment of our Presidents'
Joint Statement."
As a result of the meeting, a joint action plan formulated by the
working group will be forwarded to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, U.S.
President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister
Lavrov serve as the Bilateral Commission Coordinators.

.Russian official to meet with Palestinian Pres, Jerusalem Patriarch.

TEL-AVIV, September 30 (Itar-Tass) -- Laying down economic foundations
of the future Palestinian state will be the central issue at the talks
that Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov and the President
of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas are expected to have
in Ramallah, the West Bank, a source on the Russian delegation told
Itar-Tass.
"Russia is building up its role in the efforts to lay down the
foundations of the future Palestinian state's economy," he said. "A
Russian-Palestinian Business Council has been set up. It's called upon to
establish partnerships between /Russian and Palestinian/ private investors
on specified projects."
"Also, Russia continues rendering substantial humanitarian aid to the
Palestinians and helps them train qualified national specialists," the
source said.
Prior to the talks in Ramallah, Zubkov is due to co-chair a session of
the Russian-Israeli Trade Commission in Jerusalem together with Israeli
Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
Apart from meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials, he is
expected to have a separate meeting with His Beatitude Theophilos III, the
Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem. It has been scheduled for
Wednesday.
His discussion with the Patriarch will embrace, among other things,
possible cooperation in the restoration of the unique New Jerusalem
Monastery in the town of Istra west off Moscow.
The monastery was built at the instruction of Czar Alexis Romanov in
the middle of the 17th century and its main cathedral is a de facto
replica of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
An architectural compound boasting an unparalleled combination of
styles, the monastery was practically raised to the ground during World
War II when the grandiose Battle of Moscow was fought on the approaches to
the Russian capital, and efforts to rebuild and restore it have been going
on with various degrees of intensity every since the end of the 1940's.
Zubkov chairs the fund for steering the restoration works that was set
up in 2008 at initiative of President Dmitry Medvedev and Patriarch Alexy
II.
Thursday, he is expected to make visits to the Russian Spiritual
Mission in the Holy Land and to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
-0-kle