Explosion in Antalya port leaves four workers wounded.

ANKARA, October 18 (Itar-Tass) -- Four people were wounded in an
explosion in the Turkish port of Antalya on Saturday.
Antalya's deputy governor Hayrettin Balcioglu told reporters that the
port fire had been extinguished. All the victims are Turkish nationals.
One of them is in grave condition.

The blast occurred in a asphalt storage building in a territory owned
by the local road administration. An empty bitumen cistern with a
capacity of 5,000 tons exploded when the port workers were trying to
repair it with a welder.


.Information about missing Russian tourists misinterpreted.

BEIJING, October 18 (Itar-Tass) - Seven Russian tourists reportedly
missing in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China have never got
lost, Leonid Ignatenko, the head of the consular section of the Russian
embassy in Beijing, told Itar-Tass on Saturday.
The Russian diplomat referred to the Mountain commission of the
Russian Federation of Tourism with which the missing Russians had
allegedly contacted by phone. The federation officials said that certain
problems had occurred because the Russian group didn't have communication
with the Chinese side.
The Xinhua news agency reported on Friday that seven Russians with an
interpreter arrived in the Mingfeng district of China on September 15 from
where they set out on a foot walk towards a deserted area in the Kun Lun
Mountains on their own. They had a mobile phone with them.
On October 13, a local public security officer received a telephone
message that members of the Russian expedition had "encountered problems"
in the mountains and had asked the Chinese side for help. One telephone
message said that an expedition member had fallen ill.


.EBU welcomes Putin's proposal on song contest.

GENEVA, October 18 (Itar-Tass) - The European Broadcasting Union has
welcomed a proposal by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to organize a
modern Inter-vision song contest within the framework of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO).
"Why shouldn't we have a song contest in China or Central Asia," an
official EBU report said on Friday.
The European Broadcasting Union, the organizer of the Eurovision song
contest, said that investors had already signed contracts for producing
the contest's versions in the Middle East and Northern Africa.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin suggested at a meeting of the
heads of government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that a
modern song contest should be organized within the organization's
framework.
"An international modern song contest, Inter-vision, would contribute
to strengthening cultural ties among our peoples," he said.


.Georgian TV producer seeks political asylum in Russia.

MAKHACHKALA, Dagestan, October 18 (Itar-Tass) - The producer of the
Georgian television company Imedi, Badri Afanasyiev, has sought political
asylum in Russia.
He was born in Tbilisi in 1996. Last Thursday he arrived in Dagestan
from the territory of Azerbaijan, a source at the Russian Federal Security
Service branch for Dagestan, told Itar-Tass.
"In his statement Afanasyiev said that he had been the commander of
Special Forces in the Georgian army in 1992-1993. He took part in the
Georgia-Abkhazia conflict and later served as security chief with Geno
Georgadze, the governor of Western Georgia," the source went on to say.
In recent years Afanasyiev worked as a producer for the Imedi
television company, which belonged to the late Georgian businessman Badri
Patarkatsishvili. Afanasyiev said the Georgian security service started
persecuting him after Patarkatsishvili's death for his links with the
opposition and demanded that he sign false documents compromising
Patarkatsishvili.
Afanasyiev said he had been forced to leave Georgia for political
reasons.
The Russian Federal Security Service branch for Dagestan said that
Afanasyiev's application for political asylum would be considered in
accordance with the Russian legislation.


.House of underground gang leader's brother damaged in bomb blast.

NAZRAN, October 18 (Itar-Tass) - An unidentified person threw an
explosive device of a huge yield into the yard of a private house in the
town of Nazran in Ingushetia. No one was hurt but the house was damaged.
Only women were in at the time of the blast.
The house belongs to Adam Taziyev, a brother of Ali Taziyev, the
leader of an underground group linked to encroachments on the lives of law
enforcers.
Investigators are working at the blast site.

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