Co-chairmen of Minsk group for Nagorno-Karabakh to meet Oct 25-27.

VIENNA, October 24 (Itar-Tass) -- The co-chairmen of the Minsk Group
for Nagorno-Karabakh will meet with Armenia's Foreign Minister Edvard
Nalbandian and his Azerbaijani counterpart Elma Mamedyarov in Luxembourg
on October 25-27, the co-chairmen from Russia, France and the United
States said in a joint statement on Friday.
In the course of the consultations they will discuss the date and
schedule of another trip to Baku and Yerevan, due in November, and look
into progress for preparations for a discussion of Nagorno-Karabakh
settlement at the OSCE foreign ministers' meeting in December.
The co-chairmen of the Minsk group are ambassador Yuri Merzlyakov, of
Russia, Bernard Fasier, of France, and Robert Bradtke, of the United
States.


.CIS remains area of military-political rivalry - military experts.


MOSCOW, October 24 (Itar-Tass) -- The territory of the Commonwealth of
Independent States is becoming a scene of military and political rivalry
among the leading world forces, the president of the Russian Military
Commanders' Club, General of the Army Anatoly Kulikov, told the
round-table conference Spheres of Modern Russia's Vital Interests, held at
the Military Academy of the General Staff on Friday.
"Involved in the struggle for spheres of interests in the CIS space,
alongside Russia, are the Untied States, which claims the whole world is
the zone of its strategic interests, the European Union, which is
struggling for energy resources, and also China, Turkey and Iran, which
pursue their own economic aims," Kulikov said.
"Russia may remain the leader of the CIS, but also it may become a
country surrounded by the satellites of the United States. Everything will
depend on what sort of policy it pursues in relations with the CIS
countries," Kulikov said.
The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Colonel-General
Leonid Ivashov, said, for his part, that for achieving its interests in
the CIS space Russia must fully use its geopolitical potential, which is
the most powerful in the world, and which is 2.4-2.7 times greater than
that of the United States.
"That potential is to be put to use properly, otherwise Russia may
lose all of its positions in the CIS," Ivanov said.
He warned that in case of a wrong policy "Russia in the medium term
will cease to exist as a geopolitical entity and most probably prove an
easy catch for more successful neighbors."


.Finance Ministry has no plans to raise profit tax over years.


MOSCOW, October 24 (Itar-Tass) -- The rate of the profit tax in Russia
is unlikely to be revised over several years to come, Deputy Finance
Minister Sergei Shatalov told the media on Friday.
"The decision to lower the tax on the profit of economic entities to
20 percent is bound to last. Its revision is very unlikely in the
foreseeable future," he said.
Shatalov believes that the crisis will cause no effects on the rate of
the profit tax economic entities have to pay.
"In the post-crisis period there will be competition between states in
the sphere of profit taxation," he remarked.
Prime-Tass quotes Shatalov as saying that in East European countries
the rate of this tax has been at a level of 16-20 percent for the past
several years.
"This is a distinct trend, and not something exotic. It is a rule," he
stated. "For that reason Russia is in no mood of loosing the competitive
edges that it has at the moment."
The profit tax was lowered to 20 percent from 24 percent on January 1,
2009.


.Over 3,000 Chechens to make pilgrimage to shrines in Saudi Arabia.


GROZNY, October 24 (Itar-Tass) -- Over three thousand pilgrims from
Chechnya may make a voyage to holy shrines in Saudi Arabia this year, a
deputy of Chechnya's mufti, Khamzat Durdiyev, said on Friday.
The youngest pilgrim has turned five, and the oldest is 90. Durdiyev
said there would be very few children among the pilgrims. Most of the
Hajjis are persons of age.
The deputy mufti said that Chechnya still had no customs checkpoint of
its own, which posed considerable problems to those heading for Mecca and
Medina. To board a flight to Saudi Arabia the pilgrims have to get to the
Mineralniye Vody airport, which is rather far away.
More than half of Chechnya's pilgrims this year preferred air
transport. The others plan to make their way to Medina by motor transport.
The first flight is due on November 16. In all, there will be seven
charter flights.
Last year 3,500 Chechen residents made the Hajj. According to Russia's
Muslim board, as to the number of pilgrims traveling to Saudi Arabia every
year Chechnya is one of the leading regions of Russia.

-0-str