Office of Russia Today branch damaged in terrorist acts in Baghdad

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CAIRO, October 26 (Itar-Tass) -- The Baghdad office of the Rusiya
Al-Yaum television channel, which is a branch of the Russian television
company Russia Today broadcasting in Arabic, was damaged in several
terrorist acts in the Iraqi capital on Sunday.
No employees of the television channel were seriously injured, only
getting slight bruises and having some fears, Rusiya Al-Yaum sources told
Itar-Tass. The journalists remained alive luckily. When the first blast
went off they rushed downstairs to the parking lot. At that moment the
second blast went off that damaged partially the studio.
A hotel, which houses the television channel office, was seriously
damaged. The blast wave broke down the windows and damaged the equipment
in the studio that can be restored, a source said. An office car was
destroyed in the blast.
The Baghdad building, which houses the Rusiya Al-Yaum television
channel, is adjacent to the green zone, a well-reinforced district in
downtown Baghdad, where the government compound and the embassies of
foreign countries are situated.
Two blasts killed 136 people in downtown Baghdad on Sunday. The
terrorist acts were committed practically simultaneously at the Justice
Ministry and the administration of the Baghdad governor. About 800 people
were hospitalised.
An office of the Rusiya Al-Yaum television channel is situated in
Baghdad since the start of channel's broadcasting in Arabic. All employees
are Iraqis.

.Putin to examine new building at Pete children orthopaedic clinic.

MOSCOW, October 26 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin, who is currently on a working trip in the North-Western Federal
District, will visit the Turner Scientific and Research Institute for
Children's Orthopaedics in Pushkin, Leningrad region, on Monday. The
premier will examine a new hospital building of the institute, the press
service of the prime minister reported.
The Turner Scientific and Research Institute for Children's
Orthopaedics is the unique and only Russian specialized scientific and
medical institution for children with diseases and injuries of the
locomotor system.
The institute dates back in the 1890s, when the Blue Cross charity
society has established an asylum for disabled children with 20 beds in
St. Petersburg. Genrich Ivanovich Turner was the director of the asylum
for many years. In 1932 the asylum was reorganized in a specialized
institute with 200 beds and became an organisational and methodical centre
for the treatment of disabled children.
In the post-war years the institute has actively developed the scope
of surgeries. The system of early disease exposure, treatment, and
outpatient examination was organized and introduced for children with
congenital and acquired disorders of the locomotor system. The institute
moved to Pushkin in 1967.
Presently a hospital at the institute has 10 wards for 440 beds. Eight
wards are specialized in orthopaedic surgery. The medical personnel of the
institute includes eight doctors of medical sciences, 41 candidates of
sciences and eight merited doctors.
Children are brought to the institute from all Russian regions. The
hospital at the institute makes more than 3,000 surgeries annually.
The institute is specialized in the organisation of orthopaedic and
traumatologic assistance to children and medical rehabilitation of
disabled children, the improvement of the methods of diagnostics and
treatment of pathologies of major joints, spine, congenital and acquired
hand and foot pathologies, the microsurgery in the treatment of
deformities of the locomotor system in children.
The creation and development of neonatal orthopaedics is quite
promising. The institute is developing the diagnostics of orthopaedic
pathologies in newborns and surgeries on congenital abnormalities. The
institute is planning to develop a system of prenatal diagnosis of
orthopaedic pathologies with further development of the methods of early
medical and surgical treatment.
A new hospital building for surgical treatment of disabled children
has been built this year on federal budget allocations. The new hospital
building will increase the total number of beds to 580. The institute will
expand its capabilities for rehabilitation treatment of children. A
federal sanatorium in St. Petersburg will be transferred to the institute.
Along with Vladimir Putin, the head of the Pushkin administration,
leading children's health specialists, Russian Railways President Vladimir
Yakunin, who is the chairman of the Trustee Board of the Institute, will
examine the new hospital building.

.Russia-South Africa intergovt commission to meet in Cape Town.

PRETORIA, October 26 (Itar-Tass) -- Natural resources, energy and
transport will be high on the agenda of a meeting of the South
African-Russian intergovernmental commission on trade and economic
cooperation that will open in Cape Town, South Africa, on Monday.
South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation
Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and Russian Minister of Natural Resources and
Ecology Yuri Trutnev will chair at the meeting.
The South African Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Pretoria
hopes for Russia's assistance in the country's efforts to intensify the
G-20 role and a reform of the UN Security Council. The sides will also
consider the problems of overcoming the world economic crisis and the
broadening of bilateral trade and cooperation in Cape Town.
South Africa and Russia are strategic partners, the South African
Foreign Ministry noted. South Africa attaches great significance to the
development of the relations with Russia in the country's foreign policy.
A Russian booster has recently launched the South African satellite
Sumbandila. The countries also cooperate in trade, investments and the
banking sector, science and technologies, water resources, the forest
industry and agriculture.
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