State corp for geological exploration may emerge in two years.

MOSCOW, October 31 (Itar-Tass) -- A state corporation responsible for
geological exploration - Rosgeologiya - may be created in Russia no
earlier than in two years' time, the head of the subsoil resources
management agency Rosnedra, Anatoly Ledovskikh, told the media this week.
Before such a corporation may become a reality "too many regulatory
documents will have to be drafted and a large amount of calculations
carried out," he warned.
The general rules of creating the geological exploration corporation
have been formulated already, Ledovskikh said. "The enterprise will be
responsible for primary geological exploration," he said.
It will incorporate Russia's 50 federal state unitarian enterprises
that conduct exploration work in Russia these days.

.Gorbachev, Kohl, Bush Jr to meet on eve of Berlin Wall fall date.

MOSCOW, October 31 (Itar-Tass) -- On the eve of what is going to
become Germany's jubilee Holiday of Freedom the key figures of the
landmark year 1989 - Helmut Kohl, Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush Sr. -
will gather in Berlin, the German embassy in Moscow told Itar-Tass.
The former presidents of the USA and the USSR will fly to Berlin on
Saturday, where together with the former federal chancellor, Helmut Kohl,
they will take part in a meeting behind closed doors timed for the 20th
anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The country's current top
officials - President Horst Koehler and Chancellor Angela Merkel - will
attend the event to remember their contribution to the unification of
Germany. The meeting will take place at a Berlin theater at the invitation
of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
It has become a good tradition for the German, Soviet and US leaders
to remember together the dramatic events of those days. Ten years ago, in
1999, they gathered in Berlin for the tenth anniversary of the event. And
in 2005 Gorbachev, Kohl and Bush were awarded the Point Alpha prize for
their contribution to the unification of Germany.
The former federal chancellor said in an interview in September he
would be very glad to meet "the most important counterparts of those
years" at the jubilee festivities in Berlin. The main event - the Holiday
of Freedom - will be held in front of the Brandenburg Gate on November 9.
As the office of the federal chancellor has said, present at the ceremony
will be Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown, European Commission Chairman Jose Manuel Barroso, and Germany's
former Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.
On November 9 Chancellor Merkel, Mikhail Gorbachev and Poland's former
president, Lech Walesa will pay a visit to a former border checkpoint in
the Berlin-Pankov district. Twenty years ago Angela Merkel was among those
who were one of the first to cross the border into West Berlin.

.Russia's gains from fall of Berlin wall could be greater - scholar.

MOSCOW, October 31 (Itar-Tass) -- The fall of the Berlin Wall
benefited everybody, but Russia's gains from that could be greater, the
director of the Institute of General History under the Russian Academy of
Sciences, Alexander Chubarian, told Itar-Tass in an interview.
"It would be very wrong to speculate who stood to gain from the fall
of the Berlin Wall and who stood to lose from it," the historian said.
"The fall of the Berlin Wall was merely a symbol that heralded the end of
the 'cold war' and of confrontation. The easing of the threat of nuclear
war benefited all, including Russia. In that sense the unification of
Germany, which was certainly a blessing for that country, was good for our
country as well."
About the forthcoming ceremonies on the occasion of the 20th
anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall due in less than two weeks, in
which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will take part attend Chubarian
said historians were still arguing how expedient it was for the former
USSR not to demand the conclusion of binding agreements in exchange for
its consent to the unification of Germany.
Chubarian agrees that this is a major topic for discussion - how much
Moscow would have gained by putting forward this or that condition, what
it could have achieved through political agreements, how beneficial they
could have been, and to what extent they would have been complied with.
"I believe that Moscow in those conditions would be able to gain far
greater advantages and far more favorable results for itself," the
historian said. "But that is a totally different story. That the great
confrontation of those years came to an end certainly caused no harm to
Russia."

-0-str