The Raspadskaya mine, where at least 43 people died in an accident at the weekend, was one of the world's most technically advanced coalmines after a major investment program, a Russian business daily reported on Tuesday.



Vedomosti reported that over the past five years $1 billion had been invested in equipment and safety at the west Siberian mine, where 47 people are still missing underground following the two explosions, which also injured 70 people.



Russia's bigg...

Within the framework of celebration of the anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War in Moscow Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev held meetings with Hu Jintao (China), Dmitry Medvedev (Russia), Nguyen Minh Triet (Vietnam), Ivan Gasparovic (Slovakia), Toomas Hendrik Ilves (Estonia), Georgi Parvanov (Bulgaria), Serzh Sargsyan (Armenia), Ilham Aliyev (Azerbaijan), Shimon Peres (Israel) and Angela Merkel (Germany).



The President's press service informs of it.


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In honor of the 65th anniversary of the Great Victory representatives of the diplomatic missions accredited in Brussels laid wreaths to the monuments to the Soviet soldiers fallen for liberation of Belgium and to the Belgian citizens-participants of the Resistance movement.



Kazakh Ambassador extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Belgium and Luxembourg, Head of the Mission to the EU and NATO Yerik Utembayev and military representatives of the Kazakh Ministry of Defense under the NAT...

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a dramatic bid to keep his beleaguered Labour Party in power after it was punished in elections last week, announcing he will resign by September at the latest even if the Liberal Democrats being wooed by the Conservatives decide to join his party in government.



The political theater, played out in front of the iconic black door of No 10 Downing Street, comes as David Cameron's Conservatives - which won the most seats in Parliament but fell...

Turkey will launch a small satellite next year as a test for an ambitious communication satellite in 2015, a communication company said here on Friday.



The semi-official Anatolia news agency quoted Ozkan Dalbay, director general of Turkey's satellite communications company TURKSAT, as saying: "TURKSAT plans to test a small satellite as early as 2011 and send it to space."



"This experience will be used in future broad-scale satellites, " the offic...

Pyongyang is willing to return to the Six-Party Talks on nuclear disarmament, the leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) declared on Friday as he wrapped up his fifth visit to China.



Kim Jong-il's five-day unofficial visit, which started on Monday, came almost exactly a year after the DPRK's second nuclear test last May, one month after Pyongyang said it would withdraw from the Six-Party Talks permanently.



During a meeting with President Hu Jinta...

China has recently recruited five male and two female astronauts, according to the General Armament Department of Chinese People's Liberation Army on Friday.



The new recruits are all duty pilots, married, with bachelor degrees. The eldest is 35 and youngest 30, according to a meeting of the General Armament Department at Beijing Aerospace City.



The male candidates were previously fighter pilots and the women were transport plane pilots. Their average flight time is ...

In one of the most extraordinary polls in decades, the UK general election 2010 has officially resulted in a hung parliament, with the opposition Conservative Party emerging as the party with the largest number of seats at 306, short of the overall required majority of 326; Kazinform refers to The Arab News.



The Tories gained 96 seats, mostly in the counties surrounding London and in the south and southwest of England. They also made modest gains in the Midlands, the northwest and...

The death toll from a violent storm in  southwest China's Chongqing Municipality since Wednesday has climbed to 31, said local authorities Friday; Kazinform refers to China Daily.



Twenty-one people in Dianjiang County, six people in Liangping County and four others in Peiling District were killed after severe gales destroyed their homes. One person in Pengshui County was still missing, according to the Chongqing Municipal Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

...

Britain's opposition Conservatives came top in knife-edge elections Thursday but fell short of a clear-cut majority to return to power after 13 years in opposition, exit polls suggested, Kazinform refers to Arab News.



The UK could be on course for a hung Parliament as millions of people in 649 constituencies across the country cast their votes in the general election in one of the most keenly contested polls in a generation.



The big difference for the 44 million or ...

Kazakhstan copes successfully with the complicated and honorable mission of OSCE Chair. This is an assessment of Kazakhstan's chairmanship in the Organization given by Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu, Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, who took part in the sitting of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on May 6. 



The OIC Secretary General paid special attention to the issues of strengthening and development of cooperation between the two international st...

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest memory chip manufacturer, said Thursday that it has developed an 8-gigabit (Gb) OneNAND memory chip for smartphones that will go into production this month, addressing the growing demand for more data storage in smartphone devices, Kazinform refers to Xinhua.

The new high-density OneNAND, which uses the advanced 30 nanometer (NM) class process technology, is capable of holding data twice as large as the previous 4-Gb memory chips, and has a

...

The UN General Assembly will hold on Thursday a special meeting dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, Kazinform refers to RIA Novosti.

The proposal to hold a meeting to commemorate the VE-Day was put forward by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last September and supported by the majority of UN member countries.



The event will open with statements by President of the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly

...

Iran's navy started war games in the country's southern waters on Wednesday, the official IRNA news agency reported; Kazinform refers to Xinhua.

The Navy's military exercise dubbed "Velayat 89" is currently being conducted in the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman.

The combat, support, logistic, radar and electronic units of the navy force as well as the force's surface-to-surface, under water and air missiles will be used in the drill while it enjoys the support of

...

OSCE and Turkmenistan will continue their efforts to ensure peace and security in the region, border security, combat drug trafficking, and fight organized crime and terrorism.

The sides reached the agreement during a meeting between Turkmen President Gurbangulu Berdimuhammedov and OSCE in Europe Secretary General Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, the Turkmen government reported.

Turkmenistan borders Afghanistan, which is, according to the U.N., the main supplier of drugs, including t

...

Iceland's clouds of volcanic ash are menacing European air traffic again, but transport chiefs insisted Tuesday they are learning from last month's crisis and won't let the hard-to-measure emissions ground their continent again; Kazinform refers to China Daily.



Rising volcanic activity spurred aviation authorities in Ireland, northwest Scotland and the Faeroe Islands to shut down services Tuesday after a two-week hiatus. Their airports reopened several hours later, once the denses...

"World's Whitest Beaches." So reads the sign, topped with a leaping Marlin, that greets motorists along US Highway 98 as they drive into Pensacola Beach in northwest Florida; Kazinform refers to China Daily.



But local business owners in this tourist mecca fear the promise may soon turn as black as the spreading tide of oil already staining the blue Gulf of Mexico.



BP Plc officials and emergency responders from five states are grappling with a huge oil spil...

On the threshold of the 65th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War ambassador and permanent representatives of the CIS member states to Belarus and leadership of the CIS Executive Committee will visit the State Memorial Complex "Khatyn" today.



According to the CIS Executive Committee's press service, the diplomatic corps representatives will lay flowers to the Eternal Flame at the Khatyn Memorial. A meeting-requiem and a meeting with veterans are also pl...

"Kazakhstan strives to enter the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO)", Chairman of the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Fighting Economic and Corruption Crime (Financial Police) Kairat Kozhamzharov said at the presentation of the Kazakhstan's experience in fighting corruption in the European Parliament.



According to him, domestic procedures on accession to two Strasburg Conventions against Corruption are underway in the country. "We admit that Kazakhst...

Latvia, which has been heavily hit by the global recession, will not be able to begin repaying its debt to the International Monetary Fund in 2012, a member of the Latvian parliament's budget and finance commission told local PRO100 TV channel.



"Current estimates show that we will be unable to begin returning loan money [in 2012] if there is no large improvement in the economic situation," Miroslav Mitrofanov said.



Latvia has been struggling with its major[/in]...

Egyptian police on Monday beat anti-government protesters who were demanding an end to the country's 30-year emergency law that restricts civil freedoms in the latest challenge to the authorities from the streets of Cairo, Kazinform refers to Arab News.



The scuffle erupted after several hundred policemen, dressed in black uniforms, pushed back about 150 protesters who had gathered in the downtown and tried to break through a security barrier.



The police beat members...

The use of huge quantities of chemical dispersant to break up an oil spill from a BP drilling site in the Gulf of Mexico could seriously endanger local wildlife, WWF Russia's Oil and Gas Environmental Policy Officer said; Kazinform refers to RIA Novosti.



"I estimate that up to 800 tons of oil is being spilled every day; around 600 tons of chemical dispersant would be needed to cancel  it out," Aleksey Knizhnikov reported from the United States.



Chemic...

Chairman of Kazakh Agency for Combating Economic and Corruption Related Crimes (Financial Police) Kairat Kozhamzharov presented Kazakhstan's experience in fighting corruption at the European Parliament's session on Monday.



He noted that struggle against corruption was the main priority in Kazakhstan's state policy. "Corruption is a serious challenge for any society. Thus the states should consolidate efforts on combating corruption in the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian regions&qu...

Greece will prove it is wrong for those who still doubt its prospects of overcoming the debt crisis, despite the activation of the EU-IMF support mechanism, said Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou on Monday evening.



"A page in the country's history changed on Sunday. We decided to protect Greece from major dangers. We won the struggle to restore our credibility. The creation of the EU-IMF safety net is the proof. We will answer to all those who wonder if Greece will make ...

As many as 29 forest fires have been registered in Russia, the total area of which exceeds 2,000 hectares, the information department of the RF Emergency Situations Ministry reported on Monday, Kazinform refers to Itar-Tass.



"There was a transfer of a steppe fire from the Mongolian territory to the territory of Russia 20 kilometres southwest of the Builesan settlement of the Onovsky district of the Trans-Baikal Territory. The fire has been localised at an area of 123 hectares...

A deal on a multi-billion-euro rescue package for debt-hit Greece appeared imminent on Thursday as the Greek debt crisis is showing contagion risk to the whole euro zone; Kazinform refers to Xinhua.



In a short statement released Thursday, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said negotiations among the European Union (EU), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Greek government on the joint rescue would be concluded in the coming days.



"The ...

Prime Minister Karim Massimov has opened national pavilion of Kazakhstan at the EXPO-2010.



Familiarizing with exposition of the two-storeyed Kazakh pavilion, the Premier highly estimated its design and performance. K.Massimov surveyed exhibition pavilions of Japan and China as well.



"I think that EXPO-2010 in Shanghai demonstrates that economic development of the whole world is on a new technological stage. Hence in accordance with the Kazakh President's instru...

A ministerial-level dialogue mechanism on climate change has been set up between China and the European Union, a move analysts believe will help the United Nations climate summit to be held in Mexico in December bear fruit.



The two sides will hold talks regularly to strengthen collaboration and deepen understanding, according to a joint statement issued after China's climate change envoy Xie Zhenhua held talks with Connie Hedegaard, the EU commissioner for climate action, on Thurs...

Polish Prosecutor General's office said on its website it was looking into four preliminary versions of the recent air crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski.


Polish president Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and an official Polish delegation of senior officials died when the plane taking them to a ceremony to pay tribute to some 20,000 Polish officers murdered by Soviet secret police crashed near west Russia's Smolensk on April 10.


The Prosecutor General's office said in a commun...

Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Karim Massimov will meet with Chairman of the People's Republic of China Hu Jintao in the course of his working visit to China on April 29 - May 1.



The Premier is expected to take part in the opening ceremony of Shanghai World Expo 2010 on April 30. Heads of foreign delegations will attend a reception hosted by Chinese President Hu Jintao.



K. Massimov is also planned to hold meetings with the heads of large companies of China.


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