Hotest News from Russia

Novorossiisk Oil Export Schedule Adjusted Due to Burst Pipe

2013/09/01

MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) – Oil exports from Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiisk will be delayed throughout early September because a transit pipe burst in the nearby Volgograd Region, but the month’s planned volume will be fulfilled, the Prime business news agency reported Sunday.

“All in all, the month’s planned volume of oil for export from the port of Novorossiisk will be fulfilled, but in the beginning of the month it is possible that the loading schedule will be adjusted for several days or more,” a representative of the Transneft oil-transport firm was quoted by the news agency as saying.

The burst and subsequent oil spill reportedly occurred on Sunday in the Samara-Lisichansk pipeline at a depth of 1.5 meters in the area of Ust-Buzulukskaya, in the Alexeyevsky district of the southern Volgograd Region. Oil flow is currently halted, and repair work is under way, the news agency said.

Russia to Have Enough Kindergartens in 3 Years – Vice Premier

2013/09/01

MOSCOW, September 1 – Russia will build 195 more kindergartens, enough for 50,000 children, by the end of this year and will resolve the overall lack of kindergartens in the country within three years, the deputy prime minister for social issues said Sunday, September 1, the start of the school year.

There are currently long waiting lists for Russian children to enter kindergarten, and many parents sign their children up as soon as they are born.

Wishing schoolchildren well in the coming year, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets noted that 1.3 million Russian children – 1 percent of the country’s population – were entering kindergarten this year.

Vladivostok Fireball Was Rocket, Not Meteor – Scientist

2013/09/01

VLADIVOSTOK, September 1 (RIA Novosti) – A fireball that lit up the sky over Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East, on Sunday, was actually created by a Russian rocket stage, not a meteor event, a scientist said.

Witnesses in Vladivostok said they saw a flash of light in the sky that could be a meteor, media reports said. Some of the witnesses claimed the fireball “looked like a plane.”

The timing of the fireball reports coincided with the launch of the Zenit rocket from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on Sunday, Russian astronomer Vladimir Surdin said.

“The photos show that this was an artificial object. It was moving from the west to the east and was witnessed some 20 minutes after the launch,” scientist Surdin, from Stenberg Astronomical Institute in Moscow, said.

In February, a meteorite in Chelyabinsk, in Russia’s Urals region, caused a massive sonic boom that blew out windows and damaged thousands of buildings around the city, injuring 1,500 people in the area.

Light Aircraft Crashes in Urals Lake, Two Dead

2013/09/01

UFA, September 1 (RIA Novosti) – A light plane crashed into a lake in the southern Urals Republic of Bashkortostan on Sunday, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said.

The aircraft crashed into a lake in the republic’s Kushnarenkovsky district at around 9 a.m. on Sunday.

The pilot and his 15-year-old passenger died in the accident, the ministry said.

Hackers Attack RIA Novosti Bureau in Paris

2013/09/01

MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) – Hackers broke into the e-mail accounts of RIA Novosti’s bureau in Paris early on Sunday morning and gained access to personal files.

The hackers, calling themselves part of the Anonymous group, have claimed responsibility. The e-mail was used for routine correspondence and contained telephone bills and parking tickets, a RIA Novosti spokesperson said.

Last month, two of RIA Novosti’s Twitter accounts were subjected to a cyber attack. Hackers broke into Twitter accounts of the agency’s International Multimedia Press Center and of RIA Novosti Deutsch leaving false tweets about the death of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Both tweets were removed within five minutes after the cyber attack.

RIA Novosti launched an internal investigation into the attack.