Itar-Tass news digest of November 7

C A R A C A S - - Venezuela will expand cooperation with Russia in aviation and aerospace research, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said Thursday in an interview with Itar-Tass.

Maduro indicated, among other things, that the two countries plan launching a direct air route between Caracas and Moscow, saying will link the heart of Europe with the Caribbean and South America via Caracas and will open up the road to Asia.

M O S C O W - - To ease the consequences of the global financial crisis for the Russian banking system the Central Bank of Russia allotted 50.307 billion rubles in unsecured loans to commercial banks at an auction Thursday, Prime-Tass reported quoting the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX).

The minimum interest rate was 9.5% and the cut-off interest rate was 9.6%. The Central Bank offered a total of 150 billion rubles at the auction.

S U K H U M - - Abkhazia reminded the European Union on Thursday that it is no longer a Georgian province and said it would not allow EU monitors to its territory without preliminary agreement.

S T. P E T E R S B U R G - - The US General Motors Corporation will start up its 300-million dollar car works in St. Petersburg on Friday to assemble Chevrolet Captiva and new-generation class-C cars.

The economic development committee of St. Petersburg said the first line of the assembly works in southern outskirts of the city will produce 60 thousand cars a year and will create some 1500 jobs.

C A R A C A S - - Russia's Gazprom giant will begin drilling the first offshore well in Venezuela on Friday, President Hugo Chavez said, adding joint gas production was a major project of historic significance.

Chavez said Gazprom will drill on the continental shelf of the Gulf of Venezuela 50 kilometers west of Punto-Fijo, the largest city on the Paraguana Peninsula.

K I E V - - Ukraine's inflation rate in October has reached 1.7 percent and since the beginning of the current year it reached 18 percent, the country's State Committee for Statistics reported on Friday.

The Ukrainian government had initially forecasted the annual inflation rate of 9.6 percent, but then increased it to 16 percent. Most experts already then regarded the renewed government's forecast as underestimated.

M I N S K - - Belarus celebrates Day of October Revolution on Friday.

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko congratulated all Belarussians on this holiday.

K E M E R O V O - - The Kemerovo regional department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has fined the Gazpromneft-Kuzbass company 158 million roubles for dominating position abuse.

The company created obstacles for others in activities on the wholesale oil product market and set unfounded prices, the departmental press service told Itar-Tass on Friday.

M O S C O W - - Clear sale of Russia (CBR) of dollars by the Central Bank in October 2008 amounted to 38.6 billion dollars, and clear sale of euros - - 3.4 billion euros, the economic news agency PRIME-TASS reports on Friday with reference to the CBR.

The volume of planned purchases of dollars by the CBR in October amounted to 110.5 million dollars.

In September 2008, clear sale of dollars by the CBR amounted to 17.2 billion dollars, and clear sale of euros - - 492.2 million euros, PRIME-TASS says.

M O S C O W - - The State Duma approved the law, which bans the privatisation of state-run enterprises producing narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, as well as their precursors that are under control in Russia.

M O S C O W - - Russia's Agriculture Ministry has taken a decision to increase grain purchase into the intervention fund.

Earlier, Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev said it was planned to buy from 6 to 8 million tonnes of grain.

M O S C O W - - Russia will reconstruct the historic World War Two military parade on Friday when soldiers marched on November 7, 1941 in Red Square directly to the front to defend Moscow from advancing Nazi troops.

The military parade will involve over 3.5 thousand cadets and six thousand spectators, including 55 participants of the historic 1941 parade.

V L A D I K A V K A Z - - Security measures are tightened up in connection with the terrorist attack in North Ossetia. Residents are asked to be vigilant and report to police about any suspicious events or people, North Ossetian Interior Ministry spokeswoman Alla Akhpolova told Itar-Tass.

Control is tightened at all the checkpoints.

Y U Z H N O - S A K H A L I N S K - - A group of 72 Sakhalin Koreans left Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk for South Korea to familiarize with their historical home land.

During ten days, they will visit the cities of Inchon, Ansong and Techon where their relatives, who were earlier resettled from Sakhalin to the Korean Peninsula in accordance with the programme of repatriation, are living.

S T. P E T E R S B U R G - - Russia's oil giant LUKOIL may abandon some refining projects in 2009, but pledges not to abandon developing new fields.

LUKOIL President Vagit Alekperov told reporters that the company does not rule out the correction of the investment program for next year.

"We made a forecast by three scenarios - the first one is 80 US dollars per barrel, second - 65 US dollars per barrel and third - 45 US dollars per barrel. All these scenarios differ from each other by 2 billion US dollars," he said.

Thus, LUKOIL's investment program can be reduced to 4-5 billion US dollars, he said.

S T. P E T E R S B U R G - - Russia's oil giant LUKOIL plans before the end of the year to register a joint venture with the world's leading diamond company De Beers on developing a diamond field in the Arkhangelsk region, LUKOIL President Vagit Alekperov told journalists on Friday.

He reiterated that the company "has already received the government's permission to work in this strategic sector with De Beers and at present, the document are being processed."

M O S C O W - - The State Duma approved the first reading of a bill on combating corruption on Friday. This bill is basic in a package of anti-corruption bills, which the Russian president put up for voting in the lower house of parliament.

The document gives a notion of corruption, a corruption offence that envisages disciplinary, administrative and criminal responsibility.

The bill offers a scope of measures to combat corruption and minimize its aftermath.