Putin orders govt to adopt prg on chemical, biological security

Moscow, Jan 30 (UNI) Russian President Vladimir Putin today asked the government to speedily adopt a federal programme on chemical and biological security for the period 2009-2013.

Addressing a meeting of Russian Security Council, Mr Putin called for effectively protecting Russian ecological interests in the international arena.

''We have to learn to effectively protect Russian interests in this sphere in the international arena, in the first place by rebuffing the threat to environmental safety, caused by cross border pollution of the Russian territory,'' Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying at the meeting.

''The environmental situation has recently worsened in the regions of the Baltic Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Black and Caspian Seas, and the Amur and Irtysh river basins,'' Mr Putin said.

He also ordered the government to minimize the environmental consequences of the construction of new oil and gas pipelines.

''A number of regions have begun the implementation of large investment projects; it's good; they involve vast territories which earlier belonged to wild nature,'' he said.

The projects include the construction of the Nord Stream pipeline, the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline, the development of offshore zones of the Barents and Kara Seas and the Sea of Okhotsk and the development of the Arctic Ural.

''These regions should minimise the negative consequences of intensive economic activities,'' Mr Putin stressed.

UNI XC ARB AS1931