Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry Comes Up With Draft Programme Of Cooperation Between Russian, U.S. Scientific-industrial Laboratories

The Russian Atomic Energy Ministry has prepared a draft programme for long-term cooperation between Russian and American scientific-industrial laboratories, said the ministerial press service on Wednesday. "The draft programme was prepared for enhancing the safety and preservation of nuclear materials", said specialists from the ministry. "Upon adoption the programme will be coordinated by the executive organs of our countries -- the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry and the American Department of Energy". The press service said that now over 40 nuclear-dangerous facilities are in the ministry's jurisdiction. A case apart in this programme is perfection and updating of physical protection of nuclear-dangerous facilities, improvement of the accounting and control of nuclear materials. Particularly, the programme provides for measures to improve the safety of carriage of nuclear materials and irradiated nuclear fuel. Now the railway cars and automobiles used for these ends are equipped with systems of satellite communication for uninterrupted monitoring of conveyance, said the Atomic Energy Ministry. This programme will be financed from the federal budget, own resources of the Atomic Ministry, as well as from canals of international cooperation with the United States and other interested countries.