20 June 2000
DAILY REVIEW FROM TATARSTAN
Shaimiev Meets With Bankers
Tatarstan's president, Mintimer Shaimiev, met with the heads of the Zenit bank in Kazan on 19 June, Tatar-inform reported. The bank's chairman of the board, Aleksei Sokolov, and finance manager, Denis Stepanov, informed Shaimiev about economic and financial activities at the bank, the dynamics of development, and prospects for the bank. Fifty-one percent of the bank's shares belong to Tatarstan's oil company Tatneft, and more than 25 percent of stocks are owned by other companies in Tatarstan. Tatarstan's prime minister, Rustam Minnikhanov, National Bank Chairman Yevgeny Bogachev, Finance Minister Robert Musin, and Tatneft General-Manager Shafagat Takhautdinov attended the meeting.
Parliament Session Agenda Planned
The Presidium of Tatarstan's State Council discussed an agenda for the parliament's next plenary session at a meeting on 19 June, the State Council press service reported. President Mintimer Shaimiev proposed that questions on the election of Tatarstan's representative on human rights and the election of judges to Tatarstan's Constitutional Court be included. It was also agreed that draft laws on a tax for slum clearance, on a new budget process, on the minimum wage and on a minimum consumer budget would be discussed at the session scheduled for 29 June.
Problems Of Muslim Education To Be Discussed
A seminar for rectors of Muslim secondary and higher educational institutions in Russia is to be held in Kazan, Tatar-inform reported on 19 June. Issues of moral, social, and physical education in the spirit of Islam will be at the top of the agenda. Tatarstan's Muslim Religious Board will present a model of Muslim primary, secondary, and higher education at the meeting. The rector of Moscow's Islamic University, Marat Murtazin, will deliver a lecture on the prospects for the development of Russia's Muslim educational institutions. Participants are also scheduled to visit sacred Muslim buildings in Bolgar. Representatives from Moscow, Bashkortostan, Ingushetia, Daghestan, and Ulyanovsk and Orenburg oblasts are expected to attend the seminar.
Tornados Kill Two
Two people died and two others were hospitalized due to tornados that ran through Tatarstan on 19 June, Tatar Television reported. Six districts in the republic are facing considered disaster areas. Forty populated areas and 32 farms lost their electricity, and crops were destroyed, cattle killed, and a pipeline was damaged by the cyclones. In Kazan the same day, hundreds of houses were damaged, lampposts and trees were uprooted, and electricity was cutoff in several districts of the capital.
By Gulnara Khasanova