hief coach of Uzbek national soccer team, Makhmud Rakhimov, died in an accident when his car driving along the Samarkand-Tashkent route collided with a truck. Makhmud Rakhimov was also a coach of a team in the Supreme League, "Samarkand". Last year he coached "Dustlik" and led it to the first place in the national championship. This year he was appointed to coach the national team. After a victory in 1994 Asian Games in Japan, Uzbekistan national team couldn't win any serious tournament. In this year's Asian qualifying in the Emirates, Rakhimov returned a hope to the team. Uzbekistan won all four matches, including a victory over the host, and advanced to the final round of the Asian Championship to be held next year in Lebanon. The victorious year raised Uzbekistan to the 55th place in FIFA ranking in the world and to the fifth place in Asia. Makhmud Rakhimov was also named best coach of November in Asia.

zbek President Islam Karimov received a delegation led by the head of the Interstate Aviation Committee, Tatyana Anodina, and chief designer of the Ilyushin design office, Genrikh Novozhilov, at his Oqsaroy residence. For her contribution to the aviation industry and for stregthening friendly relations, President Islam Karimov presented the country's most prestigious prize - medal of Friendship, to the head of the Interstate Aviation Committee, Tatyana Anodina.

Il-114-100 aircraft has no analogue in post-Soviet aviation. This is a modern and the latest model of the Ilyushin series of aircraft developed in cooperation with Uzbek, Russian, Canadian and American aircraft designers. It has already become clear that the aircraft will fly not only in the air space of our country.

This event, receiving the certificate of validity for carrying out flights, allows the country to start the production of Il-114-100 and market them abroad. This document of great significance was presented to the creators of the new passenger aircraft at the Tashkent Chkalov aviation plant by Tatyana Anodina who represents the Interstate Aviation Committee, and conveyed the personal congratulations of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. She also noted that the creation of the aircraft was possible thanks to the personal interest of the president of Uzbekistan in creating the joint project.

The aircraft designed by the Russian Ilyushin design office and assembled at Tashkent Chkalov aviation plant received a certificate for serial production. The aircraft can fly 12 hours without landing and the potential of the engine produced in Canada is 6,000 hours. The cost of the aircraft is estimated to be 10.5m dollars. At present, the Tashkent Chkalov aviation plant is ready to produce two aircraft per month.

In the mean time, the assembly of three aircraft is under way. By the middle of 2000 they will join the aviation park of the national air company [of Uzbekistan]. There is a protocol of intentions on ordering 15 aircraft. They will be distributed to Indo-China. Russia has not ordered any so far, but journalists at the news conference were told that there would be such an opportunity.

zbekistan is planning to launch and use its own national telecommunications satellite, the state space research agency Uzbekkosmos told Interfax on Friday [24th December].

The Uzbek Post and Telecommunications agency and Uzbekkosmos have begun working out a project for creating, launching and employing a national telecommunications satellite as per a satellite communications development concept approved by the Uzbek government.

The project calls for implementation in two stages, according to the agency. First, the infrastructure for providing satellite communications (a network of relay stations) is planned and only then will a satellite be put into orbit. The project is estimated at about 200m-250m dollars.

During the first stage, the programme's creators do not rule out the possibility of renting an existing satellite. Representatives of both of the agencies are conducting intensive negotiations with US, Israeli, Japanese and Russian space technology firms on the purchase of ground-based equipment and facilities. According to Uzbekkosmos, the project is slated to start at the end of 2000 or in early 2001 and is expected to take four or five years to complete.

oon it will be eight years since diplomatic relations were estabished between Uzbekistan and Italy. There are 19 joint ventures operating in Uzbekistan involving Italian investment. Recently an important document was signed which will raise bilateral relations to a new level.

Two agreements have been signed between Uzbekistan Airways national air company and Italy this week. The first agreement is on installing equipment of the Alenia Marconi Systems company in Uzbekistan; the second agreement, which was signed today, is an intergovernmental agreement, according to which Uzbekistan Airways national air company will start flights to Rome beginning from spring 2000. The document was signed by the Italian ambassador to Uzbekistan Ms. Jolanda Brunetti Goetz and the Director-General of Uzbekistan Airways company, Arslan Ruzmetov.

[Ruzmetov] Beginning from April 2000, God willing, aircraft of Uzbekistan Airways company, new Boeings, will start twice-weekly flights from Tashkent to Rome. We are conducting a great deal of preparatory work for this at present. At the beginning of 2000 we will open our representative office in Rome and send our representatives. This new route will open up the prospect of attracting tourists from southern Europe to our towns of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. (Uzbek TV)

n 27th January the Il-114-100 plane will be granted a certificate of type at the Tashkent Tapoich [Tashkent "Chkalov" Aviation Production Association] air plant. The plane is equipped with engines produced by the Canadian Pratt & Whitney company and lightweight airscrews by the Hamilton and Sandstroem companies.

The IL-114-100 plane - a creation of Russian, Uzbek and Canadian plane constructors - has not yet celebrated two years. The plane was designed and assembled in an extremely short length of time. As general director of Tapoich Vadim Kucherov told RIA-Novosti, in a 10-month time[-frame] experts conducted 97 quality-test flights and the plane has proved to demonstrate very high performance data.

o currency exchange is planned in Uzbekistan, Mamarizo Normuradov, deputy chairman of the country's Central Bank, said on national television on Tuesday [21st December].

"All this talk about exchange is just common rumours," he said. "Every effort is being made to strengthen the national currency. The development of the national economy does not warrant this operation," Normuradov said. "The national currency, the som, will remain the only legal tender in the republic," he said. The som was introduced three years ago. Its largest denomination note is 200 soms. The official rate is 139.70 soms per dollar.

he Kazakh-Uzbek inter-governmental commission ended a two-day meeting in Astana yesterday. Deputy Prime Minister Valeriy Otayev, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Economic Relations Mahmudjon Asqarov and other officials represented the Uzbek side in Astana. Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Daniyal Akhmetov headed the commission from the Kazakh side. This was the fourth meeting. Among other issues, the agenda included commercial and economic cooperation, the settlement of debts and the situation with cargo transportation at checkpoints on the Kazakh-Uzbek border. So, in particular, Kazakhstan's substantial debt for gas to the tune of around 3.8m dollars, one can say, has been cleared off on the whole. To clear off this debt, a batch of 200 Kazakh tractors produced at the Pavlodar Tractor Works has been delivered to Uzbekistan. Now only current debts of December remain. Both sides raised the issue of setting up an Astana - Tashkent air route soon.

As a whole, both sides positively assessed the commission's work and agreed to meet next time in May 2000. Prime Minister of Kazakhstan [Kasymzhomart] Tokayev familiarized himself with the protocol of the meeting and noted that he was glad that both sides of the commission were striving to creatively settle problems and had reached mutually acceptable accords in most positions.

regular meeting of the [Uzbek] Central Electoral Commission [CEC] with the chairman of the commission, Najmiddin Komilov, in the chair was held on 23rd December. The meeting considered the results of the repeat polls on 19th December 1999 in 66 electoral districts to elect members of the Supreme Assembly of the Republic of Uzbekistan [Uzbek parliament].

A total of 2,918,055 voters out of the 3,338,912 voters registered in all electoral districts cast their votes, which is 87.4 per cent of the total number of all voters registered in these districts. Thus 77.4 per cent of the electorate in seven electoral districts in the city of Tashkent took part in the voting, 94.6 per cent in three electoral districts in Andizhan Region, 90.1 per cent in four electoral districts in Bukhara Region, 91.6 per cent in two electoral districts in Dzhizak Region, 82.2 per cent in two electoral districts in Navoi Region, 89.7 per cent in eight electoral districts in Namangan Region, 87.9 per cent in seven electoral districts in Samarkand Region, 90.8 per cent in three electoral districts in Syrdarya Region, 82.6 per cent in five electoral districts in Surkhandarya Region, 88.4 per cent in eight electoral districts in Tashkent Region, 92.7 per cent in eight electoral districts in Fergana Region, 90.0 per cent in one electoral district in Khorezm Region, 82.6 per cent in five electoral districts in Kashkadarya Region and 87.1 per cent of the electorate in three electoral districts in the Republic of Karakalpakistan.

zbek TV's "Face to Face" programme on 23rd December was devoted to the results of the second round of parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan which was held on 19th December. At the beginning of the 20-minute programme the head of the Uzbek Central Electoral Commission, Najmiddin Komilov, said that voting in 65 out of 66 electoral districts "determined the winners" and that a third round of voting was to be held at only one electoral district in the capital, Tashkent, at a later date.

Then the programme produced on screen graphs of the total figures of the two rounds of the elections which showed that amongst the political parties the People's Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, the successor to the Communist Party, won 48 seats in the 250-seat parliament. The Fidokorlar (Self-sacrificers) Party, for which incumbent President Islam Karimov is running in the 9th January presidential elections, came second with 34 seats. Vatan Taraqqiyoti (Homeland Progress) Party won 20 seats, Adolat (Justice) Social Democratic Party 11 seats, and Milliy Tiklanish (National Revival) Party won 10 seats. The candidates nominated by local authorities captured 110 seats and those nominated by initiative groups won 16 seats.

Speaking about the electoral legislation, Najmiddin Komilov said that the elections had shown that this should be improved: "The elections held in 1999 showed that many articles of our laws should be improved, developed and made more specific. In addition to general rules, they should stipulate in detail every cirucumstance. This especially concerns initiative groups. (?Article) 22 of the Uzbek law on elections to the Supreme Assembly [Uzbek parliament] gives much room to the procedure for nominating candidates by initiative groups. I think that this article should be divided into several separate articles in line with the requirements of life. Because there were many difficulties in the relations with initiative groups. Candidates nominated by initiative groups themselves also experienced many difficulties."

Having praised the democratic nature of the elections as a whole, Komilov went on to say that he was convinced the new parliament would show that the best people had been elected,would be constructive, and would work on further amendments to electoral legislation, amongst other things.