NIZHNY NOVGOROD, December 14 (RIA Novosti)...

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, December 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russia owes its demographic problems to moral decay, said Alexis II, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was making a video address to the maiden Church public forum, underway in Nizhny Novgorod, regional and industrial center on the Volga River. The current demographic crisis takes root not only in economic instability but in loose public morals, warned His Beatitude. "Drinking and drug addiction are hitting the community. That is why many parents never give a thought to their children, and the kids are left to the mercy of fate." The Patriarch pointed out a decreasing number of weddings, and called on the nation to make adoptions. "It takes the entire community to solve the demographic problem. Motherland"s future depends on whether we solve it or not," stressed Alexis II. Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate management office, addressed the forum to demand a legal ban on abortions. "We urgently need a legislative prohibition of abortions. Meanwhile, there are three aborted babies to each that comes into the world. This country needs two and a half to three million births a year to prevent degeneration. That means every married couple is to have four or five children, not one as now. "It is up to Russia"s State Duma [parliament"s lower house] to debate an abortion ban, and it is in duty bound to consider the matter," said the Metropolitan. The Russian population is decreasing by 700,000 to a million a year, pointed out other forum speakers. The population will make 138.2 million by the start of 2011, and 75 to a hundred million by 2050, forecasts the State Statistical Committee. Patriarch Alexis II has blessed the Church public forum, Spiritual and Moral Bases of Russia"s Demographic Development. The forum was convened by the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church with assistance from the presidential special representative to the Volga federal district, the Business Russia nationwide public association, and the national film festival, Russian Family.

The Ukrainian opposition will not be able...

The Ukrainian opposition will not be able to hamper the ratification of a deal between Moscow and Kiev on extending Russia"s use of a naval base in Ukraine"s Crimea, Russian daily Kommersant said.

MOSCOW. (Yury Zaitsev, for RIA Novosti)...

MOSCOW. (Yury Zaitsev, for RIA Novosti) - At its recent meeting, the Presidential Commission for Modernization and Technological Development of Russia"s Economy called for developing a transport-energy module with a megawatt-class nuclear propulsion unit.