Officially

President

Appointed Secretary of State and First Deputy Minister of Justice Alexander Karlin as head of the Presidential Administration for Civil Service Affairs. Alexander Karlin was born in 1951. In 1972 he graduated from the Sverdlovsk Law Institute, in 1972-1986 he worked as a senior investigator, deputy city prosecutor, head of the department of the regional prosecutor's office, in 1986-1991 - senior prosecutor of the department, assistant prosecutor general of the USSR, in 1992-2000 - - Head of the department for ensuring the participation of prosecutors in the arbitration process of the Prosecutor General's Office.

At the initiative of the American side, he had a telephone conversation with US President George Bush. The heads of state exchanged assessments of the state of affairs in crisis regions of the world (Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan). In this regard, Vladimir Putin announced Russia’s firm intention, in interaction with the international community and the UN, to make the necessary efforts to quickly normalize the regional situation. The presidents also discussed issues of bilateral cooperation in the light of preparations for the planned Russian-American summit in Sea Island (USA) as part of the G8 summit.

At a meeting with the leadership of parliament, he discussed the content of his annual message to the Federal Assembly. State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov announced this. Vladimir Putin invited the meeting participants to express their “point of view on which of the tasks in domestic and foreign policy seem to be priorities, what ways they see for solving them.” The President noted that everything proposed “will definitely be taken into account in the final version of the message.”

Government

In the coming days, he will introduce amendments to the legislation to the State Duma to abolish contributions to the funded part of pensions for citizens born in 1967. This was stated by the Minister of Health and Social Development Mikhail Zurabov. He recalled that now the size of these deductions is 2% of the wage fund of employees. With amendments to the law, employers will no longer contribute these funds to the funded part of pensions for this category of employees.

There are no plans to cancel benefits for paying for housing and communal services in the next two years, said Andrei Isaev, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Labor and Social Policy. Thus, the planned replacement of benefits with cash subsidies will not affect the housing and communal services sector.

Departments

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said that he will head the government commission on the World Trade Organization (WTO) and issues of organizing international cooperation and development. At the same time, Alexey Kudrin noted that the main task of the commission will be “public discussion and adaptation” of the ideas it develops. To this end, the commission will involve deputies, entrepreneurs and simply “public circles” in its activities.

The Ministry of Economic Development will insist on maintaining the norm of private property in the new edition of the Forest Code, said Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade Mukhamed Tsikanov. Private ownership of forest areas is necessary for more efficient use of forests and increasing the investment attractiveness of the forest fund, the deputy minister emphasized. The finalized draft Forest Code will be sent to the government at the end of next week.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the period from January 1 to April 1, 2004, Russian internal affairs bodies registered 703.3 thousand crimes. This is 2.7% more than in the same period last year. During the first quarter of 2004, 35% more crimes of a terrorist nature were registered compared to the same period in 2003. Together, there were almost 12% fewer crimes committed using weapons, the number of thefts of ammunition and explosives also decreased significantly, and the number of extremist crimes decreased by 10%.

According to operational customs statistics, Russia in January-February of this year, compared with the corresponding period last year, reduced imports of basic food products from non-CIS countries. Thus, imports of fresh frozen meat compared to the same period in 2003 decreased by 70.9%, poultry meat - by 52%, butter - by 37.5%, white sugar - by 30.2%. At the same time, supplies of fresh frozen fish increased by 36.7%.

Army

The Ministry of Defense currently has virtually no debts to defense enterprises under government orders, said Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Moskovsky. According to him, now the ministry only has planned debts to the defense industry for products supplied in 2003. Payment dates for these debts are due this year, and, according to Alexei Moskovsky, the Ministry of Defense plans to repay them during the second quarter. The deputy minister said that as of January 1 of this year, the ministry’s debt to the military-industrial complex amounted to about 2 billion rubles, that is, 1.7% of the total defense order.

The Russian Armed Forces have begun recruiting civilian specialists to fill positions of senior and junior officers. The list of such positions includes about 200 titles. Among them, the most common positions are specialists in the fields of medicine, technology, economics, law and journalism. Currently, these positions are staffed within the allocated civilian personnel limits and salary allocations. Read detailed material on this topic in the Vremya Novostey newspaper on Monday, April 12.

Based on materials from news agencies and our own information