Russia is going to restore rights to the former property of the USSR and Tsarist Russia abroad. A database of such objects has been compiled; the price tag, according to experts, exceeds $400 billion. But before turning to international courts, Moscow faces “close combat.” Ukraine refuses to ratify the agreement on the “zero option” of paying off Soviet debts. Kyiv insists on receiving its share of Soviet property, although it promises to share the burden of the debt with Russia.

On March 28, the Russian Embassy in Minsk sent a note to the Belarusian Foreign Ministry with a request for assistance in considering the issue of early release of Russians. A wish was expressed that they would be released early in connection with the celebration of the “Day of Unity of the Peoples of Russia and Belarus” on April 2. But Belarus ignored the request; four Russian citizens are still under arrest.

The head of Hong Kong's Catholics, Cardinal Joseph Zeng, said diplomatic relations between China and the Vatican, severed in 1951, could be restored by 2008. According to the cardinal, representatives of the Chinese authorities have already contacted him twice on this issue and he is planning an early visit to the Vatican. Most likely, a compromise solution will be found - millions of Chinese Catholics are not superfluous to the Vatican.

The European Court of Human Rights has accelerated its consideration of the complaint of the former head of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. This was reported by the American weekly Newsweek. One can hope that in the near future the international court will express its attitude to this scandalous case, which for many has become a symbol of the Kremlin’s dishonesty. The fact that Khodorkovsky's lawyers filed a complaint with the Strasbourg court became known on March 21.

In society It's a pity April 3, 2006 Alexey Makarkin In the eastern district of the capital , a native of Kabardino-Balkaria Zaura Tutov beats. One and a half dozen panties in a skeleton attacked a man in front of his daughter. The situation is completely banal - the "Caucasians" are beaten in Moscow every day. And no international scandals, as in the case of the next cruel beating or killing of foreign students, when embossed people raise the noise.

A criminal case was opened against Alexander Koptsev Sr. - the father of that Alexander Koptsev, who attacked parishioners of a Moscow synagogue with a knife - for illegal storage of ammunition. During a search conducted earlier in the Koptsevs' apartment, hunting cartridges were found, and therefore a case was opened. Today the court found Koptsev Sr. guilty and sentenced him to one and a half years of probation.

Human rights activists Lev Ponomarev and Evgeny Ikhlov were detained in Moscow during a picket in support of Russian citizens arrested in Minsk. Lev Ponomarev claims that the detention occurred with gross violations of the law. According to the legislation of the Russian Federation, every person has the right to a single picket; moreover, the police officers did not present any documents, citing an oral order from the prosecutor's office.

On April 2, on NBC, Senator John McCain said that George Bush should ignore the upcoming G8 summit in St. Petersburg. As the reason, the senator cited the outrageous actions of Russia: support for Belarus and its president, interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine, attempts to restore the Russian empire, insufficient cooperation with the United States on Iran.

Former Russian FSB colonel Mikhail Trepashkin, who is serving a four-year sentence in a Yekaterinburg colony on charges of disclosing state secrets, began a hunger strike on Monday. He demands a meeting with the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Sverdlovsk Region, Tatyana Merzlyakova, in the presence of the media and human rights activists.

The Russian Way publishing house “Diaries” of the Protopresbyter Alexander Shmeman, the clergy of the Orthodox Church in America, the preacher and theologian, within 20 years of the dean of the Holy-Vladimir Theological Academy in New York, which turned under his leadership into one of the best theological schools of the Orthodox world.

“For every person to feel free, a universal understanding of human rights is necessary.

“If you kill one bin Laden today, soon dozens of bin Ladens will take his place. If you kill ten bin Ladens, then hatred will spread, if you attack a hundred, then thousands will lose members of their families,” the Dalai Lama said in an interview with the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph ".

Tomorrow a new chairman of the Rodina faction will be elected. It is assumed that it will be Alexander Babakov. He will replace Dmitry Rogozin in this post, who resigned from the post of party chairman at the last Rodina congress. Rogozin said that he was tired and “now would like to be free from his current work in the faction.” What he plans to do next is still unknown.

In the center of Grozny, on the banks of the Sunzha River, a burial with the bodies of 6 unknown persons was discovered. Presumably the burial dates back to 2000, when the active phase of the counter-terrorism operation was taking place in Grozny. Who these people were, by whom and when they were killed - gunshot wounds were found on their bodies, apparently no one will ever know.

In the fall of 2004, an initiative group of Nizhny Novgorod residents decided to seek to maintain the previous procedure for electing the head of the Nizhny Novgorod region. Having exhausted remedies at home, at the end of 2005 Sergei Shimovolos filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The human rights activist intends to prove that the abolition of direct gubernatorial elections in the Russian Federation violates his personal rights as a voter.