The Chelyabinsk Military Garrison Court found the main defendant in the Sychev case, Alexander Sivyakov, guilty of abuse of office, resulting in grave consequences. He was sentenced to four years in prison to be served in a general regime colony. Two other defendants - Pavel Kuzmenko and Gennady Bilimovich - were sentenced to a year and six months of suspended imprisonment, each with a probationary period of one year.

The Metropolitan's health condition deteriorated sharply last week and he was hospitalized. In fact, the metropolitan retired back in 2000, and in July 2001 transferred his powers to his deputy, Archbishop Laurus, who was soon elected as the new first hierarch.

Over the course of 1.5 years, Russia will remove 2.3 tons of spent nuclear fuel from Serbia. The corresponding agreement was signed during a conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The removal will be carried out under the auspices of the IAEA in accordance with Russian-American agreements on the removal of spent nuclear fuel from research reactors in Eastern Europe and the CIS countries.

According to the document, the president will receive this right immediately after an official is charged - under any article, regardless of the severity of the crime. In addition, the bill allows an official of any rank who has shown sluggishness or negligence to be charged with aiding terrorism. The degree of liability under several criminal articles will also increase significantly.

Three servicemen from the tank school support battalion are accused in the case of private Andrei Sychev: junior sergeant Alexander Sivyakov and privates Pavel Kuzmenko and Gennady Bilimovich. Until now, the investigation has not expressed a final opinion about what caused the soldier’s injuries. According to representatives of the court, in accordance with the expert opinion, the identified deviations from the norm in Sychev’s health could not be the cause of the consequences that occurred.

An American court found 55-year-old businessman Mark Kaushansky guilty of tax evasion and embezzlement. For a long time he was a business partner of the former Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Evgeny Adamov. According to the prosecution, Adamov and Kaushansky embezzled for “personal use” more than $9 million, which were allocated by the US government to improve the security of Russian nuclear facilities.

At the UN General Assembly, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called George Bush “the devil.” Chavez will be able to scare the world with this “Lucifer” for a couple more years. Until November 2008, when the next presidential elections will be held in the United States. In four or eight years, history will repeat itself again. Venezuela will have Chavez, and the United States will have a new president.

The case of private Andrei Sychev could become a turning point in the fight against “hazing” in the Russian army. But it won't. Just as not a single, even well-publicized, corruption scandal will become a turning point in the fight against Russian corruption. There is only one reason: hazing in the army, like corruption in the economy, is a system-forming phenomenon. After a trip with Anatoly Kucherena to Chelyabinsk in the fresh wake of this tragedy, my mood was cloudy.

Lawyers are asking the Supreme Court of Russia to commute the conviction against Alexander Koptsev, who was found guilty of attacking parishioners of a Moscow synagogue. The Moscow City Court sentenced him to 16 years in prison to be served in a maximum security colony. In addition, the court ordered the accused to undergo compulsory treatment with a psychiatrist at the place where he was serving his sentence.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation has developed a draft law on state genomic registration. The document provides for the creation of a unified database of DNA samples where blood samples of citizens will be stored. In this way, the authorities hope to simplify the process of identifying the bodies of the dead and searching for the criminals. True, such donation for most citizens will be purely voluntary.

On September 22, the State Duma, in three readings at once, considered and approved the law on amnesty for participants in the armed conflict in the North Caucasus. During the time that elapsed between Patrushev’s call for surrender and the adoption of the law, two people surrendered in Ingushetia (it seems that they were already in prison, they were granted an amnesty), in Dagestan - two dozen, in Chechnya - one and a half hundred people.