From February 10, employees of three kindergartens will join the protest action of school teachers in the city of Taishet (Irkutsk region), RIA Novosti reports. 334 teachers from 8 schools of the city continue the protest action started the day before. They suspended classes with students, demanding repayment of wage arrears. In the city of Baikalsk, in one of the schools, teachers began to pay the delayed money, and they returned to work.

The state defense order for 2003 is 113 billion rubles, of which 45 billion will be directed to research and development (R&D). Compared to 2001, the state defense order has grown three to four times. This was reported to Krasnaya Zvezda by Colonel-General Alexei Moskovsky, Chief of Armaments of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Deputy Minister of Defense.

Illustration from the site www.army.lv The State Duma rejected the draft appeal to the President of Russia with a request to postpone the date of celebration of the defender of the Fatherland from February 23 to September 8. With the necessary 226 votes, the document was supported by only 3 deputies, RIA Novosti reports.

Nicole Kidman has been approached by Warner Brothers to play Catwoman in the next Batman sequel. In this picture, it is the Catwoman, and not the bat-man, who will become the main character. That is, the heroine. For the first time this role was played by the magnificent Michelle Pfeiffer. The director of the new film will be the mysterious Frenchman Pitof, who directed the thriller Vidocq. A start date for filming has yet to be determined.

Photo by AR from the site Ananova.com The organizers of the auction in the House of Sinva (Japan) appreciated the unknown picture of 50 yen. According to AR, experts found that this is the picture of Van Gogh, painted in the period from 1884 to 1885. In a picture of 16 by 14 inches, a middle -aged peasant is depicted in profile. The organizers noticed that the picture resembles some work of Van Gogh, and sent it to Amsterdam for examination to the appropriate museum.

The Zheleznodorozhny District Court of Vitebsk fined local oppositionist Vladimir Pleshchenko 1 million 850 thousand Belarusian rubles (about a thousand US dollars). It is reported by PRIMA . He was convicted for organizing an unsanctioned anti-Russian picket on January 20, the day Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Minsk.

On February 7, the Russian Union of Journalists hosted the annual awards ceremony "For Professional Excellence", ITAR-TASS reports. According to the results of 2002, about 40 journalists and editorial teams from Moscow and the regions received awards.

Employees of the military registration and enlistment offices independently struggle with the lack of money caused by low salaries. This fight almost always results in violation of Russian law. As RBC was told in the press service of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office (GVP), the day before, while receiving a bribe, employees of the military prosecutor's office and the local FSB detained an employee of the Soviet district military registration and enlistment office of Ryazan.

Grigory Krichevsky was invited to take the post of Deputy General Director of the NTV channel Nikolai Senkevich, Ekho Moskvy reports. Krichevsky's reaction is still unknown. Last week, the board of the NTV television company unanimously expressed no confidence in the new management of the channel due to its "obvious incompetence." This decision was made at the first meeting of the board after the appointment of Nikolai Senkevich as acting general director of NTV.

The musical "Nord-Ost", revived 107 days after the terrorist attack, gathered a full house, ITAR-TASS reports. Correspondents from 30 world TV companies came to the press screening at the theater center on Dubrovka. The authors of the musical said that they used the best protective equipment in the hall, which is used in various concert halls in Moscow.

A school bus collided with a heavy truck in Gloucestershire, UK. The truck driver died on the spot, 24 children and the bus driver were injured and hospitalized. The victims are either lightly injured or in shock. The accident happened at about 8 am on Friday near Chipping Camden, on a sharp bend. The cars were driving towards each other or in the same direction, it is not reported. The truck caught fire immediately after the impact.

Avalanches are expected in the mountains of the North Caucasus in the coming days, Interfax reports. The Southern Regional Center of the Russian Emergencies Ministry sent a storm warning to the republics of Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, Chechnya, Krasnodar Territory, Adygea, Stavropol Territory and Dagestan due to the increased risk of snow avalanches in the mountainous part of these areas.

Last Thursday at the Moscow theater "Et Cetera" by Alexander Kalyagin, the play "King Ubyu" was disrupted, Ekho Moskvy reports. Before the start of the performance, the audience felt a burning sensation in their throats and eyes, and began to cough. Someone said that they heard cotton in the hall. The spectators were taken out of the hall, the employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations were called.

In the ward of the Altai Regional Cardiology Center (Barnaul), an unknown criminal cut the patient's carotid artery. An elderly man died on the spot from a stab wound, ITAR-TASS reports with reference to the regional police department. At that time, there was another patient in the ward, he was sleeping and did not hear anything. There were also people near the ward during the murder, but they did not notice anything suspicious either.

On Friday, the State Duma reconsidered and adopted, as amended by the conciliation commission, a law on a new procedure for exporting cash foreign currency from Russia. According to RIA Novosti, in accordance with the document, a one-time export from the Russian Federation of foreign currency in dollar terms is allowed in the amount of up to $3,000 without special permission and without being mentioned in the customs declaration.