(Photo: AP ) In Indonesia, a huge scandal continues to surround PT Ajinomoto, a subsidiary of the leading Japanese food seasoning manufacturer Ajinomoto Co Inc. As it turned out, the company produced seasonings with a high content of enzymes grown in pork fat. In doing so, she flagrantly violated Islamic laws prohibiting Muslims from eating pork. At the same time, the company's products were equipped with labels with the Arabic inscription "halal" - "allowed".

Milana Davydova, Nikolai Manvelov The decision of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will not allow Russia to insist on writing off debts to the Paris Club Last Wednesday, oil and energy ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) held an extraordinary conference in Vienna. After consulting, the cartel decided to reduce its own oil production by 1.5 million barrels per day (about 214 thousand tons), that is, by 5.6% of the current world production.

Minus one and a half billion David Gundler* The fall of the NASDAQ index backfired on RuNet with pessimism (inset to this article “What is NASDAQ” see here ) Over the past year and a half, a lot of interesting information projects have appeared on the RuNet, a layer of professionals has formed, and e-commerce has begun to develop.

“They invited him for a walk, that is, to a reception, for dinner, and in fact they arranged this... Where will he have dinner now?” Viktor Chernomyrdin about the arrest of Pavel Borodin in New York (Victor Bogorad) “Well, Bush is generally such a collective image.” Dmitry Rogozin, head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs “This was payment to the Soviet Union and Russia for the transition to democracy.

E.P. (Photo: AP ) “Where our Kim Jong Il is going is a big, big secret!” This is how you can paraphrase the words of a famous song: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il prefers to make his visits in an atmosphere of deep secrecy. Last week he made a five-day trip to neighboring China, but there was no official meeting: the train carrying Kim crossed the state border at night with the lights extinguished and the curtains drawn tightly. Similarly, Kim Jong Il already visited China in May last year.

Anton Pryshvin City authorities are patching the hole punched in city finances by tax reform (Photo: Max Novikov ) The economy of Moscow, like that of the entire Russian state, is largely supported by borrowed funds - from Russian and Western banks, investment companies, and the population. After the 1998 default, many regions were unable to fulfill their debt obligations. Until the beginning of this year, economists and investors predicted an inevitable default on external debts for Moscow.

Arkady Orlov During the election campaign, George W. Bush promised to change the situation in Washington. However, this will be more difficult than rearranging the furniture in the Oval Office. Bill Clinton shows the White House to his successor. (Photo: AP ) On the eve of leaving for Washington, George W. Bush and his wife Laura hosted American television star, NBC columnist Tom Brokaw, at their Texas ranch.

Egor Bykovsky (inset to the article “Minus one and a half billion” ) (Photo: AP ) During the second half of last year, first the foreign and then the Russian press wrote more and more often about the fall of the NASDAQ Composite index. News about the adventures of a hitherto unfamiliar abbreviation did not appear on the front pages of financial publications.

Lev Gudkov, Boris Dubin Life has become worse for Russian society, life has become more boring ( Valery Vasiliev ) Data from VTsIOM surveys in the second half of the 90s on various areas of life in Russian society seem to have begun to form a certain picture in recent months. Its main characteristic is the increasingly obvious, consistent and unambiguous elimination of social diversity.

Masha Gessen (Photo: Pavel Gorshkov ) There is, of course, something reassuring in the fact that, while everything around is changing, with Sergei Pashin everything is as usual. On January 18, the famous lawyer, deprived of his judicial powers in October last year, was reinstated as a judge for the second time.

...do everything together and not tolerate those who put themselves above the team

Galina Kovalskaya Entrepreneurs set out on a campaign for gubernatorial posts. They are no longer comfortable without them.

Yuri Gladilshchikov Last week, Unifrance invited European journalists and distributors to Paris to find out what's new in cinema, what to watch, what to buy In America there is the MPAA film association, in France - Unifrance. In terms of influence, they are not yet comparable (the Americans are stronger), but they can be considered competitors: there are no other organizations in the world that were created to promote national cinema abroad.

Leonid Velekhov Pavel Borodin confused Western justice with Russian - and fell victim to this mistake And the hard times carried the former “Kremlin supply manager” abroad! After all, for almost a year Pavel Pavlovich Borodin refrained from this temptation after in January last year the Swiss investigator Daniel Devaux issued a warrant to summon him to court to testify. And then suddenly he went to the USA last week.

Mikhail Shishkin Our compatriots came to Davos long before it became the economic and political center of the world Fragment from Mikhail Shishkin's book "Russian Switzerland. Literary and historical guide" Davos and St. Moritz are among the most expensive and prestigious resorts in Switzerland. A peculiar idea has developed here about new Russian travelers: Russians, in the image of the world of the Davos waiter, are those who tip more than the cost of the order.