At a meeting on Friday, the Moscow Arbitration Court rejected almost all tax claims against the oil company LUKOIL. Of the claims of the state tax service in the amount of 760 million rubles, only five million were recognized as controversial, Ekho Moskvy reports. The representative of the LUKOIL company believes that these minor claims also have no legal basis, and therefore will seek their complete cancellation in court.

On Thursday, the destroyer Athabaskan and the patrol ship Montreal of the Canadian Navy boarded the transport vessel Katie, owned by the American company Third Ocean Marine Navigation, Reuters reports. On board the ship, which was served by a Ukrainian crew, there was cargo that belonged to the Canadian Department of Defense - 590 tanks and other military vehicles, which were once brought to Kosovo to participate in the NATO operation against Yugoslavia.

About 30 citizens of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, who were on a tourist trip to the North Sea, asked for political asylum in Norway, Interfax reports. As a correspondent of the Kazakh TV agency Khabar reported on Friday with reference to the Norwegian Embassy in Russia, about 20 of them are citizens of Kazakhstan.

At the Republican Party Convention in Philadelphia on Thursday, Texas Governor George W. Bush became an official presidential candidate. During a nearly hour-long speech, he formally agreed to run. After telling the crowd that the Democratic administration had missed its chance, Bush called on his fellow citizens to “start over.” “Our opportunities are too great and life is too short to miss this moment,” the Texas governor said.

The investigation into the criminal case of the explosion of a residential building in Buinaksk has been completed, Nikolai Khazikov, head of the Main Directorate of the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia for the North Caucasus, told Interfax. Let us recall that as a result of this explosion, 58 people were killed and more than 100 were injured. The victims of a powerful explosion in a residential building were then mainly the families of Russian military personnel.

In Moscow, a traffic jam formed on the square of the Belorussky railway station. According to Ekho Moskvy, at about eight in the evening, poorly secured metal structures fell from the truck - they broke the trolleybus wires. A traffic jam formed on the square and throughout Tverskaya, heading towards the region. Reinforced traffic police are trying to divert traffic around the square.

The US President ordered federal agencies in California to reduce energy consumption by five percent; this decision was made in response to the energy crisis that intensified the day before in the state, AK&M reports with reference to the BBC. Yesterday, the California Independent System Operator (ISO), a company engaged in the supply of electricity, stopped supplying it to a number of companies in the state.

In Chechnya, employees of the Gudermes Department of Internal Affairs prevented a major terrorist attack in the village of Novogroznenskaya. As sources in the mobile detachment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs told RIA Novosti, during an inspection of a rural hospital, police discovered a powerful explosive device in the boiler room. Sappers who arrived at the scene recovered from the premises more than three kilograms of TNT and three artillery shells with a caliber of 82 millimeters.

On Friday, one of the leaders of the Islamic radical movement Hamas, Abdul Idris, was released from prison in Israel, Ekho Moskvy reports. This man was convicted of participating in anti-state activities and spent six years behind bars. Israeli radio emphasizes that the current decision of the authorities is yet another proof of Tel Aviv's desire to continue the peace process in the Middle East.

In Grozny, civilians are being blown up by explosive devices installed by terrorists. As reported to RIA Novosti in the mobile detachment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the city of Mozdok, on August 3, a man and a woman with multiple shrapnel wounds were admitted to Grozny City Hospital No. 9. According to the victim, 35-year-old Damirov, he was injured as a result of the explosion of an unknown explosive device installed on the territory of CHPP-1.

On Friday, on the administrative border of Ingushetia and North Ossetia, employees of the North Caucasus Regional Organized Crime Control Department carried out an operation to free two residents of North Ossetia who were taken hostage on May 31. As Interfax reports, citing sources in law enforcement authorities of North Ossetia, senior officials of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic Valery Kokoev and Vera No were kidnapped on the outskirts of Vladikavkaz.

Jerusalem residents recently discovered that CNN weather reports had removed their city from the list of cities in Israel. According to CNN, the question of the status and statehood of the holy city is still unclear, since it is the subject of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. That's why CNN.com Weather removed the word Israel from its Jerusalem weather page seven months ago.

In Moscow, on Tushinskaya Street on Friday evening, four teenagers were found locked in a refrigerator. According to law enforcement agencies, the teenagers tried to steal an aluminum cable, but workers caught them at the crime scene. They put them in a refrigerator and locked them. The teenagers began to freeze and screamed, and this is where security discovered them. The police are now looking for the workers who “punished” the teenagers in this way, Ekho Moskvy reports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree “On increasing the amount of compensation payments to certain categories of pensioners.” The decree prescribes to increase, from August 1, 2000, the amount of compensation payments to the pensions of group II disabled people (except for those with disabilities since childhood) and children who have lost one of their parents and who have been assigned social pensions in accordance with paragraph "b" of Article 114 of the Law of the Russian

On Friday, by order of the Ministry of Railways management, access to the Express-2 ticket reservation system via the Internet was completely stopped. On the website for ordering tickets through the Express-2 system there is an advertisement that says: “Telegram No.