On Wednesday, at a meeting of the State Council of the Russian Federation, the issue of land reform will be discussed, ITAR-TASS reports. According to a source in the presidential administration, it was initially assumed that two questions would be considered tomorrow: about land reform and the distribution of powers between the center and the subjects of the Federation. However, a few days ago it was decided to devote to each of these topics a separate meeting.

Russia should today return to the Paris club half a billion dollars. This is the largest payment lately. But this amount is only 40% of the payment that is provided for by the original schedule. It is possible that after today, some Russian creditors may take strict measures.

The European Commission has submitted its three -year plan to eradicate crimes using credit cards. Such attention to the specific type of scams is caused by the rapid increase in fraud in the field of electronic means of payment. In 2000 alone in the countries of the European community, the number of offenses with credit cards increased one and a half times, and the total damage amounted to 600 million euros.

The prosecutor's office of the Volgograd region is investigating a criminal case on the illegal adoption of orphan children and possible abuses by officials. It is reported by "Echo of Moscow" with reference to "Interfax". As stated by the senior assistant to the regional prosecutor Nikolai Bichekhvost, a certain Nadezhda Fratti, who was constantly living in Italy, was arrested in the framework of this case.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the strongest eruption of the Niyamuragir volcano, located in the north-eastern part of the country, began. According to experts, over the past 100 years, this is one of the largest eruptions, and this time a wake -up volcano also acts as a military force.

The Norwegian athlete Bente Skari won a gold medal at the World Ski Championship. She overcame a distance of 10 km in 26 minutes 55.5 seconds, ahead of the Russian woman Olga Danilova, who came the second, for almost 13 seconds. Larisa Lazutin will take home "bronze" with a result of 27 minutes 27 seconds. The history of the confrontation between Norwegian and Russian skiers repeated.

In the Khabarovsk Territory, the head of the boiler house killed a drunken stoker and his drinking companion. In response to comments, they rushed to the head of the boiler room with fists. According to him, having lost control of himself, he grabbed a log and inflicted several blows to the offenders on the head. According to NTV with reference to Interfax, the head of the Energia enterprise saw that the temperature in the heating networks heating the village was rapidly dropping.

The leadership of the Islamic Movement Taliban, which controls most of the territory of Afghanistan, expressed a desire to give out the international terrorist Osam Ben Laden to American justice through Saudi Arabia, Echo Moscow reports with reference to Interfax. This was reported by the Pakistani newspaper "UNON".

Today in the State Duma, the left opposition announced the intention to express distrust of the government. The Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said that the collection of signatures begins in the Duma under the demand to consider the question of the votum of no confidence in the office. According to Zyuganov, "the country continues to crawl along the rut that Yeltsin and his associates laid.

The strengthening of the euro in relation to the US dollar continued on Tuesday, February 20, at Asian foreign exchange auction. This happened after the leadership of the European Central Bank (ECB) made it clear that there may not be a soon reduction in the interest rate, Bloomberg reports.

Lighted passengers burned the building of the Central Station in the capital of South Africa, RIA Novosti reports. The situation at the station began to heated when passengers learned about minor delays in the arrival and departure of suburban trains. This message was so outraged by people that the angry crowd began to attack railway officials and guards, and then set fire to furniture on the ground floor of the building. In total, about 6 thousand people participated in the pogrom.

NATO Secretary General George Robertson does not exclude the possibility of Russia entering the North Atlantic Alliance. As Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, told reporters, Robertson said this at a meeting in the State Duma today. Rogozin also learned that an agreement was reached with the general secretary of NATO on the joint work of experts from Russia and the United States regarding the prospects for creating a missile system.

Commenting on the latest population census, priest D'Souza, a representative of the Catholic Episcopate of India, expressed concern that its results could be falsified in order to confirm the thesis of nationalists that Christians undermine the unity of the nation, the Blagovest-info agency reports. It is possible that the number of Christians will be artificially inflated, and then nationalists will begin to accuse representatives of this religion of proselytism even louder, D'Souza added.

In German Arnstadt, he overcame the bar at an altitude of 2 m 35 cm. At the same time, a Ukrainian athlete who set his personal record was ahead of three Olympic champions √ Charles Austin (2 m 31 cm), Havier Sotomayor and Sergey Klyugin (both √ 2 m 24 cm).

Congressman Christopher Smith, co-chairman of the US Helsinki Commission, demanded the immediate release of Baptist pastor Shagilda Atakov from a Turkmen prison, the Blagovest-info agency reports. “It pains me deeply to hear about the persecution of Atakov, who we are convinced is deprived of his freedom and is being tortured for his faith,” Smith said in a message addressed to the OSCE. Baptist leader Shagildy Atakov was arrested on December 18, 1998 at his home in the city of Turkmenbashi.