The meeting of shareholders of OAO Gazprom, which will take place on June 29 in Moscow, will consider the possibility of abolishing restrictions on the sale of company shares into one hand. This is stated in materials prepared for the upcoming meeting of Gazprom board member Alexander Semenyaka with the company’s shareholders on Tuesday, May 29, in Surgut. Currently, in accordance with the charter of the OJSC, there is a restriction on the acquisition of more than 3% of the company's shares.

Today, a press conference was held at the Rubin Central Design Bureau on the issue of preparations for the operation of raising the Kursk submarine. At it, the Russian project leaders spoke about the stage of preparation for the operation and shared some details of its participants.

Today official casualty figures were announced during the second Chechen campaign. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced the total number of federal military personnel killed in Chechnya, RIA Novosti reports. According to him, from August 1999 until this morning, the number of deaths in the Joint Group of Forces is 2 thousand 682 military personnel, among them the losses of the Ministry of Defense are 2 thousand 26 military personnel.

The French energy giant, Electicite de France (EDF), is conducting an economic expansion in the markets of European countries. The expansion of EDF worries the leadership of many EU member countries. Some experts believe that the French concern is skillfully using the rules in force in the European Union, which require governments to open access to national energy markets for foreign firms.

The head of the Russian Presidential Administration, Alexander Voloshin, was unanimously re-elected chairman of the Board of Directors of RAO UES of Russia. Interfax was informed about this by the RAO media relations department. Voloshin's appointment to this position took place at a meeting of the Board of Directors of RAO today in Moscow. Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and Minister of Finance Alexey Kudrin was re-elected as Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of RAO UES.

The first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, who arrived in China today on a private visit, met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in Beijing on Monday. Boris Yeltsin's protocol chief Vladimir Shevchenko told Interfax about this. During the conversation, Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin shared their assessments of the situations in China and Russia and expressed views on the possibilities of expanding comprehensive cooperation between the two countries, Interfax reports.

"Why do people work on Sundays in Russia?" √ This question was asked in an open letter addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin by Catholic priest Bernardo Antonini, who has been serving in our country for more than 10 years, the Blagovest-info agency reports. “This year I was very upset by two events that were directly related to me,” writes Bernardo Antonini.

. Contrary to the predictions of many observers, the deputy plenipotentiary representative in the Far Eastern District, Gennady Apanasenko, took only third place in the first round. However, all is not lost for him: the favorite of the election race, Sergei Darkin, may withdraw from the race.

Police officers have identified the man killed in the cafe of the Aurora cinema on Profsoyuznaya Street in Moscow. This was announced on Monday by the capital's police department. As NTV.ru already reported, last Saturday an unknown criminal shot two men inside a cinema. One of them died on the spot. The deceased was 38-year-old Muscovite Valery Kondratyev. His 31-year-old security guard was hospitalized with serious injuries.

Assistant to the Russian President and former Defense Minister Marshal Igor Sergeev believes that Washington is trying to involve Russia in the conciliation process regarding the creation of a national missile defense system.

If the situation in the south of Kyrgyzstan escalates this summer, coalition forces of the countries participating in the CIS Collective Security Treaty (CST) will be involved. As RIA Novosti reports, Kyrgyz Defense Minister Esen Topoev said this at a press conference in Bishkek on Monday.

The film "Bad Boys", which tells the adventures of two police officers who have only 72 hours to find a large shipment of drugs stolen straight from the police station, grossed $140 million. After 6 years, Columbia studio management decided to make a sequel to the film. The script for Bad Boys 2 has already been written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.

Members of an organized criminal group that caused damage to the state and copyright holders amounting to more than one billion rubles were detained in Moscow. According to the press service of the Main Directorate for Combating Economic Crimes of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the group was engaged in the distribution of closed electronic databases. In total, 20 databases were seized in various areas.

Dozens of Albanian refugees from villages in the fighting zone between the Macedonian army and Albanian fighters from the National Liberation Army were brutally beaten by the military at a police station in Kumanovo on suspicion of supporting the militants, London newspaper The Telegraph reports. According to the newspaper, instead of providing the promised safe exit from the villages, a roof over their heads and food, masked soldiers beat men, women and children with rubber batons.

Police officials today managed to secure the release of two captured guards at Fresnes prison near Paris, where prisoners rioted on Sunday after a failed escape. The day before, while the prisoners were walking, a helicopter hovered over the prison, dropping a rope ladder intended for three bandits. However, as ITAR-TASS reports, it turned out to be too short and the criminals were never able to grab onto it.