The judge brought from the process in the case of journalist Pasko one of his defenders, and also forbade lawyers to give interviews (Pasko is accused of disclosing state secrets and treason). The prosecutor Konstantin Osipenko appealed to the judge with a statement that as part of the closed process, lawyers do not have the right to disclose the materials of the court, therefore, give an interview. The court agreed with the prosecutor.

The State Duma decided to extend the work on Friday until the end of the consideration in the third reading of the draft budget-99. Such a proposal, supported by the majority of deputies, was made by the speaker Gennady Seleznev at 18:00, when the chamber should complete the work in the regulations. Responding to the replica of one of the deputies that the Duma today will not have time to completely consider all amendments to the budget-99 project, G.

The representative of the president in the Duma, Alexander Kotenkov, announced a rather categorical letter of Yeltsin, in which he does not agree to reduce the costs of himself and his administration by 40%, while the Duma is compressed by only three percent. Yeltsin writes that he will not sign such a budget. The old apparatchik advocates equalities and a proportional reduction in expenses for all public administration sectors, stipulated in total by 11 percent.

The official ruble exchange rate in relation to the US dollar announced by the Bank of Russia on January 30 is 22.6 rubles./$ 1

The Prosecutor General again wants to revise privatization through the epistolary. Yu.Skuratov, having got acquainted with the materials of the Accounts Chamber (see the huge building of marble decoration on Zubovskaya Square), came to the conclusion that in 1996, 8.5% of the RAO UES RAO shares were privatized incorrectly.

"Russian external debt can be restructured by the West in the same way as it was done earlier in the case of Poland in the early 90s. The Parisian Club of creditors then wrote off a significant part of the Polish debt, and the payment for its remaining part was restructured," the British newspaper Faynenchl Times said today, cited the representative of the bank "Ai-en-ji Brings" Philip Poula.

Iran plans to send 225 of its engineers to study in Russia to work at the nuclear power plant in the Bushera in the south of the country. Now the construction of nuclear power plants in the Bushera is carried out by Russian specialists who in the near future should launch the first power unit of the station. According to Baghdad, the Iranian nuclear program is purely peaceful and does not aim to create atomic weapons. This was reported by the Radio station "Echo of Moscow"

The Minister of Justice Krasheninnikov went to the Urals, where, together with the Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region, Rossel will discuss the problems related to the transfer of the Office for the execution of sentences from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Justice, as well as the problems of maintaining, nutrition of prisoners, etc. He also informed Rossel that this year one hundred thousand prisoners who committed minor offenses would be released this year.

The State Duma rejected the president’s correction to the federal budget draft, proposing a proportional reduction in the costs of maintaining the presidential administration and the State Duma in the framework of the State Directorate. Only 117 deputies voted for the amendment, against 130, 4 abstained.

The agreement between Russia and the IMF on the provision of a loan for refinancing debt to the fund will be signed in April, the maximum in May. This was announced by the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Yuri Maslyukov.

Gennady Seleznev at a briefing said that on Monday-Tuesday, the parliament fraction will discuss the proposals of Evgeny Primakov, but they are unlikely to accept them in full. According to the speaker, the “most unsuccessful phrase of the letter” is the proposal expressed in it about the impossibility of the dissolution of the Duma. According to G.

Gennady Kulik believes that the budget will be "adopted without excesses." In an interview with RBC, the Deputy Prime Minister did not exclude the possibility that, in a number of amendments proposed by the budget committee, there would be a hot discussion. But these discussions, the Deputy Prime Minister emphasized, "are quite natural: the deputies are worried that they gave little the budget sections."

On January 29, at about 17:00 in Davos, a meeting of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Evgeny Primakov with the US Vice President Albert Goroma ended in Davos. The interlocutors discussed a wide range of international issues and the problems of bilateral Russian-American relations. During the negotiations, the possibility of providing Russia for loans by the International Monetary Fund was also affected.

Speaking to journalists in the State Duma, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Russian Federation, Yuri Maslyukov, said that in January 1999, revenues to the federal budget went with an excess of the plan. The government planned income in the amount of 16.5 billion rubles., In fact, 17.5-18.5 billion rubles will be raised, Yu. Maslyukov emphasized. He noted that the issue of allocating loans of the IMF is still dependent on the speed of the budget.

The volume of the cash base of Russia fell to 202.2 billion rubles to January 25 from 205.4 billion rubles to January 18, the Department of External and Public Relations of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation said.