Andrei Savinov, Deputy Head of the Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, said today that the former ambassador of Belarus to Japan, Peter Kravchenko, returned to his homeland. The scandal around him erupted in December this year. On November 19, Kravchenko was relieved of the post of ambassador to Tokyo by decree of the President of Belarus in connection with the completion of the business trip.

Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov sent a letter to the Iraqi leadership with a request to suspend the termination of the contract with the Russian company LUKoil. The letter, according to the minister, contains a call to “conduct negotiations in order to find an acceptable solution that does not infringe on the interests of Russian companies.” Igor Ivanov told Russian journalists about this in Manila, where he is on an official visit, RIA Novosti reports.

The dollar rate suddenly decreased by 0.73 kopecks to 31 rubles 85.27 kopecks. In the Forex market, the dollar has ceased to decline in relation to the euro and yen. The situation in the stock markets at the beginning of the week looks ambiguous - in Asia there was a decrease, at the same time European indices are growing. Pessimistic sentiments are still dominated by pessimistic moods, the RTS index at 15:00 lost 0.7% and sank to the mark of 340.18 points. Review of the Finmarket agency

On the New York commodity exchange, the price of January futures on Friday increased by 1.5% compared to the final value of previous bidding and reached $ 28.44 per barrel, Bloomberg reports. This morning, in the electronic exchange system, the quotation rose by 1.6% and amounted to $ 28.88 per barrel. Then the price of futures for January slightly decreased - to $ 28.83 per barrel. This is the maximum quotation value over the past two months.

Leonid Sedov (the survey was conducted from November 22 to 25; 1,600 respondents were interviewed) Comprehension of Dubrovka The seizure of hostages at the Nord-Ost Theater and their liberation, accompanied by great victims, again returned the problem of the Chechen war to the center of attention not only of the Russian, but also the world community. As for Russian society, in it, as a result of these events, a certain bitterness is observed.

Sources in the administration of the White Swan colony told Kommersant that Salman Raduev did not die in the hospital, but in his cell. According to this version, as in the official one, this happened on December 14th. On that day, searches were carried out in the premises where prisoners were contained. Salman Raduev refused to execute the command to “lie down”, after which one of the employees hit him several times either with a stick or a fist on the kidneys, the newspaper writes.

Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin spoke at the opening of the next meeting of the working group to enter Russia into the WTO and met with the General Director of the organization Supache Panitchpakdi. It is noted that before Kudrin, Russian Deputy Prime Ministers themselves did not directly enter into relations with this organization. In the Volgograd Regional Court, re -consideration of the case of a citizen of Russia and Italy Nadezhda Fratti and her three assistants began.

The head of the Federal Energy Commission, Georgy Kutova, said that from January 1, 2003, electricity tariffs released from the federal wholesale market of energy capacities /Forem /will be increased by 19%, RIA Novosti reports. We are talking about electricity for supersproof consumers. In addition, Kutova said that the subscriber fee of RAO "UES of Russia" will increase by about 12%.

The Gorky Automobile Plant in the coming days will suspend the production of cars until February, a source at the enterprise told Interfax. According to him, the plant workers engaged in the release of passenger cars will be first sent on vacation with the preservation of two -thirds of wages, and then on the next vacation.

As expected , Colonel Yuri Budanov was recognized as insane at the time of the murder of the Chechen girl Elsa Kungaeva. This, according to RIA Novosti, told reporters the lawyer of the defendant Anatoly Mukhin upon graduation in the court of the North Caucasus Military District the results of a psychological and psychiatric examination against Budanov. According to doctors, “organic changes in the brain” occurred at Budanov even before the murder.

Six soldiers soldiers fled from the air defense of the Moscow Region in the Podolsky district. The expert on work with military personnel of the Union of Committee of the soldiers' mothers of Russia, Lyubov Kuznetsova, told Interfax-Avn that the soldiers fled without weapons and appeared in the committee today at 9:00.

* * * Alexander Auzan , President of the Institute of National Project "Public Contract": - Instead of an hour and a half, a planned conversation, members of the commission spoke with the president for three and a half hours, and then for another twenty minutes he talked to us privately. We worked out all our planned agenda, in addition, the president answered additional questions that arose already during the conversation.

Director of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Kotlyakov said that the ecological disaster is quickly approaching the northeast of the Caspian, which will touch the Russian part of the Caspian, Interfax reports. The region’s pollution was installed using space monitoring, which is carried out by Russian astronauts observing the Earth's surface. Recall that the environmental disaster associated with oil spills has recently occurred off the coast of Spain.

Yesterday, General Director of the Magate Muhammad al-Baraday, giving a lecture at the Center for Strategic Research of the Emirates, said that Iraq could avoid a military impact. According to him, the Iraqi authorities successfully cooperate with the inspectors and so far there is no evidence of Baghdad nuclear or chemical weapons.

As a result of the special operation, the mother of the Vice President of Slavneft Jumbar Tkebuchava, abducted by unknown in the Abkhazian city of Tkvarcheli, was released, Interfax reports. The head of the Abkhaz Ministry of Internal Affairs Almasbey Kchach said that the hostage was not injured, nothing threatens her health and that there were detainees in the case of her abduction. Kchach added that no ransom was paid to criminals.