Expenditures on financing the armed forces will increase next year. This was stated yesterday by Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin after a meeting with Vladimir Putin, at which he introduced the president to the parameters of the 2001 budget. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, during the conversation they discussed “budget expenditures for security forces,” issues of financing national defense and the progress in implementing Security Council decisions on reforming the Armed Forces.

Work on it has been going on for more than a year in studios in London, Los Angeles and Miami. The double-sided single entitled Holler Holler/Let Love Lead The Way will be the first joint project of the peppercorns quartet since the release of the famous Goodbye in December 1998. Following the single, a new Spice Girls album will be released in early November, the name of which is still being kept secret.

Peacekeepers arrested a Kosovo Protection Corps functionary In Kosovo, progress has been made on the investigation of crimes in which high-ranking officials of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), dissolved a year ago and transformed into the “civilian” Kosovo Protection Corps, are accused. On Wednesday, in the southeast of the region near the Macedonian border, Italian carabinieri from KFOR arrested ten former KLA militants who are suspected of extortion, smuggling and three murders.

The Greens propose that Russians make a choice between the economy and the environment A trial vote on the issues of the all-Russian environmental referendum will take place today on Arbat in Moscow and on Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg. The collection of signatures for its implementation has been going on across Russia for a month now.

Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko will no longer be officially involved in protecting the interests of domestic producers in the foreign trade arena. Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin became the chairman of the government commission on protective measures in foreign trade and customs and tariff policy instead of Mr. Khristenko.

In America they give a million to someone who can survive on cockroaches for more than a month. 39-year-old American HR specialist Richard Hatch chose probably the most unusual way to earn a million dollars. To do this, he had to spend almost 40 days on an uninhabited Malaysian island with a tropical climate, eating cockroaches and rats, competing with 15 other “lucky” people in various survival competitions.

Many regional heads will receive reports from the Investigative Committee on corruption Thursday morning at the Moscow City Hall was dedicated to corruption. As the press secretary of the capital's mayor, Sergei Tsoi, told Interfax yesterday, at a special meeting the presentation of the Investigative Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs on criminal cases brought against officials of the Moscow government was examined.

What exactly the miners have been doing over the past ten years, besides mining coal, is not easy to understand. On the one hand, they were always the first in everything. In 1989, they were the first to start mass strikes, which the Soviet people knew about only from history books and foreign reports about decaying capitalism. They were the first to show that strikes can be political.

A group of car thieves was recently neutralized by employees of the 7th Department of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department. A month ago, 32-year-old Vakhtang P., a visitor from Zugdidi, came to the attention of operatives. Detectives found out that the former famous racing driver had just been released after serving time for car theft. In Moscow, he immediately found his old “colleagues” and got back to business as usual.

In rising oil prices The United States intends to seek a reduction in world oil prices, US President Bill Clinton said yesterday. According to him, it is necessary to supply the market with “enough oil” to reduce current prices to the level of $25 per barrel.

Bailiffs seize valuables from Altaienergo Yesterday, one of the subsidiaries of RAO UES of Russia - Altaienergo - was visited by bailiffs. They came for money: the energy company owed the budgets, the Pension Fund and other creditors 219 million rubles. Creditors at one time brought claims against energy companies to the attention of arbitration courts, which made decisions on debt collection. So the bailiffs simply execute the court decision. Those.

Jewish scientist against the “Holocaust industry” Columbia University professor Norman Finkelstein enjoys the well-deserved respect of his colleagues, and until now no one has suspected him of scientific dishonesty or bias. But his new book, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, just published by Verso in London, has caused a huge scandal and numerous protests.

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Energy workers and railway workers have concluded a truce Anatoly Chubais spent more than two hours yesterday within the walls of the Ministry of Railways (MRT). After his lengthy conversation with Minister Nikolai Aksenenko, the latter shared the point of view of the Chairman of the Board of RAO UES of Russia on the problem of the debt of railway workers to power engineers. The interlocutors agreed to consider this debt equal to approximately 2 billion rubles.

A major fire occurred on Wednesday afternoon at a furniture factory in Shatura near Moscow. At one o'clock in the afternoon the boiler room there caught fire. The cause of the fire was a rupture of the pipeline through which oil was supplied to the workshop for the production of polished slabs. The oil spilled and the entire boiler room was on fire in a matter of seconds. A few minutes later, the ceiling collapsed in the boiler room, and then the fire spread to the production workshop.