Having left Sakhalin, rejoicing in connection with the 55th anniversary of the island's liberation from Japanese invaders, Vladimir Putin arrived straight to Tokyo yesterday. The Russian president's usual manner of carrying bad weather with him everywhere brought serious relief to Tokyo residents. Saturday unexpectedly turned out to be the hottest day of the entire year - 44 degrees during the day, 32 at night.

Former speaker of the Chechen parliament Ruslan Alikhadzhiev died of a heart attack in the capital's Lefortovo prison, the France Presse news agency reported. Alikhadzhiev, a field commander who enjoyed some influence in Chechnya, disappeared without a trace in May of this year. Then the media, citing Russian special services, announced an operation to capture him. It was alleged that the arrest was carried out by special forces under the cover of helicopters and armored vehicles.

British football clubs are getting deeper into the Internet According to the English magazine Business 2.0, since 2001, British football clubs for the first time have the opportunity to broadcast live the most important matches on their official websites.

The MICEX has distributed a rating of the leading operators of the exchange market of freely convertible currencies for August. In dollar trading, the list of leaders in terms of total net turnover in SELT was headed by Sobinbank, which occupied 2nd place in July. The former leader - Avtobank - dropped to 5th place. Rosbank moved to second position from fourth. Alfa Bank moved up to 3rd place from 5th, and Trust and Investment Bank moved up to 4th from 6th. AUTHOR

Western experts associate the upward trend in world prices for platinum group metals with the irregular supply of these metals from Russia. The closed nature of this market contributes to the emergence of various rumors and assumptions. To provide some clarity, special correspondent of the Vremya Novostey newspaper Anastasia NARYSHKINA turned to the First Deputy General Director of RAO Norilsk Nickel Dmitry ZELENIN, and he answered her questions.

Abkhazia becomes popular with tourists despite curfew For the first time since the Georgian-Abkhaz war, Russian citizens began to be interested in holidays in Gagra, Pitsunda and Sukhumi. Before the war, the 500,000-strong population of Abkhazia was replenished with approximately a million vacationers during the season. This summer the figure was ten times lower. But this was also a record for the last few seasons.

Moscow found help for him The legendary Lev of Pandshera - the leader of the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Massoud - on Saturday left the front of the battle with the Taliban in the Afghan province of Takhor for several hours to arrive in the Tajik capital to meet with Boris Shikhmuradov, the special representative of the President of Turkmenistan for the Caspian Sea and the Afghan settlement. The two-hour rendezvous, held at the Dushanbe Hotel, was private.

City Day was held in Moscow for the 14th time The tragic events of the end of August had a direct impact on the capital’s next birthday. On the eve of City Day, Moscow was clearly not in time for a holiday.

Oleg Mozhaiskov is now responsible for the exchange rate policy of the Central Bank The head (now former) of the foreign exchange department of Rosbank, Vladimir Sokolov, was appointed director of the foreign exchange operations department of the Bank of Russia. He already worked at the Central Bank from 1992 to January of this year (he resigned from the post of deputy head of the foreign exchange department of the foreign operations department) and moved to Rosbank.

Deputies defeated smoking in a separate part of the country The concern of the people's representatives for the health and well-being of their people is truly immeasurable. Parliamentarians, in a noble impulse, strive to forcibly make a strongly resisting nation happy, improve its health and wean it from bad habits.

Kafelnikov and Kournikova joined Agassi. Offside The US Open added more sensations over the weekend. ATP ranking leader Gustavo Kuerten, who was eliminated at the very start of the tournament, was joined by US Open-99 champion Andre Agassi, as well as Russians Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Anna Kournikova. Agassi was defeated in the second round by 22-year-old Frenchman Arnaud Clement. It was Clement who not so long ago, at a tournament in Cincinnati, butchered Kafelnikov.

The creation of the American “shield” is postponed indefinitely The first practical result of President Clinton's decision announced Friday not to begin preparations for construction of the first component of the nation's missile defense system, the radar on Shemya Island in the western Aleutian chain, will be that the system will not be completed by 2005.

The cheapness of Abkhazian resorts can be quite expensive for Russia. Of course, for any of its citizens individually, the choice of a summer vacation destination is a purely personal matter: freedom of movement is one of the main human rights guaranteed by the constitution. No one can prohibit spending your vacation even in Chechnya - this is, as they say, a matter of taste.

In Rostov-on-Don, the city employment service began sending the unemployed to help local police officers. At first, they were assigned the simplest duties: the unemployed registered citizens' statements, delivered summonses, conducted office work, and inspected attics and basements of high-rise buildings. The first experience turned out to be so successful that in the near future the number of unemployed people employed in this type of work will double.

Railway workers and power engineers do not understand each other The reconciliation of mutual debts carried out by the Ministry of Railways and RAO UES of Russia yielded unusually contradictory results. Employees of the two departments now disagree not only about the amount of debt, but also about whether the reconciliation was carried out at all.