High-income regions are unhappy with the budget The discussion of the draft budget for 2001 does not yet promise the government any hope for the speedy adoption of the main financial law. Duma deputies are not satisfied with the forecast of macroeconomic indicators - underestimated inflation, underestimated assessments of the situation on the oil market and, as a consequence, underestimated income. The government does not agree.

Coaches have to solve the same problem In any case, the 2000 Olympics will go down in the history of Russian basketball. Oddly enough, this is where the Russian men's team will make its Olympic debut as an independent team. In Barcelona 92, the United Team of the Former Soviet Republics competed under the Olympic flag. It was that team “without a flag, without an anthem, without a name,” as its coach Yevgeny Gomelsky put it, that won the women’s competition.

City authorities act as homeowners The Moscow government intends to revive the pre-revolutionary housing business - apartment buildings. Apartments in these buildings will be rented to citizens, but they will belong to the city, and it will be impossible to buy out the rented “meters”. The first apartment building - a six-story building with 49 apartments - is already under construction in the city center on Serebryanichesky Lane.

In Russia, much of what works normally in other countries takes exotic forms and, as if existing, does not work at all. This is manifested with especially iron consistency in multi-party construction. On the one hand, there are significantly more parties registered with the Ministry of Justice than the country can feed. On the other hand, according to the general opinion, there is only one party similar to the real one, and that one is communist. That is, the situation is the same as with banks.

At the desk The confrontation between the head of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, and his former first deputy, Bislan Gantamirov, seems to have exhausted the Kremlin’s patience. Russian presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky said yesterday: “The conflict has reached the stage where a decision must be made.” According to him, Moscow supports Kadyrov. But, Mr.

The Georgian-Abkhaz settlement has stalled again Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, speaking on national radio on Monday, reproached Russia for disrupting the Abkhaz settlement. According to the President of Georgia, the document on determining the status of Abkhazia within a united Georgia, which was supposed to be considered in the UN Security Council, was removed from discussion precisely because of Moscow.

Vladimir Putin checked his security in the case Vladimir Putin had a rare opportunity to see his own bodyguards in real action on Monday. In the evening, when the president was walking from the Kremlin to his residence, on Kutuzovsky Prospekt his motorcade was unexpectedly “attacked” by a drunken and, obviously, therefore fearless motorist. What he wanted - either to simply “chase” with the presidential Mercedes, or to talk with the head of state - is still not known for certain.

A paradoxical situation has developed in Belarus on the eve of the parliamentary elections. The opposition managed to agree on the division of districts, and the party in power in most of them is represented by two candidates. As a rule, one delegated by the local vertical, the second represents the central government.

Increased interest in the fashionable topic of online trading has caused a wave of publications, which, according to experts, have completely confused the audience. According to Ivan Sitnikov, executive director of the Moscow office of Natinvest Securities, an elementary shift in concepts has occurred. What is meant throughout the world by the term “Internet broker” simply does not exist in Russia.

The redistribution of cellular frequencies has begun The largest cellular operators in Moscow - VimpelCom (trademark Bee Line) and Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) - yesterday expressed bewilderment at the withdrawal of part of the radio frequencies assigned to them. The two companies compete fiercely with each other and therefore rarely see eye to eye on any problem in the telecommunications business.

On September 12, in Rostov-on-Don, the Minister of Labor and Social Development Alexander Pochinok held a meeting with the heads of regional employment services in the South of Russia. From Pochinok’s words, it became clear that the employment service will undergo a major reform in the new year. After the introduction of the unified social tax, the employment service will no longer independently collect contributions to its fund.

De Beers remains market leader Yesterday in Moscow, the South African corporation De Beers presented a new marketing strategy in the presence of its Russian partners. As corporate executive director Gary Reif said at the presentation, De Beers is not going to give up its position in the market: it remains committed to the principle of maintaining market stability and increasing diamond prices. Mr.

The new comedy "Big Momma's House" does not shine with originality It would seem that making a very bad and completely unfunny comedy is not so easy. There are too many stages to go through: writing the script, reaching an agreement with the producer, and selecting the actors. Shoot day after day, month after month, scene after scene. Edit, voice-over and release. During this time you will have time to change your mind a hundred times.

Russia needs money to develop transport The transport ministers of Russia, Iran and India signed an agreement yesterday in St. Petersburg on the creation of a North-South transport corridor. According to the calculations of the Ministry of Transport, along the corridor through Astrakhan, ferry crossing across the Caspian Sea, the ports of Iran and India, it is possible to transport from 16 to 40 million tons of cargo per year, and the time gain compared to traditional routes is 10-12 days.

Russian Internet companies are expanding their material part Companies that develop Runet content have seriously taken up its real infrastructure. Yesterday, one of the market leaders Port.ru, which gained first fame with its free email system Mail.ru, signed an agreement with the world leader in computer engineering, IBM, to supply 130 Netfinity servers for a total of $1 million. The agreement was preceded by a tender in which such giants as Hewlett-Packard, Compaq and Dell participated.