Hundreds of residential buildings, hospitals, dormitories, and children's institutions in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region were left without electricity for several hours on Sunday. In addition, the accident resulted in a blackout of heat, regular and mobile telephone communications throughout the Karelian Isthmus. As a correspondent of the Vremya Novostei newspaper was told at Lenenergo, according to preliminary data, one of the transformer substations near St.

ORT shares came under state control At the end of last week it became clear that the issue of transferring 49% of ORT shares under state control was finally resolved. On Thursday evening, news agencies sparsely informed that, according to a government order, the Ministry of Property (it is this department that manages 51% of the state stake in ORT) was instructed to recommend 11 representatives for inclusion in the list of candidates for the board of directors of the television company.

The American army has become the most democratic institution in the United States The most successful undertaking of the US armed forces is considered to be the integration of national minorities, and above all blacks, who participated in all American wars, but before Korea only as part of separate black units. During the Second World War, for example, a unit of black fighter pilots distinguished themselves by not losing a single bomber they accompanied in Europe.

Happy is the one who finds his gift on the morning of January 1st under the Christmas tree. Or under the pillow... Or it’s even cool when drunk Santa Claus takes it out of the magic bag. However, this year (obviously on the occasion of the millennium) everything was different. A customs official gave me a New Year's gift. This joyful event was preceded by not exactly New Year's adventures...

The new US administration will be composed of people with a colorful past The process of forming the presidential administration of George W. Bush, which has been going on for the last few weeks without interruption, has become no less scandalous than the month-long summing up of the election results.

The Ukrainian opposition intends to prove the president’s involvement in it A huge political scandal in Ukraine related to the disappearance in September of Georgy Gongadze, editor-in-chief of the opposition online newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda, is approaching a denouement. Yesterday, President Leonid Kuchma officially admitted that Gongadze was dead.

The Russian company decided to publicly quarrel with BP A black cat ran between the largest Russian oil company LUKOIL and the transnational oil concern BP. LUKOIL is unhappy that its shares are among the assets being urgently sold by the concern around the world.

Duran Duran musicians turned out to be quite alive The more time passes from the moment when childhood love for artists ended and the period of “creation of idols” gave way to iconoclasm, the less I want to see those same idols alive. Well, what else have they released there? Still alive? What year is it? Listen to the new album... yes, nothing... they have made a lot of progress... a unique style of performance... Ah, times are changing... ten years ago humanity would have appreciated it!

Excise taxes on alcohol will be divided equally In a month or a month and a half, a new system for collecting taxes on alcoholic beverages will be launched in Russia. Instead of wholesale warehouses, alcohol will pass through newly organized excise warehouses, and the burden of excise duty will be equally distributed between these warehouses and producers (until now, excise taxes were paid exclusively by producers).

Conflicts between the military and civilians due to damage caused by the army regularly occur in Western countries. A typical example is Norway, our northern neighbor, NATO's Arctic outpost. Litigation against local authorities for damage caused during military exercises has arisen there quite often in the past.

Everyone understands perfectly well that agriculture is a subsidized sector of the economy, and in any case we need a mechanism for financing the agro-industrial complex oriented towards this. But the compensation scheme does not work today. We are considering quite a large number of projects for financing agricultural producers, and I have not yet seen a single borrower who would come with such guarantees that the state will pay part of the interest for him and that he expects subsidies.

The Ministry of Defense will have to fork out The Ministry of Defense, it seems, will have to pay for the first time for damage caused during a military operation. According to the decision of the Sunzhensky District Court of Ingushetia, the Ministry of Defense must compensate residents of the region for damages from “illegal actions of military personnel during the anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya.” The court's decision could significantly affect the army's financial position.

The system of subsidizing rates was tested last year at a number of agricultural enterprises. The new procedure, developed by the Ministry of Agriculture together with the Ministry of Finance, significantly expands the range of organizations that can receive loans at a preferential rate, and also creditor banks.

The fate of the kidnappers is unknown The most senior Chechen hostage in recent times, Doctors Without Borders representative Kenneth Gluck, was released by security services in the vicinity of Grozny. According to FSB representatives, the operation to rescue the American from the hands of criminals took place on Sunday night. After this, Kenneth Gluck, who spent almost a month in captivity, was transported to one of the federal forces bases, where doctors took care of him.

Beijing sent its microbes into space Yesterday at 1 am Beijing time, China launched the Shenzhou-2 spacecraft into space, taking another step towards the cherished goal of creating its own manned space program. Although there were no people on board Shenzhou 2, the ship was not completely uninhabited - animals and microorganisms went into space. Secrecy took its toll - the list of “passengers” and their number were not made public.