Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov was summoned yesterday for questioning by the Prosecutor General's Office. The ministry confirmed this to the Vremya Novostey newspaper, saying that Mr. Adamov is a witness in a criminal case initiated on the facts of illegal export of technologies and scientific and technical information.

Sergei Sobyanin, who became governor of the Tyumen region last Sunday, became widely known last summer. Then the Federation Council actively opposed Vladimir Putin’s administrative reform. The Senate has twice rejected presidential laws that would push governors to the margins of political life. Mr. Sobyanin was then chairman of the Khanty-Mansiysk District Duma and headed the Senate Legislation Committee. It was his committee that was responsible for issues of administrative reform.

Chechen achievements are presented to European parliamentarians The PACE delegation led by Lord Judd is making its next tour of the North Caucasus.

Residents of Vladivostok took to the streets “Despite the energy crisis, not a single pumping station has been defrosted in Vladivostok. Heat continues to flow into the homes of Vladivostok residents, and we hope to get through the winter without any social explosions,” said the governor of the Primorsky Territory, Evgeny Nazdratenko, the other day. And on Monday, several hundred residents of Vladivostok blocked the federal highway, demanding an end to hours-long power outages.

The Kremlin won the first elections of the new year Leonid Roketsky, who served as governor of the Tyumen region since 1993, became the first loser in the new year. He lost the gubernatorial election to the First Deputy Presidential Plenipotentiary Representative in the Ural Federal District, Sergei Sobyanin. Already according to the results of the first round, Mr. Sobyanin managed to significantly outstrip all his six rivals and enlist the support of 51.32% of voters.

The channel for the illegal supply of large quantities of Indian sapphires to Russia was blocked last weekend by employees of the Main Directorate for Economic Crimes and the Investigative Committee (IC) under the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. As it turned out, the precious stones were delivered to us by a jeweler from the USA, and one of the managers of Sheremetyevo-2 airport helped him with this. FSB operatives were the first to become interested in the enterprising American.

The new tax system has only been in effect for two weeks. Despite such a short period of time, Vladimir Putin has already instructed the government to further consider the issues of the unified social tax and the new income tax scale. Yesterday, at a meeting with members of the Cabinet of Ministers, the President said that many business leaders are dissatisfied with the new procedure for taxing the wage fund. In addition, Mr.

Saratov Governor Dmitry Ayatskov never tires of delighting his subordinates and the rest of Russia with his new ideas. No sooner had the new anthem played out on television on New Year’s Eve than the results of the competition for its best performance had already been summed up in Mr. Ayatskov’s domain. The best “hymn singers” of the Saratov region were members of the Governor’s Choral Music Ensemble, who will be awarded the first prize in the amount of 100 minimum salaries.

The head of the Tyumen election commission is confident in the need to specify it The campaign for the election of governor of the Tyumen region can be considered the dirtiest in the last five years. In any case, this is the opinion of the chairman of the election commission of the Tyumen region, Valery Serkov, who shared his impressions of the campaign with a correspondent of the Vremya Novostey newspaper. According to Mr.

And then it will fall into the hands of his authorized representatives The issue of free circulation of agricultural land will not be resolved in the near future. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture Alexei Gordeev sent a letter to the State Duma stating that the Land Code, prepared by the Duma of the first convocation in 1994, cannot serve as a basis for a political compromise.

American sect began cloning people The little-known American company Clonaid, which calls itself a biotech company, has excited the whole world. Representatives of the company said that they were going to clone a person. And quite soon: according to “biotechnicians”, a cloned baby will be born in the first half of the year. The company has more than a hundred requests for copies of human babies.

Operatives of the capital's RUBOP detained several days ago the leaders of the Kuntsevo criminal group, 50-year-old Boris Yastrebtsov and 41-year-old Mikhail Soskin. During a search of Yastrebtsov, detectives found about 50 grams of heroin and an F-1 grenade, and his companion had a Polish-made Radom-VIS-35 9-mm pistol with a loaded clip and several doses of cocaine. Yastrebtsov, known in criminal circles as Borya Yastreb, has four convictions.

Investigators do not leave Media-Most employees alone Yesterday marked unprecedented activity for investigators from the Prosecutor General's Office conducting an investigation into the activities of the Media-Most holding and its head Vladimir Gusinsky. In the morning, the head of the financial department of the holding, Anton Titov, was invited for questioning, which lasted the whole day.

I have an extremely negative attitude towards this “sensation” of cloning babies. And it is now difficult to count on successful human cloning. The problem has several aspects. For example, the yield percentage is only 2%. That is, to get one mouse, you will need a hundred foster mothers. And for a person this is almost two hundred mothers. Not to mention the fact that an exact copy will not work. Yes, cloned animals were obtained.

Discussion on the Caspian Sea moves to a new level Victor Kalyuzhny was expected in the Iranian capital with some tension. The second trip of the Caspian representative of President Putin to Tehran took place literally a few days after the signing of a bilateral Russian-Azerbaijani Declaration on cooperation in the Caspian Sea in Baku. The Iranians were apparently impressed both by this document itself and by the atmosphere of the negotiations between Putin and Azerbaijani President Aliyev.