Issues of reforming the Russian electric power industry continue to be discussed in high offices. According to the Vremya Novostey newspaper, on Tuesday Vladimir Putin met with the foreign shareholders of RAO UES of Russia and Lenenergo, which was also attended by presidential adviser Andrei Illarionov and the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade German Gref. There are two versions regarding who initiated the meeting. According to the first, this is Mr.

Ecology has quarreled the presidential family Conflict is brewing in the Bush family. The US administration has just announced plans to increase oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. In accordance with the new energy strategy, the government intends to lease up to 600 thousand hectares of shelf space for these purposes, and then attract private companies to its development.

Trading in shares of the gas concern moves to the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange The conflict that flared up between the main trading platform for Gazprom shares - the Moscow Stock Exchange - and Gazprombank and the Depository and Settlement Union, which provide depository services for these operations (see the Vremya Novostei newspaper of June 28) , threatens to shift the main trading activity to Saint Petersburg.

The American company Apple has stopped producing professional desktop computers Power Mac G4 in a futuristic-looking cubic case. This decision in the company's press release is explained by the fact that most buyers prefer to purchase the Power Mac G4 in a regular case. According to Olga Izmailova, head of the marketing department at DPI, Apple's distributor in Russia, in the domestic market less than 10% of Power Mac G4 sales are in cubes.

Oslo is waiting for plans from Moscow for the operation to raise the Kursk. Yesterday, the ship “Rudnitsky” set off from Severomorsk to the site of the sinking of the nuclear-powered icebreaker “Kursk”, on board of which there are specialists involved in the problems of nuclear energy and radiation safety. Before divers arrive at the Kursk recovery site, they will conduct thorough environmental monitoring.

The 36th Karlovy Vary Film Forum opens today In Soviet times, film festivals in Karlovy Vary and Moscow were considered great friends: they were even held every other year, alternating so that, God forbid, rivalry would arise between the western and eastern wings of the socialist camp. In post-Soviet times, festivals became annual (first Karlovy Vary, then Moscow), and a desperate battle began for scraps from the Cannes, Venice and Berlin tables.

The Kremlin again remembered plans to conduct an inventory of state assets and liabilities. The corresponding instruction was given to the Ministry of Finance, but Alexei Kudrin’s department failed to cope with it.

The procedure for paying depositors will be accelerated Private depositors of liquidated banks will soon be able to receive most of their funds even before the bankruptcy proceedings are completed. Yesterday, the State Duma adopted in the third and final reading a bill according to which individuals will be able to return their deposits within two months from the date the bank was declared bankrupt. Their expectations can only be clouded by the lack of funds in the bankruptcy trustee’s account.

The European fencing championship is taking place in the German city of Koblenz, in which the Russian team is also participating. After the first day of competition among foil fencers and epee fencers, the best result among our fencers was shown by Sydney Olympic champion Pavel Kolobkov. He was the only one of four Russian epee fencers who managed to reach the playoffs and won a bronze medal.

Vladimir Putin will not be ashamed to appear to the G8 Today, with a clear conscience, Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin is flying to Rome, where the finance ministers of the G8 countries are coming to the summit.

Former members of the State Emergency Committee decided to mark the tenth anniversary of the events of August 1991 in advance. Yesterday they gathered in the editorial office of the Patriot newspaper, where portraits of the initiators of the failed coup hang in the place of honor. The most famous of the putschists, State Duma deputy Anatoly Lukyanov, did not appear at the meeting.

Severstal appointed its CEO to UAZ The board of directors of the Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant (UAZ) recently decided to change the general director. Pavel Lezhankin, who has headed the company for the last nine years, is retiring. His place is taken by 33-year-old Eduard Shpakovsky, who has worked at UAZ since October last year as financial director. This is the first time that, with the arrival of a new investor at the car plant, the former manager leaves the enterprise.

Abkhazia is expecting a new confrontation According to the Vremya Novostey newspaper, partisan field commanders in Western Georgia have begun recruiting new militias in order, as one of them said, “to give the Abkhazians a hot winter.” According to one of the recruiters, the number of those who would like to fight with arms in their hands to restore the territorial integrity of the country has “increased noticeably.” The commander of the Russian peacekeepers (1,600 people), General Sergei

There were too many applicants OJSC Volkhov Aluminum and OJSC Pikalevskoe Association Glinozem (Leningrad Region) have almost completed their merger. Yesterday the general board of directors of the enterprise, called “Metallurg”, was elected. As a result, influential entrepreneur Alexander Sabadash, who at the beginning of the year was involved in the management and control of both enterprises, was finally removed from their financial flows.

President Kuchma wants Tymoshenko to fire the prime minister Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for the fuel and energy complex Yulia Tymoshenko found herself on the verge of resignation after Prosecutor General Mikhail Potebenko sent a resolution to President Kuchma on Tuesday to remove her from office. Two criminal cases have been opened against Tymoshenko, and she can use her official position to influence the investigation, the prosecutor general believes.