Investors of Mavrodi Jr. still refuse to consider themselves deceived Yesterday, the Chertanovo Court of the capital began consideration of a criminal case against Vyacheslav Mavrodi, one of the founding brothers of the most famous Russian financial pyramid, MMM. Mavrodi appeared before the servants of Themis not for large-scale scams, but for illegal banking activities and trafficking in precious metals.

There is a new government in Kazakhstan Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Kasymzhomart Tokayev yesterday submitted his resignation to President Nursultan Nazarbayev, which he immediately accepted. According to the constitution, the entire government resigned along with the prime minister. And already in the afternoon, Mr. Nazarbayev, at a joint meeting of both chambers of parliament, proposed the candidacy of a new head of the cabinet, which the deputies immediately approved - Imangali Tasmagambetov.

The general director of the Beijing hotel and office center, Vladimir Georgiev, was killed yesterday in Moscow. According to the capital's police department, at noon the entrepreneur arrived at the Central Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics (CITO) to treat his broken leg last fall. At 13.30, immediately after the procedures, Mr. Georgiev left the CITO onto Pirogov Street and headed to his jeep. At that moment, an unknown man opened fire on him with a pistol.

Own shares in Gazprom The Ministry of Antimonopoly Policy (MAP) yesterday opened a case against Gazprombank. As the Vremya Novostey newspaper learned, the ministry is dissatisfied with the bank’s tariffs for servicing the securities of Gazprom and other issuers, as well as with interdepository settlements.

Hockey. NHL. “Montreal” – “San Jose” – 3:1 – Berezin “M” (1+0), Markov “M” (0+1), Petrov “M” (1+0), “Washington” -- "Buffalo" -- 2:3 (OT) -- Kalinin "B" (0+1), Zhitnik "B" (0+1). Sergei Berezin, who just three days ago was a Phoenix player, quickly adapted to the Canadiens. Already in his second match for Montreal, Berezin scored the winning goal against San Jose, defended by Nabokov. It is noteworthy that this puck became the 10,000th goal in the history of Montreal on home ice. Basketball.

After the next round of the Spanish championship, Celta, for which Russians Alexander Mostovoy and Valery Karpin play, rose to second place in the standings, second only to Real Madrid. In the last match of the championship, Celta beat Real Sociedad, in which Alexander MOSTOVOY responded with a double to the goal of another player of the Russian national team, Dmitry Khokhlov.

Cuban conditions will be created for an American reporter The American newspaper The Wall Street Journal received photographs of reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped in Pakistan, by email. In one of the photographs, a gun is pointed at the journalist’s head.

The President of North Ossetia remained for a second term Alexander Dzasokhov was re-elected President of North Ossetia. According to preliminary data from the Central Election Commission of the Republic of North Ossetia, almost 59% of voters voted for him last Sunday. His closest rival, Stanislav Suanov, received 27% of the votes.

The Minister of Economy of Slovakia, Lubomir Haracz, the President of the National Property Fund of Slovakia, Joseph Koida, and the Vice President of Yukos, Mikhail Brudno, signed an agreement on the purchase and sale of a 49% stake in Transpetrol for $74 million.

The Russians hope to win nine gold medals The Russian Olympic team expects to win nine gold medals at the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, which should provide it with second place in the team event. “If the German biathletes suddenly, for some reason, give in to us, then we may well compete for the first,” predicts the head of the ROC working group for coordinating preparations for the 2002 Olympics, Olympic champion Viktor Mamatov.

New Chemical Brothers album released Released the other day (January 28), the long-awaited studio album by the British electronic duo Chemical Brothers amazes from the very first bars. The title track of the album Come With Us (Gala/Virgin) begins with such nervous strings, as if this is not the extreme disco paradise of five years ago from the Chemical Brothers, but a piece by some minimalist composer.

Talk about excess oil and the need to reduce its production in Russia found unexpected confirmation in the industry's final balance sheets for 2001. It turned out that our companies produced 8.6 million tons of oil more than what was actually needed by all possible markets combined: only 339 million tons were sold out of a production of 348 million tons. Excess oil is stored in Transneft pipes, in storage facilities of factories and oil production enterprises.

“Sometimes I feel really sad because so many, infinitely many people lived on our land and died without leaving any trace. Nothing that could shout to us who live: I lived too!” This was written on the threshold of her 80th birthday by Astrid Lindgren, Sweden's most famous writer and most admired woman. She died quietly yesterday in her sleep in her Stockholm apartment, where she had lived for many decades.

The “For a United Ukraine” bloc, headed by the head of the presidential administration Vladimir Lytvyn, will become one of the leaders of the 2002 parliamentary elections - it has at its disposal a powerful administrative resource and the capital of the largest Ukrainian financial and industrial groups. Political rivals are throwing out piles of compromising evidence against Lytvyn and his associates.

"Sibal" enters St. Petersburg Siberian Aluminum, represented by its member Ruspromavto holding, won the fight for the bus market in St. Petersburg over such vehicle manufacturers as the Italian Breda, the Swedish Skania and the German Mercedes. At various times, the administration of St. Petersburg “made advances” to all these giants of the auto industry, promising to conclude an agreement with them for the supply of equipment.