Housing money for military personnel spoiled relations between the Duma and the government The controllability of the current Duma, as it turned out, is not unlimited. The government and the presidential administration became convinced of this at the end of last week, when deputies for the first time did not show the readiness with which they have been voting for almost all executive branch initiatives over the past two years.

The Ministry of Justice is preparing to celebrate the department's 200th anniversary on a grand scale. The anniversary will take place in September, but lawyers have already begun preparations. On Friday, a board meeting of the department was held dedicated to the anniversary celebrations.

The EU approved the liberalization of the energy market By 2010, Europeans will begin a new life. Almost all of them will have a job - the EU intends to achieve almost full employment, creating 20 million new jobs. These jobs will mainly be in the high-tech industry (the European Union intends to become a world leader in this area), and they will have to work on average until they are 65 years old (currently the average retirement age in Europe is 58).

Small oil workers are trying to get into the export pipe Representatives of small and medium-sized oil and gas producing companies tried to defend their interests by adopting on Saturday a draft appeal to Vladimir Putin with a request to allow them to export 60% of the oil produced. They claim that now “export is closed for them, and there is no market inside Russia,” as a result they have to sell raw materials at a price almost lower than cost, which is quite high for them.

At the end of last week, the special representative of the UN Secretary General, the head of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Michael STEINER, paid a short working visit to Moscow. Special correspondent of the Vremya Novostei newspaper Katerina LABETSKAYA met with him. —You have only recently been in Kosovo, a few weeks. How are your impressions? — When I arrived there, the situation was stalemate: the government, which should have been elected at the end of 2001, was absent.

The mayor of Ulyanovsk acted as a “good” energy engineer Another scandal occurred in Ulyanovsk. On Friday, at the direction of Mayor Pavel Prokopenko, all objects disconnected from heat supply were reconnected. Police guards were posted around them, who were not supposed to let representatives of Ulyanovskenergo near them. According to power engineers, this situation almost led to a man-made accident - a breakdown of the hydraulic cycle at CHPP-1 and a complete shutdown of the power plant.

Far Eastern companies are trying to stop Siberia Last Friday, a ban on servicing Sibir Airlines aircraft was introduced at Vladivostok's Knevichi airport. The press service of JSC Vladivostok-Avia, which manages the airport, distributed a message about this through the local news agency Data.RU. Officially, the reason for the decisive step was the “significant debt” of Siberia.

Gazprom is being restructured The decision that was expected from the board of directors of Gazprom, which met on Friday, regarding work with media assets, did not come. The directors refused to consider the report of the general director of the Gazprom-Media holding, Boris Jordan, in the absence of the head of the concern, Alexey Miller. They also refused to discuss another announced issue - about the collegial executive body of the concern.

Capital clubs look helpless in the playoffs After the first fights between the medal race participants in the four pairs of the first round of the playoffs, a clear division into “clubs of interests” emerged. In two duels, the opponents exchanged victories, and in the series with the participation of Moscow clubs, the capital's hockey players were unable to bring home a single win.

Investigators from the prosecutor's office have completed their work in the compartments of the Kursk The Prosecutor General's Office has completed one of the most important stages of the investigation into the death of the nuclear-powered icebreaker "Kurs" - the identification of the bodies of the dead sailors and the inspection of the submarine itself. In total, 114 dead were identified; the remains of four crew members remained unfound.

Chechen separatists carried out another major attack on Friday. In the morning, in the city of Argun, a convoy of the military commandant’s office of the Grozny region was ambushed by them. A detachment of federal forces of 80 people in seven armored personnel carriers and a Ural truck was following to conduct engineering reconnaissance in the vicinity of the city. At the intersection of Sakharozavodskaya and Titov streets, powerful radio-controlled landmines went off under two lead vehicles.

The Hague Tribunal is still without documents The loud scandal surrounding the arrest of Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Momcila Perisic on charges of espionage once again recalled the acute conflict in the Belgrade leadership.

25-year-old Ukrainian heavyweight Vladimir Klitschko successfully defended his WBO world title. His opponent, South African France Botha, was defeated in the eighth round. It was not the first time that Botha came to Stuttgart, Germany, where the fight was held. The previous visit left him with pleasant memories. Then, in 1995, in front of the German public, he defeated their favorite Axel Schulz, taking away the IBF championship title from him.

Representatives of the FSB over the weekend expressed their point of view on the events in the Chechen village of Starye Atagi, whose residents held rallies throughout the past week and even staged riots in Grozny, protesting against the actions of federal forces. On March 7, during another cleansing operation, either a shootout or artillery shelling occurred on the outskirts of the village. A little later, the buried and burned corpses of seven people were found in one of the houses.

Antimonopoly fight according to Brussels recipes Berlin correspondent of the newspaper “Vremya Novostei” YURIY SHPAKOV talks with the Minister of Economy and Medium Enterprises, Energy and Transport of the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia ERNST SCHWANKHOLD. - Mr. Minister, apparently, the liberalization of the gas market in Europe has set in motion transnational energy giants. How consistent is the proposed merger between E.ON and Ruhrgas with this development logic?