Venezuelan oil workers raise world prices An unusual labor conflict has broken out in Venezuela as top managers of the state oil company PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela) are on strike. The strike has already led to disruptions in the supply of fuel within the country and threatens to lead to disruptions in the fulfillment of the international obligations of one of the founders of OPEC and the fourth world exporter of oil (in addition, Venezuela is the largest supplier of oil to the US market).

The Duma is waiting for amendments to the law on investing pension funds The Pension Fund has money, and the Pension Fund is already investing it in government securities, extracting income. The head of the fund, Mikhail Zurabov, announced this yesterday. Meanwhile, there is still no law on investing pension funds: its draft is being prepared in the Duma for the second reading, which is impossible without amendments from the government.

If the Council of Europe does not rein in Moldovan nationalists The Council of Europe rapporteurs on Moldova arrived in Chisinau - on April 24, PACE will discuss the situation in the republic. The day before, the Moldovan leadership sent an appeal to the Chairman of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, Antanas Valionis, in which he asked to urgently appoint a group of observers.

Russians do not trust the authorities - neither their own nor the American ones International affairs It looks like March is becoming a fatal month for Russian-American relations. This March, the attitude of Russians towards America has dropped to a low level not seen since the spring of 1999, when the Americans “ironed” Yugoslavia.

Metallurg Magnitogorsk became the bronze medalist of the Russian hockey championship. The match for third place was a repeat of last year's final, and again the hockey players from Magnitogorsk were stronger. In the first game of the “bronze” series, Magnitogorsk played a draw with Omsk Avangard, and won the second with a score of 2:0. Konstantin IVANOV

Israeli parents don't know how to protect their children In Israel, where the anti-terrorist operation continues, a three-week school holiday dedicated to the Passover holiday ended yesterday. Never before have parents waited for the resumption of classes with such horror and anxiety for their children. Anyone can become a victim of Palestinian extremists, and the main question now is how to protect children.

Our men's tennis team in Moscow defeated Sweden with a score of 4:1 and will meet the Argentine team in the semifinals on September 20-22 on their court in the Russian capital. On the third game day of the Russia-Sweden match, the two singles matches had no meaning. The Russians were leading 3:0 after two days and secured an overall victory.

Yuri Kara wanted to scare, but it turned out funny Last weekend, the 5 Star multiplex cinema showed Harry Potter and Monsters, Inc. during the day, and in the evening they changed the repertoire to more adult and radical films.

The European Table Tennis Championship has ended in Zagreb, Croatia. The Russians have only one set of bronze medals. Svetlana Ganina and Irina Palina won awards in women's doubles. For men, the continental champion was 21-year-old German Timo Boll. He was lucky with the tournament bracket. Ball avoided meetings with such authorities as Belarusian Vladimir Samsonov, Croatian Zoran Primorac, Swede Jan-Ove Waldner. True, the famous masters of the small racket did not perform very well.

For the fourth time in the last two years, 46-year-old Moscow homeless Valery Trofimov climbed the support of the Crimean Bridge in Moscow. Having climbed the multi-meter structure yesterday morning, he traditionally asked passers-by to call the police and rescuers and, as always, made demands, if not fulfilled he threatened to jump down. Since the summer of 2000, Trofimov has climbed the supports of the Crimean Bridge three times.

Two seats on the Russian ship will be given to foreigners The second space tourist is almost ready for flight and should go to Baikonur on April 13 to get acquainted with the ship in which he will go into orbit. Yesterday, an interdepartmental commission approved the candidacy of South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth as a crew member of the third short-term expedition to the International Space Station.

Saddam Hussein stopped oil exports Iraq has kept its promise to stop oil exports for a month in protest against military action in Palestine. As Saddam Hussein said on local television, “this measure is directed exclusively against the Zionist community and the aggressive US administration, but not against anyone else.” World oil prices reacted to this news immediately: May futures rose in price by almost 5% - from $26.4 to $27.43 per barrel of Brent.

Afghan Defense Minister Almost Blown Up Yesterday's attempt on the life of Afghan Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim showed that Karzai's transitional government has powerful opponents who are determined to take decisive action. A bomb exploded on a main street in Jalalabad, killing four and injuring more than 20 passers-by as they greeted the minister on his way from the airport to the governor's residence.

One of the largest batches of counterfeit special stamps for strong alcoholic beverages was seized on Friday by employees of the Main Directorate for Economic Crimes of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the capital's Department for Economic Crimes. A few weeks ago, detectives learned that some people were offering an almost unlimited number of stamps for a very reasonable fee - officially each of them costs 12 rubles, but the businessmen asked for half that - only five and a half rubles.

Residents of the capital were terrorized by repeat offenders The mystery of the “Khovrinsky maniac”, who brought fear to the capital for almost six months, was solved by employees of the Koptevo Department of Internal Affairs. For six months, bodies of women with broken heads were found in the Southern and Northern districts of the city, which caused a wave of rumors about the emergence of a new serial killer.