The Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) of the Russian Federation issued an order to issue Sakhalin Energy Investment Co. Ltd license for the right to use part of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The license was issued to the company for “carrying out work related to hydrocarbon production at the Piltun-Astokhskoye field,” INTERFAX-ANI explained. The previous license expired on December 31, 2001, the new one will be valid until the end of 2004.

The death of the vice-governor of St. Petersburg did not change the plans of the prosecutor's office On Tuesday night, the former vice-governor of the city, 52-year-old Valery Malyshev, died in St. Petersburg. He was considered the favorite and the most obvious winner of the campaign for the election of governor of the northern capital, which will take place in 2004.

The first winners of the new national award “Radiomania” have been named. It was established in March by the Radio Guild of the Media Union together with the Ministry of Communications and Information. 140 radio companies took part in the competition, presenting 800 works. The finalists, who were determined on April 25, included more than 50 central and regional television and radio companies.

On April 19-22, 2002, the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) conducted a representative express survey of 1,600 Russians. The distribution of answers to some questions in this study is given in percentages. The statistical error of such surveys is within 4%.

The oil company LUKOIL is ready to take part in oil projects in Iran. As INTERFAX-ANI was informed by the LUKOIL press service, company president Vagit Alekperov announced this in Moscow at a meeting with Iranian Ambassador Golam-Reza Shafei. The latter, in turn, noted that Iran intends to develop technical and economic cooperation with Russia, especially in the oil and gas sector.

The 25th chapter of the Tax Code (on taxation of profits), which came into force in January, was supposed to have a beneficial effect on the insurance market: enterprises are now allowed to attribute insurance premiums for a wide range of types of insurance in full to the cost of production (previously they made deductions from profits).

A memorandum of intent to create a joint venture between the Russian Aluminum company, a number of Brazilian enterprises, and General Electric is planned to be signed in Moscow during the visit of Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. As a source close to the negotiation process told INTERFAX , the joint venture will produce products necessary for the implementation of the plan for the development of power transmission lines in Brazil.

Provincial clubs spare no expense on home-grown stars The four-round tournament of the Russian Women's Super League teams is nearing completion. Unlike previous seasons, this year it seems that gold medals for the first time can go to a non-capital club. The national champion of the last four years, Dynamo Moscow, looks painfully inexpressive.

Lawyer Artem Kosogov, who represented the interests of entrepreneur Vilor Struganov - one of the main characters in the criminal epic of the former head of KrAZ Anatoly Bykov, was killed yesterday morning in Krasnoyarsk. The attack on him took place at about eight in the morning in the entrance of his house, when the defender was heading to work at a legal consultation. The circumstances of the assassination attempt are still unknown - neighbors found Mr. Kosogov already dead with a broken head.

The Germans like that Gazprom is focusing on its core business The German concern Ruhrgas, which owns 5% of Gazprom shares, is ready to consider the possibility of increasing this share only after the Russian government decides to liberalize the concern's share market, Ruhrgas CEO Burkhard Bergmann said yesterday at the annual press conference.

The adjustment of tariffs for natural monopolies in 2002 will take place in two stages. As the head of the Federal Energy Commission, Georgy Kutovoy, told INTERFAX , gas tariffs are expected to increase by 25% in February and by 20% in July. At the same time, he emphasized, in order to derive the average annual indexation rate, these figures cannot be automatically added up. In general, for the year the increase will not exceed 35%, as was established by the government.

The bankruptcy manager of Promstroibank (PSB) Vladimir Bovkun filed an application for dismissal from office for health reasons with the Moscow Arbitration Court. The law firm Schmidt Consulting reported this to RBC . At the same time, Sergei Vacca, Andrei Glazkov (former bankruptcy manager of National Credit Bank) and Yuri Krasnoperov submitted applications to the Central Bank for a certificate for the right to work as an arbitration manager at Promstroibank.

Russian tennis player can become the first racket of the world This week there are two major tournaments for men and women. Tennis players are vying for the title of the Masters series competition in Rome with a prize fund of 2 million 950 thousand US dollars, and the fairer sex entered the fight at the first category tournament in Berlin, Germany, and are playing for 1 million 224 thousand dollars.

The Gazprom board identified the Yamal Peninsula as a region of the company’s strategic interests until 2010 and decided by July to approve a program of geological exploration at the sites in the Ob and Taz Bays, as well as the Priyamal shelf with a total increase in gas reserves to 2.5 trillion cubic meters. m. In addition, Gazprom intends to bring the Zapolyarnoye field to the design gas extraction volume of 100 billion cubic meters. m per year.

Late yesterday evening, the Russian national hockey team completed a match against the Czech national team. Considering the frankly weak play of our team, we can assume that the quarterfinals will be the last game of the tournament for the Russians. On the eve of the quarterfinals, our hockey players added pessimism, completely losing the last match of the group tournament to the Slovak team - 4:6.