Slavneft reaches an agreement with the leadership of Belarus Yuri Sukhanov's first visit as president of Slavneft to Belarus, which took place yesterday, outlined problems that the parties intend to resolve in the near future. This is the modernization of the Mozyr Oil Refinery, which is part of the oil company, oil supplies to Belarus and participation in the privatization of the republic’s petrochemical enterprises.

"O.G.I." published a collection of prose by Sergei Soloukh Sergei Soloukh has a strange fate. There is probably no greater “Westerner” and modernist in Russia now than this Kemerovo prose writer. Who else believes so sacredly in the intrinsic value of the poetic word? Who is always ready to endlessly twist metaphorical garlands, reveling in the play of the subtlest sound and semantic shades?

The head of the Georgian Foreign Ministry is alarmed by Russian “amateur activities” Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Irakli MENAGARISHVILI answered questions from his own correspondent of the Vremya Novostey newspaper in Tbilisi, Mikhail VIGNANSKY. -- Georgian-Russian relations are again going through difficult times. Moscow is talking about militants in Pankisi, Tbilisi is talking about the bombing of Georgian territory...

The Seventh Continent will not go to the regions while there is a place in Moscow One of the largest retail networks in the capital, the Seventh Continent company, announced yesterday that in the next two years it will invest almost all of its profits in the development of the Moscow network. In addition, there has been a trend toward a significant increase in turnover: in 2001 it amounted to $201.5 million, which is 70 million more than in 2000.

Discussions about the status of the Caspian Sea have no end in sight The next summit of the “Caspian Five” (Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan) will take place in Tehran, although it is not known when. But we know exactly when and where the next meeting of the pentalateral special working group (AWG) on the Caspian Sea at the level of special representatives of heads of state will take place - in November in Baku.

IBM has decided to acquire the consulting division of PricewaterhouseCoopers. The transaction amount will be $3.5 billion (in 2000, PWC negotiated the sale of its consulting business to Hewlett-Packard for $18 billion), while about 30 thousand employees of the PWC division will move to IBM's most profitable division - Global Services (Global currently has about 320 thousand employees), reports AP.

Boris Mikhailov is not ready to lead the Russian national team for free The tiresome soap opera entitled “Appointment of a new head coach of the Russian national hockey team” continues. It was expected that yesterday at a meeting of the executive committee of the Russian Hockey Federation, the long-awaited end to this matter would be reached.

Top Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe started the British Commonwealth Games in Manchester with a new world record. He swam the 400m freestyle in 3:40.08, which was 9 hundredths of a second better than his previous achievement. The brilliant swimmer has his sights set on the competition's top seven honors. He admits that such a result is unlikely to be achieved, but there is a great desire to break the record of Susie O'Neill , who won six gold medals at one Commonwealth Games. Vladimir ILYIN

The Russian President appointed a Georgian highlander The top leadership of Russia, it seems, has decided to launch a “general offensive” against the Georgian authorities on the issue of resolving the problem of the Pankisi Gorge, where, according to our special services, the main forces of Chechen militants have long settled.

Ballot boxes will eventually disappear completely. At the next Duma and presidential elections, approximately a third of the country's polling stations will do without them. Chairman of the Central Election Commission Alexander Veshnyakov announced this yesterday.

Census doesn't mean the end of the world The Moscow Patriarchate called on Russians to take part in the All-Russian Population Census, scheduled for this fall. According to the Russian Orthodox Church, the census should be taken: this is a matter of national importance, which, moreover, has nothing to do with the end of the world.

It's a huge event in the WNBA. In the match between the Los Angeles Sparks and the Miami Sol, home team center Lisa Laisley made the first dunk in WNBA history. This historic event for women's professional basketball took place in 4 minutes. 44 sec. until the end of the first half, and in the very first minute break a real celebration of the athlete was arranged. Laisley had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

Smoke over Moscow is harmless, but still dangerous Moscow was covered with a smoky cloud. Yesterday it was no longer possible not to notice it with the naked eye: visibility in the city in the morning dropped to 1 kilometer or less, and even nearby buildings were lost in the yellow haze. And the persistent smell of burning, which was felt even in the northwestern regions of the capital farthest from the peat bogs burning near Shatura, indicated that the atmosphere in the air was far from normal.

Subway service will be restored this weekend The inconveniences faced by residents of southwest Moscow due to the repair of the metro bridge will end even earlier than the city authorities promised. Most likely, train service to Yugo-Zapadnaya will be restored on August 3, and not on August 6, as previously planned. Yesterday, the renovated bridge, as well as the renovated Vorobyovy Gory station, closed almost 20 years ago, was received from the builders by the state commission.

Claims against the founder of Soyuzplodimport CJSC and chairman of the board of directors of the SPI group Yuri Shefler, who was recently put on the federal wanted list, were explained yesterday by representatives of the Prosecutor General's Office. As it turned out, the businessman was charged in absentia with threatening to kill.