Pensions have increased by 9% since yesterday. The government carried out their planned indexation, which will require monthly additional 4.72 billion rubles for payments to the elderly. The average labor pension will now rise to 1,417 rubles, its size will increase by 117 rubles. Both parts that make up current pensions will increase - the basic (paid from the federal budget) and the insurance (Pension Fund).

Killer of Belarusian Jews fled from Florida A federal court in Pensacola, Florida, deprived Mikhail Gorshkov, an Estonian, of American citizenship. He is accused of the mass murder of Jews during the fascist occupation of Belarus in 1942-1943. Gorshkov, 78, did not appear at the court hearing. He did not respond to subpoenas. Shortly before the trial, he sold the property and hastily departed in an unknown direction.

The Supreme Court of Russia yesterday upheld the sentence of Russian businessman Viktor Kalyadin, sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges of espionage for the United States. His lawyers, insisting on reviewing the sentence, filed a complaint to reclassify the charges - from the article “espionage” to the article “disclosure of information constituting a state secret.” Defense attorneys asked the Supreme Court to either reduce their client's sentence or release him altogether.

Russia withdraws regular troops from Abkhazia The reduction in the number of Russian peacekeepers in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict, announced back on July 14 by the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces for Peacekeeping Forces, Lieutenant General Valery Evnevich, has begun. According to the Ministry of Defense, one of the three motorized rifle battalions of “blue helmets” will be withdrawn from the territory of Abkhazia in the near future.

Deputies and senators manage to sway the government in their favor A working group of the State Duma, the Federation Council and the government has completed the preparation of amendments to the package of “energy” bills. As the Vremya Novostei newspaper was told by the Ministry of Economic Development, a final meeting is scheduled to take place on Monday, at which the government will outline its position on 14 main amendments.

The building of Russia's first department store "Mur and Merilize" (named after the names of two Scots who founded the store at the end of the 19th century) - now TSUM - will be converted into retail in the department store format in the next one and a half to two years. This method of organizing retail trade, which has long been practiced in the world, does not involve the presence of counters.

The FBI believes the Russian mafia tried to buy the Olympics Another scandal about the “Russian mafia” - without a doubt, the most grandiose in the entire existence (or, if you prefer, discussion) of this phenomenon - was initiated by the US FBI.

On June 19, 1999, Stephen King was hit by a minivan on a Maine highway near North Lowell. The writer’s condition remained critical for a long time, and serious doubts were expressed that he would be able to return to creative, or simply any kind of activity. However, King began writing while still in the hospital, where he was recovering from numerous operations.

Romantic places await alternatives Vladimir Putin yesterday somewhat expanded the right of citizens to a deferment from the army. The new presidential decree amended Boris Yeltsin’s 1993 decree “On granting a deferment from conscription for military service to the most talented representatives of Russian art.” Previously, the state could recognize no more than 600 people a year as talented, but now - two hundred more.

The Pyatnitskaya branch of Ingosstrakh-Soyuz Bank, located in the building of the main office of Ingosstrakh Insurance Company, began to operate in full mode. Customers are offered a full range of services: accepting deposits, foreign exchange transactions, cash management services, working with VISA and EuroCard/MasterCard plastic cards, selling Thomas Cook traveler's checks.

The events of September 11 will be the main theme of the Edinburgh Fringe On Sunday, the famous “Fringe” opens in Edinburgh - an off-program (or, literally translated, “sideline”) of the International Theater Festival, which attracts tens of thousands of theater lovers to the Scottish capital every year. A number of plays, revues and even comic shows this year have one source of inspiration - the events of September 11th.

Leaders of the “Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan” are recognized as criminals Today a high-profile trial ends in Kazakhstan. The Pavlodar City Court will announce the verdict in the case of Galymzhan Zhakiyanov, the former akim of the Pavlodar region, one of the leaders of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DCK) movement created in November last year. Mr. Zhakiyanov is accused of exceeding official powers while he was governor.

Gazprom intends to become a strategic investor in the Novocherkassk Synthetic Products Plant (NZSP), the largest methanol producer in the south of the country. This was stated yesterday by the general director of Mezhregiongaz Nikolai Gornovsky at a meeting with the governor of the Rostov region Vladimir Chub. Mr.

On Thursday night, unknown criminals planted a bomb at the doors of the prosecutor's office of the Leningrad region. According to preliminary data, at about 2.40 a guard guarding the prosecutor's office building at 20 Lesnoy Prospekt reported to the duty station that an unknown man had thrown a package at the front door and immediately ran away.

The government postponed the sale of LUKOIL shares After years of assurances that the days of “cheap” privatization in Russia were over, the authorities for the first time entered into an open struggle with the market. Last night in London, the board of directors of the Project Privatization Company, created specifically to place 5.9% of the shares of the largest Russian oil company LUKOIL on international markets, decided to postpone the sale. Cheap Russian privatization is by no means a myth.