“Cheap gas has run out” Should gas producers unite? This issue is regularly discussed at meetings of representatives of gas producing countries. The next such meeting will be held in Algeria on February 1-3. Special correspondent of the Vremya Novostei newspaper Elena SUPONINA asked the vice-president of Qatar Gas, Faisal AS-SUWAIDI, to comment on this problem. Qatar is the fifth largest gas producer in the world. -- Gas producers have a tendency to coordinate.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order to allocate 45 million rubles from the head of state’s reserve fund to the country’s State Sports Committee in the fourth quarter of this year to pay scholarships to athletes from Russian national Olympic teams, as well as their coaches. The need for regular financial support by the state for leading Russian athletes was voiced as one of the program theses of Vyacheslav Fetisov during his arrival as head of the State Sports Committee.

One of the suspects in the Turkmen “scam of the century,” a certain Murad Garabaev, was detained in Moscow by employees of the Main Directorate for Criminal Investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. According to the Ashgabat security services, several employees of the national Central Bank, using electronic transfer systems, stole more than $40 million from the treasury.

The final point has been made in the Golden ADA case The Presidium of the Supreme Court recently reconsidered the scandalous case against one of the leaders of the Golden ADA company, Andrei Kozlenok. He and a number of large businessmen and officials, including the former head of Roskomdragmet Evgeny Bychkov and the head of the Russian government apparatus Igor Moskovsky, were accused of unprecedented scams with state diamonds and gold worth $200 million.

Ukrainian authority has quarreled between the intelligence services of three countries The scandal with the international search for Viktor Avdyshev - a former well-known athlete in Ukraine, a public figure and the shadow owner of Kyiv - is growing like a snowball. As our newspaper has already reported, at various times he was taken into custody in Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Russia, but he never stayed behind bars anywhere.

In the Ulyanovsk region, security officers yesterday managed to track down the last six dangerous criminals who escaped on the night of January 18 from a maximum security colony in Novoulyanovsk. Representatives of the regional Internal Affairs Directorate reported that on Monday early in the morning in the workers' village of Cherdakly, Nikolai Gorbunov, who was serving a 12-year sentence, and Alexey Stroev, sentenced to 11 years, were detained.

Yesterday morning, the director of the local nitrogen-oxygen plant, Alexander Parkhomenko, died in a hospital in the city of Volzhsky, Volgograd Region, from injuries received the day before. On Wednesday evening, when the businessman, getting ready to go home, had already gotten into his official Volga, a white Zhiguli with tinted windows stopped nearby, from which heavy machine-gun fire fell on the director’s car. As a result, Mr.

Foreign Press Awards presented in Hollywood The winners of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Awards, better known as the Golden Globes, were announced yesterday. This year, awards for foreign journalists accredited by Hollywood are presented for the fifty-ninth time, and, as usual, Globe winners have every reason to prepare for the Oscar ceremony - they are guaranteed a place of honor among the nominees for the main American film award.

Representatives of Roshydromet announced yesterday a warning about a new possible sharp increase in water levels in the reservoirs of the lower reaches of the Kuban. According to experts who conducted snow surveys, in the coming days a critical increase in water levels is expected on all rivers in the south, southwest and Black Sea coast of the Krasnodar Territory. This is due to an increase in air temperature and an increase in the volume of precipitation.

The President was reminded of space sovereignty Space remains a national priority for Russia. As Vladimir Putin said during yesterday’s visit to the State Space Research and Production Center (GKNPTs) named after. Khrunichev, having abandoned its space programs, “Russia will not be able to claim a worthy place in the civilized world” and ensure its own defense capability.

AEK dedicated the draw with Real Madrid to the convicted president The most productive match of the third round of the Champions League was the match between Valencia and Basel - 6:2. Thus, the teams repeated the record of the current competition, set by Olympiacos in the match with Bayer back in the first round. Group "A". The English Arsenal strengthened their leadership by beating the French Auxerre.

Venus Williams likes everything in Moscow except tennis This Kremlin Cup is going extremely poorly for the favorites. Martina Hingis, Elena Dokic and Anastasia Myskina have already left the tournament. And yesterday they were joined by Venus Williams and Elena Dementieva. The second racket of the world, the eldest of the Williams sisters, wanted to come to Moscow for the second time last year.

Safin beat Sampras The fourth round meeting of the Australian Open between Russian Marat Safin (9) and American Pete Sampras (8) turned out to be incredibly tense. The tennis players spent 3 hours and 41 minutes on the court before Safin tipped the scales in his favor - 6:2, 6:4, 6:7 (5:7), 7:6 (10:8). Marat finished the last rally with a spectacular, extremely risky dribbling shot down the line. “I took risks for a reason. Few people want to play the fifth game against Pete.

Vladimir Putin put an end to the Krasnoyarsk conflict Vladimir Putin signed a decree yesterday appointing Alexander Khloponin as acting governor of Krasnoyarsk. In this non-standard way, a legal conflict that arose after fighters for justice from the Krasnoyarsk Election Commission declared the elections in the region invalid for the second time was resolved.

Acting President of Ingushetia cleaned up his administration In Ingushetia, preparations are in full swing for the opening of the presidential election campaign. Acting head of the republic, Prime Minister Akhmet Malsagov, yesterday fired the head of the presidential administration, Yakov Mestoev, and his deputy, Khamzat Kodzoev. According to Mr. Malsagov, the decision was made “in connection with their excess of their official powers.” A couple of days ago, Mr.