Vladimir LUKIN (Yabloko party), Deputy Chairman of the State Duma: - The biggest stupidity is the North Korean leadership uncorking its nuclear reactors and removing the IAEA seals. It is difficult to find something more counterproductive, ridiculous and contrary to one's own interests. North Korea is heading for very serious troubles. Moreover, there is no one’s evil will.

Science and experience about drinking Subject topic I can say the following about the New Year. This is a very sad holiday. “New Year is coming,” people say to each other back in November and begin to fuss, buy gifts and wait for something good and wonderful, as they were taught to do in childhood. The miraculous, of course, does not happen, and disappointment and sadness are inevitable.

The Altai Regional Court sentenced 19-year-old resident of the Novosilikatny village Alexander Shikhin to seven years in prison for robbery with a toy pistol. In March, a young man who had just returned from prison decided to get some money. Putting a woman's stocking on his head, armed with a knife and a toy pistol, Shikhin went to rob his neighbor. Having burst into the apartment, he knocked the woman down and, threatening with a pistol, began to demand a video recorder from the owner.

In mid-February, the heads of the Russian diplomatic and military departments surprised with their knowledge of the life of international terrorist Bin Laden. Igor Ivanov, the head of the Foreign Ministry, said: “There was a report in the press where Bin Laden is. It is possible that he is in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia or the North Caucasus.

In terms of the number of criminal scandals and national disasters, 2002 seems to have managed to break all the records of the last decade. The past years invariably remain in the memory, among other things, of “bad” events. Everyone remembers how they lived and what they did when the putsch happened, when Basayev captured Budennovsk, when the Kursk submarine was lost and the Ostankino TV tower burned down.

We can’t expect a fair trial for the Turkmen oppositionist President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov announced yesterday the detention of his main and most dangerous political opponent, former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the republic Boris Shikhmuradov.

The Mariinsky Theater has released the third part of “The Ring of the Nibelung” On December 25, an event of extreme importance occurred in St. Petersburg. With the premiere of Siegfried, a director whose name has become synonymous with conceptual radicalism entered the field of opera. This director is Vladimir Mirzoev.

Employees of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime of the Ministry of Internal Affairs liquidated a gang in the Moscow region that was engaged in the production and sale of counterfeit dollars throughout the country. During searches that were carried out in the capital and cities of the Moscow region, operatives seized 70 thousand ready-made US dollars and more than 700 sheets of special printing paper with blanks of 500-ruble bills.

Railway communication between Sukhumi and Sochi has been restored Last Wednesday, for the first time since the beginning of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict, an electric train traveled from Sochi to Sukhumi. This was only a test run, so the train departed without passengers. And she left not from the platform of the Sochi station, but from the Veseloye stop, located a few hundred meters from the Russian state border.

For four years, Germany's defense depended on chance If in the past 2002 life has become more fun somewhere, then at least not in Germany. After all, the Germans lost their main mass entertainer: this year, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s patience ran out, and he dismissed Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping, Rudi Netto Gross (as economic experts called him). Sharping received this nickname back in the mid-90s.

About the new book by Timur Kibirov We learned that it is indecent to be a poet ten to fifteen years ago. That is, rumors about this had swirled before, but somehow sluggishly. On the one hand, censorship was not favorable to them: they say that only drones and parasites (like Brodsky) should be ashamed of their poetry, but Yegor Isaev has something to be filled with legitimate pride.

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Politics, like weapons, doesn’t like jokes and doesn’t forgive nonsense? No matter how it is! If there is enough nonsense, the world of politics sometimes even welcomes it. But it’s not always possible to comply with this measure. Nevertheless, the incidents of 2002 related to international politics prove: stupidity and curiosity are the same hidden engines of political life as wisdom and foresight. But we should not forget about the warning from the times of Ancient Rome.

In the coming 2003, unlike the outgoing year, which is filled with world championships in the main team sports - football, basketball, volleyball - most competitions will be viewed through the prism of preparation for the 2004 Summer Olympics. At many official international tournaments, tickets and licenses for the Games in Greece will be distributed.

Prices for gasoline, tobacco and alcohol may rise contrary to logic For the New Year, media, analysts and industry lobbyists are practicing forecasts on how prices for gasoline, tobacco and alcohol will rise next year. The expected increase in prices is associated with an increase in excise taxes on relevant goods from January 1, 2003. Meanwhile, even if prices rise, their growth will be caused primarily by the speculative mood of market participants.