Saddam today is Kim Jong Il tomorrow East Asia was rocked yesterday by conflicting reports of a North Korean missile launch. At first, Japan and the United States said that the DPRK launched an anti-ship missile without warning over the Yellow Sea. However, Tokyo representatives later changed their position and said that there was no confirmation of this. A South Korean military source confirmed that North Korea did not launch any missile.

Washington seeks to worsen relations with Havana The bombing of Iraq has continued for two weeks. Who's next? The next country on Washington's blacklist may be Cuba. Along with Iran and North Korea. Relations between Washington and Havana have become seriously complicated in recent days. The US State Department has banned Cuban diplomats from traveling outside Washington without prior permission from US authorities.

They want to reduce the number of ministries from 55 to 17 Already next year there may be four fewer ministries in Russia than now. Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin announced this at the final meeting of the commission on optimizing budget expenditures yesterday. However, the Deputy Prime Minister refused to say which ministries would be cut, citing corporate ethics.

Arvo Iho is an Estonian film director. He graduated from VGIK, worked as an intern for Tarkovsky, and cast Russian actors in his films. His latest film, “The Heart of the Bear,” which participated in the MIFF competition last year, is perhaps the only recent major production project from Estonia (with the participation of Russia, Germany and the Czech Republic) - based on the novel by Nikolai Baturin, the action in it takes place in Siberia.

VimpelCom-Region, a subsidiary of VimpelCom engaged in the regional development of the Bee Line GSM network, yesterday launched into technical operation a fragment of the network in St. Petersburg. By the start of commercial operation of the dual-band GSM-900/1800 network, more than 100 base stations will be installed in this region, and by the end of the year their number will more than double. Initially, the network will cover the territory of St.

The Minister of Health reassured the Prime Minister Pan-European fear, fueled by regular reports of new victims of atypical pneumonia discovered in Southeast Asia, has reached the Kremlin and the White House.

The State Prize 2002 exhibition is taking place in the State Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val. The halls display works in the Fine Arts category: painting, graphics, sculpture. Architecture is taken out of the picture. Let us also leave out the wonderful book “A Brief History of Art” by the late Nina Dmitrieva, a publication that has received a separate showcase. Let's talk about the presented works of artists. Visiting the exhibition “State Prize 2002” is like flying in a time machine.

President Signed the decree “On the conscription of citizens of the Russian Federation for military service in April-June 2003 and on the dismissal from military service of citizens undergoing military service under conscription.” From April 1 to June 30 of this year, 175,050 Russian citizens aged 18 to 27 years old who are not in the reserves and are subject to conscription are being conscripted for military service, the document says.

On Monday, Minister of Culture Mikhail Shvydkoy met with Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov on the issue of returning the so-called “Baldin collection” to Germany. According to the minister, during the meeting the current situation was discussed in detail. The Ministry of Culture and the prosecutor's office "tried to bring their positions closer together." “We have no disagreement that the possible transfer of the collection should be compensated.

Negotiations regarding the creation of an all-Russian sports channel between VGTRK and channel 7TV will apparently resume. In any case, the heads of the 7TV channel, Alexander Besputin and Oleg Aksenov, at yesterday’s press conference expressed hope for success in the negotiation process. “We negotiated until the last moment. I hope the negotiations will lead to something,” said the president of 7TV, Chelyabinsk businessman Alexander Besputin.

“Confessions of a Dangerous Man” on Moscow screens Cinema is different. There are directorial ones (“Fellini’s Casanova”, “John Carpenter’s Vampires”); there is acting (not everyone will remember who exactly shot the films of Bela Lugosi or the Marx Brothers), and finally, producing (blockbusters by Jerry Bruckheimer).

Linguists demand increased funding for programs to support the “great and powerful” The preservation and development of literary norms of the Russian language require more than 34 million rubles. This is exactly the conclusion made by the participants of a meeting held yesterday at the Ministry of Education, at which the results of the federal target program “Russian Language” for 2002 were summed up.

“We will not stop or soften our position until your country is free,” US President George W. Bush said to the Iraqis yesterday. “We are coming to you with great strength to put an end to the power of your oppressors.” It did not take “enormous forces” to shoot down a bus carrying 13 Iraqis on Monday, whose driver for some reason failed to stop at a checkpoint outside the southern city of Najaf.

The organizer of the pogrom in Tsaritsino will soon return home Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation reduced the sentence of the main defendant in the criminal case about the “Tsaritsyn pogrom,” Muscovite Mikhail Volkov, to five years in prison.

The Nefteyugansk city court has completed the trial of members of a nationalist youth group that staged a pogrom at a local market a year ago. Then about 10 skinheads, armed with metal pipes, brutally beat the traders, immigrants from Uzbekistan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. As a result, nine people were sent to the hospital with various injuries, and the police were soon able to detain the rioters.