Shevardnadze is ashamed of his army in front of Bush Georgia decided to reduce its armed forces from 18 to 15 thousand by 2005. On the one hand, this is a recommendation from international military advisers who believe that in a country aspiring to join NATO, the army should be professional.

Except it's bad The Caspian region is one of the main priorities of Russian foreign policy in terms of not only its energy resources, but also national security. This statement by the head of the Caspian working group at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Andrei Urnov, began yesterday the final day of the CIS oil and gas summit in London.

They want to force Putin to increase defense spending “For political and economic reasons, Russia is not interested in the defeat of the United States,” Vladimir Putin said yesterday in Tambov, adding that it is interested in moving the Iraqi issue “to the UN platform” as soon as possible. The point, of course, is not that a US military defeat could become a reality.

The Volgograd military court found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison the former chief of staff of the artillery battalion of the 20th motorized rifle division, Major Evgeniy Shiryaev, who was accused of exceeding official authority and causing bodily harm to five soldiers. The military prosecutor's office and the court established that in September last year, at the Prudboy training ground, five soldiers, celebrating their imminent demobilization, went on a drinking binge.

Rosneft President Sergei Bogdanchikov was not allowed into London, the company's press service reported yesterday. As stated in the press release, “the trip to participate in the meetings of the Russian Economic Forum on April 3-4 was disrupted for reasons of an extraordinary nature.” The company described the reasons of an extraordinary nature as follows: when Mr.

Governors are being mobilized to restore the republic Yesterday, many Russian governors received encrypted messages from Plenipotentiary Representative Viktor Kazantsev regarding the restoration of Chechnya.

And the fee was answered with a fee The industrial group MAIR, which accounts for a sixth of the ferrous scrap metal collected in Russia, will send a letter to the government today or tomorrow with a proposal to introduce export duties on the products of metallurgical plants, including wire rod and strip, in the amount of 20% of the cost of a ton, which will amount to 40--60 dollars per ton.

Hockey. NHL. Regular season . “Ottawa” – “Boston” – 3:2, “Islanders” – “Rangers” – 2:2 – Yashin “A” (1+1), Kvasha “A” (0+1), Kovalev "R" (1+0) , "Philadelphia" - "Columbus" - 4:0, "Washington" - "Florida" - 3:0 - Gonchar "B" (1+1) , "New Jersey - Toronto - 2:3 (OT), Nashville - Anaheim - 1:2 (OT). With a draw against the Islanders, the Rangers can kiss their playoff dreams goodbye.

In mid-April, Ingosstrakh Insurance Company will open the company's first representative office in Ukraine - in Kyiv. According to the head of the public relations and marketing department of Ingosstrakh, Alexey Zubets, the purpose of opening a representative office is to find new partners among policyholders and insurers of Ukraine, as well as to expand the company’s insurance operations in this country.

Units of the federal forces in Chechnya completed a search operation in the Vedeno region of the republic, where on March 20 two Mi-24 helicopters disappeared during a combat operation. Early yesterday morning, 2 km north of Mount Daikhoh, where at the beginning of the week rescuers from the Ministry of Emergency Situations discovered the crash site of one helicopter, a second missing car was found at an altitude of 2.5 thousand meters.

A record batch of weapons was seized on Monday from the house of one of the residents of the village of Ushakovo in the suburbs of Tyumen by local criminal investigation officers. They found the hiding place by accident - the 51-year-old owner of the house got involved in an operational investigation during the investigation of the murder of a traffic police officer, whose body was discovered on January 29 near the airport.

City authorities want to control the funeral business The Moscow authorities do not want to let go of their leverage over the funeral services sector.

Basketball. NBA. Regular season. "Indiana" -- "Sacramento" -- 98:103, "Toronto" -- "Detroit" -- 85:92, "Chicago" -- "Seattle" -- 94:101 (OT), "Dallas" -- “New Orleans” – 95:86, “San Antonio” – “Orlando” – 118:105, “Phoenix” – “Denver” – 95:65, “Portland” – “Golden State” -- 100:86, "Utah" -- "Clippers" -- 94:89. Ten seconds before the final siren, Utah led by two points in the match with the Clippers, and Andrei Kirilenko was awarded free throws.

England is being cleared of unwanted immigrants A law has come into force in the UK that will make life much more difficult for immigrants. Now the British authorities will easily be able to expel people they don’t like from the country, even those who have dual citizenship.

Old Europe sends rotten chicken to the USA New scandals are flaring up in relations between France and Germany, on the one hand, and the countries occupying Iraq, on the other. In northern France, unknown persons yesterday painted monuments at the cemetery of British soldiers killed during the First World War. “Bush and Blair, take away your trash,” these inscriptions were accidentally discovered yesterday by British tourists who visited the cemetery.