20 pacifists will pay for the death of 262 American soldiers in Iraq The US government decided to punish those Americans who tried to prevent the war in Iraq by going there as a “human shield”. There were 20 of them (in total there were about 300 pacifists from 30 countries in Iraq). They must pay a fine of $10,000. If they refuse, they face up to 12 years in prison. The US Treasury Department claims that, as “human shields”, the Americans “exported services” to Iraq.

The government must solve the problem of increasing electricity tariffs in one day Tomorrow the government will begin considering maximum tariffs for the services of natural monopolies. But despite the very lengthy preparatory work, all disagreements were never resolved.

Bill Gates pays again for patent infringement Another high-profile trial ended in the defeat of the computer giant Microsoft. On Monday, a Chicago jury ordered the corporation to pay a huge fine to the University of California and Eolas Technologies for illegal use of patented technologies. According to the court decision, the fine amounted to $520.6 million - not a lot of money, considering the corporate scale of the computer program manufacturer.

This was understood best in England The auditing company The Deloitte & Touche has released an annual report containing information on the financial life of European football. The top European leagues had a total profit of £7.1 billion in the 2001/02 season. A quarter of this amount came from England. The founders of football are recognized as the richest and most successfully developing league in Europe.

The city authorities paid compensation for a car damaged during the assault on Dubrovka The claim of one of the former hostages of the Dubrovka Theater Center was satisfied yesterday by the Moscow government. The Department of Finance entered into a pre-trial settlement and paid Mikhail Khomantovsky 50 thousand rubles for the Mitsubishi-Galant car damaged during the storming of the building. And the Tverskoy court stopped the proceedings yesterday at the request of Mr. Khomantovsky.

Nadir Khachilaev turned out to have too many enemies Dagestani special services yesterday summed up the first results of the investigation into the murder of ex-State Duma deputy, former head of the Union of Muslims of Russia and leader of the Lak opposition Nadirshakh Khachilayev, who was shot by unknown assailants in Makhachkala on Monday evening. The investigation has not yet been able to find the killers, or even presumably find out who could be behind the assassination attempt.

The overseas league loses its status as the strongest in the world The NBA regular season is nearing its end. The first pass to the playoffs, where the four best teams from the Western and Eastern Conferences qualify, was secured by the Detroit Shock. This club has a basketball player familiar to our fans - Senegalese Astou Njae-Diatta became the champion of Russia in 2002 as part of the capital's Dynamo.

Evgeny Kurgin became the chief auto insurer At the general meeting of members of the Russian Union of Auto Insurers (RUA) held yesterday, the general director of the insurance company ROSNO, Evgeny Kurgin, was elected its president. Within two months, he is obliged to leave the post of head of the company and hand over the affairs to its new management. The former head of the RSA, Andrei Slepnev, did not even join the board of the union. RSA was established in August 2002.

CLUBS Jean-Loup Longion (France, trumpet) with the participation of musicians from St. Petersburg: Yuri Bogatyrev (saxophone), Vladimir Koltsov-Krutov (double bass), Alexey Shikhov (drums), Alexey Cheremizov (piano). Jean-Loup Longnon is a professional trumpet player, one of the leading European jazz musicians. Several of his albums were awarded the Django Renhard, Boris Vian, and Django Or awards.

Story The Manege building was built by order of Alexander I within eight months in 1817. The construction was carried out according to the design of engineer Augustin Betancourt by a special staff of engineers and architects subordinate to the chief inspector of hydraulic and earthworks in Moscow, Major General L.L. Carbonnier. This is not to say that things went smoothly.

Communists do PR on Rexona advertising At the end of last week, Tatyana Astrakhankina, a State Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, sent a letter to Press Minister Mikhail Lesin asking him to take measures to stop the spread of “blasphemous advertising” of Rexona deodorants.

Project The architectural concept of the future Manege is being developed by the 14th workshop of Mosproekt 2. It is led by architect Pavel Andreev.

Three years after the death of the nuclear missile carrier Yesterday marked three years since one of the biggest disasters in the Russian Navy - the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk. Funeral events dedicated to the death of the boat took place yesterday in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kursk, Sevastopol, Severomorsk, the village of Vidyaevo, from where the Kursk left for its last voyage, and in the garrisons of submariners in all Russian fleets.

Tomorrow Niyazov will ask to resign Tomorrow in Turkmenbashi (formerly Krasnovodsk) another “historic” event will begin, the 14th meeting of the Halk Maslakhaty (People’s Council) of Turkmenistan. The agenda includes the adoption of a program of “strategic directions for development” of the country until 2020, laws on the Halk Maslahaty and the fight against terrorism, as well as amendments to the constitution.

In return, hoping for loyalty to your business Yesterday it became known that at the beginning of August Interros sold the United Industrial Corporation Oboronprom CJSC its share (50%) in the last military-industrial asset - Defensive Systems-Invest LLC. Analysts estimate the deal at $50 million; Interros does not comment on its details.