Father bequeathed Azerbaijan to his son Yesterday a new era began in the CIS. For the first time, power was transferred by inheritance, from father to son. Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev addressed the country with a statement in which he named his 42-year-old son Ilham, appointed prime minister of the country two months ago, as his “political successor.” “I am withdrawing my candidacy (for the presidential elections in Azerbaijan, which will take place on October 15 - Ed.

Hugo Chavez has come up with a new way to keep oil prices high The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is already beginning to prepare for its next summit, scheduled for December 4. At the same time, some cartel members do not rule out that at the upcoming meeting, oil ministers will again lower the oil production quota.

According to scientists, Siberians will continue to shake for a long time, but not much In Altai, where rescue units continue to eliminate the consequences of a series of strong earthquakes, tremors were felt again yesterday afternoon. Their strength, however, was only 4 points on the Richter scale, and this time there were no tragic consequences.

The “beloved leader” of the Turkmen people, Saparmurat Niyazov, is very concerned about the danger of terrorism. It is difficult to find at least one of his recent public appearances in which he did not betray this constantly oppressive anxiety that became part of his life after he happily escaped the “assassination attempt” on November 25 last year.

Irkutskenergo proposes to reform the regional heat market Irkutskenergo proposed to begin restructuring the thermal energy market in its region. As the general director of the energy company, Vladimir Kolmogorov, said at a press conference yesterday, Irkutskenergo submitted to the Regional Energy Commission (REC) a proposal to establish nodal tariffs for heat - in other words, so that in almost every regional center heat energy would be sold at its own tariff.

And just in case - the Krasnoyarsk Legislative Assembly Yesterday, the famous Krasnoyarsk businessman Anatoly Bykov notified the local election commission of his intention to run for deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation from the Achinsk single-mandate electoral district. The applicant refuses to make any comments for now.

The market leader will place Eurobonds this year The largest Russian bank, Sberbank, has made the long-awaited decision by experts to issue Eurobonds. Its press service yesterday released a message according to which, subject to favorable conditions, the bank will place a “significant issue in terms of market volume” with a floating coupon rate in the fourth quarter of this year.

The government approved VAT invoices The basis for improving tax administration, from the point of view of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Taxes, is the transparency of VAT payment schemes. Yesterday the government made a rather bold decision on this matter. Having approved the introduction of special VAT accounts plus invoices as the most effective scheme for paying this tax, Mikhail Kasyanov’s cabinet intends to put them into effect on July 1, 2004.

On the eve of the return match of the 1/64 UEFA Cup between Torpedo Moscow and CSKA Sofia, a conflict broke out in the camp of the Bulgarian club. Radoslav Zdravkov and Metodiy Tomanov, assistants to CSKA head coach Stoycho Mladenov, left their posts. The reason for their resignation was the club's management's accusations of poor selection, which led to the club's poor results this season.

As promised, we continue the theme of “new drama” and, more broadly, new theater, which, as it turned out, goes along with it. Judging by the reaction of critics excited by the recently ended festival, we are dealing with a new phenomenon that evokes both active approval and lively hostility. The discussion started in the newspaper Vremya Novostei in the September 30 issue is continued by theater expert Olga EGOSHHINA.

Forecast for the coming days A series of fine anticyclones, more than pleased with the sun and warmth, will in the coming days give way to the atmospheric fronts of the Atlantic cyclone, rushing from the west into the middle zone. It will become cloudier, it will rain more often, although with the south and southwest wind it is still quite warm, at night +6...+11оС, during the day +12...+17оС.

Gazprom minority shareholders want to discuss its reform As is known, the discussion about reforming the gas industry at the government level was stopped in a “voluntary-compulsory” manner at the end of last week. But right now, minority shareholders of Gazprom, who until now have not participated in public battles, have begun to come forward with some initiatives in the form of discussion.

There are an unprecedented number of foreigners in the men's super league Tomorrow the Russian Volleyball Championship among men's Super League teams starts with six matches in four cities of the country. This season the national championship promises to be more interesting than ever. A number of clubs conducted a powerful selection campaign and were significantly strengthened by foreign players from different countries.

CLUBS "Golden pruning shears on golden domes." Screening of the competition program of the II International Kansk Video Festival. On September 4, in Kansk (Krasnoyarsk region), on the initiative of the Videodom studio, a festival was held at which the latest (2001-2003) alternative, low-budget short video films sent from all over the world were shown. Today these films can be seen in Moscow. October 3 at the “House” , 17.00. Efim Cherny (vocals) and Suzanne Gergus (piano).

North Koreans are stocking up on nuclear trump cards Yesterday, North Korean authorities officially announced the reprocessing of eight thousand uranium rods and the use of the resulting plutonium “toward increasing nuclear deterrent power.” Pyongyang motivated this step with “hostile policies on the part of the United States,” the North Korean official KCNA emphasized, citing the DPRK Foreign Ministry. The northerners also promise to recycle rods from the small reactor in Yongbyon.