At a meeting of the executive committee of the Russian Basketball Federation (RBF), the terms of the competition to fill the vacant position of head coach of the country's men's team were finally announced. Candidates from among only Russian specialists can submit their applications with a resume and action plan until March 1.

The EBRD sent Vneshtorgbank an offer to participate in its capital The Russian authorities can breathe a sigh of relief - on Friday the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development sent a proposal to Vneshtorgbank to purchase a minority stake in its shares. Having begun informal consultations on the EBRD's participation in the capital of Russia's second largest bank in the spring of 2001, officials did not imagine that the process would drag on for three to four years.

The President instructed Vladimir Ustinov’s subordinates to improve the quality of work On Friday, at an extended meeting of the board of the Prosecutor General’s Office, President Putin spoke as the main “examiner and mentor.” In general, he assessed the activities of the prosecutors quite critically, although he did not draw any hard organizational conclusions, but set a whole series of new tasks.

Pakistani President fires renowned scientific adviser On Saturday, the founder and chief developer of Pakistan's nuclear program, 69-year-old Abdul Qadeer Khan, lost his post as scientific adviser to President Pervez Musharraf. The decision to dismiss Khan was made by the head of state himself at a meeting of the National Command Office (UNC), which he heads, whose functions include control over Pakistan’s nuclear potential.

President Presidential Adviser on Economic Affairs Andrei Illarionov believes that after the presidential elections the composition of the Russian government will only partially change. “I do not exclude the possibility that after the elections there will be certain changes in the government,” said Andrei Illarionov. - I don’t think that they will be radical: that everyone will leave and completely new ones will come.

The Feast of the Sacrifice is marred by the death of 244 pilgrims This year, the Saudi authorities again failed to ensure the security of the Muslim holy Hajj. On Sunday morning, during Eid al-Adha (also known as Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice), 244 pilgrims died in a stampede on the Jamarat Bridge in the vicinity of Mecca. Saudi Minister of Hajj Affairs Iyad Al-Madani said that during the ritual of stoning the devil, the same number of people received various injuries.

Oleg Deripaska enters the public utilities sector The utility sector is attracting more and more Russian oligarchs. As the Vremya Novostei newspaper learned, the Russian Communal Investments (RCI) company will be registered by the end of the month, and Oleg Deripaska intends to patronize it. This project has already been discussed with Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Yakovlev and was approved.

The suicide bombers came to the celebration. As a result, hundreds of dead Yesterday in the Kurdish city of Erbil, in northern Iraq, as a result of two explosions, according to various sources, from 56 (data from Western agencies) to 200 people were killed (as local residents say). Hundreds injured.

Free distribution of syringes will be equated to drug propaganda Preventive programs for distributing disposable syringes to Russian drug addicts, aimed at reducing the incidence of AIDS and other dangerous infections, may be closed. The news agency Ural-press-inform reported yesterday that the State Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation proposes to recognize such activities of charitable organizations as illegal.

Microsoft is likely to be out of reach of viruses again The whole world was waiting yesterday for how at 19.09 Moscow time the Mudoom worm (aka Novarg or Shimgapi) would begin an attack on the website of the SCO software corporation from hundreds of thousands of computers it had infected. However, not all users are punctual in setting the clock on their computers, which is why the attack began earlier than expected.

The State Fisheries Committee took up the problems of navigation safety The State Fisheries Committee believes that only 30% of the vessels in the Russian fishing fleet can be used safely. The rest are morally or physically outdated. The head of the committee, Vladimir Burkov, stated this at the end of last week at a meeting on maritime safety issues.

Journalist Yulia Pelekhova was left under arrest The Tverskoy Court of Moscow on Friday evening issued a warrant for the arrest of the editor-in-chief of the Dossier.ru website, Yulia Pelekhova, who was detained last week by officers of the Moscow UBEP on suspicion of extorting $100,000.

The board of directors of the international airline alliance Sky Team last Friday announced its readiness to accept Aeroflot into its membership. The statement was adopted at a council meeting held in Paris.

The Russian awards ceremony was crowned by the visit of three classics of world cinema The fact that Franco Zeffirelli was expected to attend the Golden Eagle Award ceremony was known in advance, especially since the maestro arrived in Moscow to stage a musical. Andrzej Wajda - he is in some way one of our own, Polish, he is a frequent guest with us. But the appearance of Milos Forman - he was awarded a prize for his contribution to world cinema - was an absolute surprise.

Belarus received gas from Russia for a week and refused electricity The crisis in Russian-Belarusian energy relations is stagnating. Last Friday, Minsk contracted with Itera for 516 million cubic meters of gas for February, but they will last until the end of this week at most. Transnafta, which also supplied gas to Belarus, refused to cooperate - it was not satisfied with the form and amount of payment. Gazprom still has not agreed on supplies and is not implementing them.