North Korea began its nuclear program in 1996, following a deal with Pakistan. This was stated yesterday to the Japanese newspaper "Tokyo Shimbun" by the former secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), Hwang Dyan Ob, who defected to South Korea in 1997.

The publication of newspapers from his publishing house has been suspended Recently, the president of the TVC television company and concurrently the general director of the publishing house, Oleg Poptsov, has had to refute information about the closure of the Pushkinskaya Ploshchad publishing house, which is controlled by the Moscow government.

Elena Sokolova showed character Russian figure skaters return from Budapest with six medals - two each gold, silver and bronze. Tatyana Navka and Roman Kostomarov won gold in the dance duet competition, and the singles tournament brought silver to Evgeniy Plushenko and bronze awards to Elena Sokolova and Ilya Klimkin. After the tournament, Tatyana Navka admitted that she and her partner were infinitely happy, as they had been working towards this victory for many years.

Early elections in Sri Lanka threaten to disrupt truce Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, using the powers given to her, dissolved the country's parliament and signed a decree to hold parliamentary elections on April 2, four years ahead of schedule. As of yesterday, there is no longer a parliament in the country. The majority were opponents of the president and supporters of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe. Prime Minister Wickremasinghe has canceled his visit to Thailand.

On March 20, 1995, the Japanese religious sect Aum Shinrikyo staged a gas attack on the Tokyo subway. As a result of exposure to the poisonous substance sarin, 12 people died, over 5 thousand were injured, and about 3 thousand were left disabled. The leadership of the sect was convicted, and the sect itself was disbanded. The group has been on the US State Department's blacklist of terrorist organizations since 1998.

Our people are used to solving their problems themselves With the introduction of compulsory car insurance in Russia, officials began to think about how timely the initiatives for the emergence of new “general civil” compulsory types of insurance are. The reaction of Russians, who perceive the purchase of a policy as paying another tax, boils down to the following: why is another “obligation” needed?

Forecast for the coming days In the central zone of the European territory of Russia, due to the efforts of cyclones, the weather is unstable, with precipitation and gusty winds. One of the cyclones will head through the Middle Volga to the Urals, but it will be replaced by a new, Atlantic one from the west towards European territory. In the central region, the influence of this cyclone will begin to be felt by Monday evening; light snow is expected at daytime temperatures of -6...-11°C.

Foreign leaders responded to the Moscow metro bombing with a stream of condemnation and expressions of condolences. After the terrorist attack, Vladimir Putin received a call from George Bush (by the way, Putin was one of the first to call his American colleague on September 11, 2001). Later, the White House released the words of the American president: “I condemn in the strongest terms the terrorist attack in the Moscow subway... No reason can justify the killing of innocent lives.

Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Sergei Yastrzhembsky, who visited Irkutsk at the end of last week, became a victim of another action of the National Bolsheviks. At the opening of his own photo exhibition “From Moscow to the very outskirts...” one of the local Limonovites threw a chicken egg at him. The security of the presidential assistant prevented the young man from continuing the attack. However, this trick did not have serious consequences for the National Bolshevik.

The Belarusians starved Safin out The Russian men's tennis team has already accustomed its fans to the fact that battles in Davis Cup matches are a lot of work for them. And it doesn’t matter at what stage of the tournament this happens - in the opening round of the World Group or in the final. So in the meeting with the debutant of the high society, the team of Belarus, the outcome of the confrontation between the neighbors was decided only in the final, fifth match.

Russian athletes won their first victory at the cross-country skiing World Cup this season. At a competition in the French town of La Closse, our women's quartet won the 4x5 km relay race. Larisa Kurkina, Liliya Vasilyeva, Ekaterina Vorontsova and Olga Zavyalova were 16 seconds ahead of the German team that finished second. After passing the baton to the third stage, our skiers were 40 seconds behind the Italians in front.

Sverdlovsk oppositionists have a chance to get into the Duma The Sverdlovsk Regional Election Commission, four days after the end of accepting documents for registration, decided to give the bloc “For State Employees of the Urals” and the Party of the Revival of Russia (RRP) a chance to participate in the elections to the regional legislative assembly.

There are not enough candidates for elected positions in Altai At the elections on March 14, residents of the Altai Territory will receive eight ballots. And only one of them will concern the federal campaign - the Russian presidential elections. The rest will contain the names of regional contenders for power at all levels. Moreover, it was difficult to find those willing to put their name on the ballot in some areas of the region.

Presidential candidates identified The Russian Central Election Commission yesterday completed the registration of candidates for the presidential post, drawing a line under the list of those wishing to take part in the elections. Seven people came close to the start.

At the 40th International Conference on Politics and Security, which ended yesterday in Munich, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov made several attention-grabbing statements. The head of the Russian military department proposed that the European Union take part in suppressing drug trafficking from Afghanistan through Russia to Western markets, and also begin the formation of a “new arms control system.” According to Mr.