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.

On July 25, 1995, at the Saint-Michel station of the Paris metro, Algerian terrorists exploded a gas cylinder filled with metal shavings. The explosion killed eight people and injured 117. On December 3, 1996, at the Port Royal station of the Paris metro, a similar gas cylinder filled with metal shavings and nails was again exploded. As a result of this explosion, four people were killed and almost 100 people were injured.

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.

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.

Republicans launched a "watering machine" Senator John Kerry has taken two more steps towards his goal of becoming the Democratic presidential candidate. On Saturday, he won the party's primary elections in Michigan and Washington state. Kerry has already managed to secure Democratic votes in nine out of 11 states. His victory in yesterday's primaries in Maine was also quite predictable. Just a month ago, Howard Dean was leading the state of Michigan. However, on Saturday he became only second.

It is more profitable to insure your home than your car Compulsory real estate insurance has entered our lives so far only as a subject for discussion. But society is clearly not yet ready for them: apartment buyers rarely worry about insuring their home, postponing this matter or not even thinking about its necessity. Meanwhile, the voluntary home insurance market with its own rules of the game and features exists.

TNK-BP will build an oil export terminal in Ust-Luga The commission under the government of the Leningrad region approved the application of the Russian-British holding TNK-BP for the construction of an oil export terminal in the Gulf of Finland worth $175 million and a capacity of 12 million tons of raw materials and petroleum products per year. Work in the deep-water Luga Bay on the southern shore of the bay will begin in the second quarter of 2005.

MAP ordered FEC administrative reform The government of the summer of 2004 has not yet even acquired its contours, and the interdepartmental struggle for a place in the sun is already in full swing. The initiator of the next confrontation in the executive branch was the Ministry of Antimonopoly Policy and Entrepreneurship Support (MAP), which “declared war” on the Federal Energy Commission.

Gleb Pavlovsky, President of the Effective Policy Foundation: - A terrorist act is always a political action, it always has a political background, and it is directed against the entire political context. This is an attempt to attack people's trust in all political institutions. Here I see a connection in the intentions of the directors and screenwriters of this disgusting thing with politics.

Dmitry Illarionov and Boris Andrianov played a concert on Black Friday As part of the “Portraits” cycle, organized by the “Return” festival fund for young performers, on Friday, February 6, two musicians played a concert in the chamber hall of the House of Music on the Red Hills. Cellist Boris Andrianov and guitarist Dmitry Illarionov recorded a disc in 2002, which was included in the preliminary nomination for the 2003 Grammy Award.

Israeli experts specializing in security issues, especially those who have not yet retired but continue to work in the country's secret services, do not like excessive publicity. So my interlocutor, one of the leading local experts in the field of transport security, who agreed to give an interview for the Vremya Novostey newspaper in connection with the terrorist attack in the Moscow metro, urges that his real name not be used in the publication. - What should I call you?

Fighting terrorism in conditions of corruption There is always something new in society's reaction to each subsequent terrorist attack. The current explosion in the Moscow metro is no exception. Alas, the novelty lies in the fact that this terrorist attack no longer surprised anyone - they were waiting for it. Rather, Muscovites were surprised that until now, in a series of bloody explosions, there was no bomb in a subway car at rush hour. We waited.