The Klitschko brothers are ready to replace the Englishman on the boxing throne Briton Lennox Lewis voluntarily vacated his place as WBC world heavyweight champion. This title remains vacant for now, and will remain so at least until the end of April. A title fight between Ukrainian Vitali Klitschko and South African boxer Corrie Sanders is scheduled around this time. The WBC management gave the duelists 12 days to determine the final date of the fight.

Abkhazia temporarily withdrew from the negotiation process Abkhazia made a significant demarche and at the last moment refused to meet with the Georgian side today in Geneva. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the unrecognized republic, Sergei Shamba, in an interview with VN, explained this by saying that there is no need to “duplicate” the negotiation process.

The big European “troika” represented by Great Britain, Germany and France has already been nicknamed “the directorate” by opposition-minded European countries. Today they don’t like the word “directory”, and tomorrow they won’t like the word “constitution”, French journalists sarcastically about the so-called small countries that reacted painfully to today’s summit of the big European “troika” in Berlin.

President I sent greetings to the participants and guests of the All-Russian Forum dedicated to the 45th anniversary of the student movement. “It is important that today’s students continue the best traditions of their predecessors and are actively looking for new forms of development of the “construction brigade” movement.

Eight more people were arrested in connection with the company's bankruptcy case. New suspects have emerged in the case of Europe's largest dairy industry bankrupt, Parmalat. Yesterday, Italian law enforcement authorities arrested eight more people, including the son and daughter of the head of the company, Calisto Tanzi, as well as his brother Giovanni. They are accused of involvement in capital laundering, falsification of financial statements and deliberate bankruptcy of the company.

The FSB has no evidence, but there is a final version Representatives of the FSB of the Russian Federation yesterday reported on the progress of the investigation into the largest terrorist attack in recent times - an explosion in the Moscow metro on the morning of February 6. Judging by the statement of counterintelligence officers, in the 11 days that have passed since the tragedy, they still have not managed to achieve at least some results in the search for the alleged terrorists.

The proposal of the President of the Chechen Republic Akhmat Kadyrov to transfer leadership of the counter-terrorism operation to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic caused a stormy negative reaction among Russian politicians. The majority considered the proposals of the head of Chechnya to be “at least” premature.

In the investigation into the causes of the tragedy at the water park, all versions have been “reanimated” again The investigation into Saturday's tragedy at the capital's Transvaal water park yesterday took on a very intriguing character.

Investment Bank opens an office in Moscow Merrill Lynch is one of the last world-class investment banks to decide to open a permanent representative office in Russia. The bank’s Moscow office will begin operating in the coming months at 31 Novinsky Boulevard. “We are targeting the second quarter of this year,” a representative of Merrill Lynch’s London office told the Vremya Novostei newspaper.

Luzhkov defends Moscow healthcare from the feds The discussion of the work of the Moscow Health Department at yesterday's meeting of the capital's government began with a minute of silence for those killed in Transvaal Park. However, the mayors did not intend to evaluate the actions of Moscow doctors during the recent tragedy, as well as the organization of the work of the city ambulance service during previous terrorist attacks, which caused many criticisms.

It's rush hour on the international calendar. This week is the busiest in the international tennis calendar. It is the only one in 2004, during which three ATP and WTA tournaments are held at once. The Russians have not yet won singles titles this season, and our girls have a very real chance to achieve victory at the competition in Memphis (USA) - here Vera Zvonareva is “seeded” number one, and Maria Sharapova is number three.

A mega cellular operator will appear in the United States Forty-one billion dollars - at this mark the battle for the third largest American cellular telephony operator AT&T Wireless ended. This price was proposed by the winner of the tender and competitor of AT&T Wireless - Cingular. Since both companies operate on the same TDMA and GSM-1900 standards, the deal will result in the formation of the largest mobile operator in the United States.

The airline intends to conquer the domestic market Aeroflot announced yesterday that it intends to restore its leadership in the domestic Russian air transport market. The company intends to achieve this goal by creating a network of joint ventures and franchise airlines. In the coming month, a tender will be held among Russian and Ukrainian developers of regional aircraft for the supply of aircraft equipment for these enterprises.

Regions will receive money from the center according to the rules From now on, regions will receive budget loans to eliminate cash gaps, that is, to cover temporary shortfalls of income, according to uniform rules. Yesterday they were approved by the government.

David Rigert is in no hurry to name the Olympic roster The Russian Championship, which took place unnoticed in Veliky Novgorod, became an important stage in the selection for the spring European Championship of the continent in Kyiv, based on the results of which the composition of the national team for the Athens Games will be formed.