Spartak's European Cup series interrupted The capital's Spartak, in the return match of the 1/16 finals of the UEFA Cup, although it prevailed away against the Spanish Mallorca - 1:0, but failed to win back the handicap given to its opponents after a home defeat of 0:3. The trip to the Balearic Islands became for the team of head coach Italian Nevio Scala nothing more than another control match, akin to what the “red-whites” played in the off-season.

The fire in the arbitration court building was extinguished throughout the night All night on Thursday, the capital's firefighters extinguished a strong fire that broke out in the building of the Moscow Arbitration Court on Novaya Basmannaya Street, 10. By morning they managed to defend the old, pre-revolutionary building. However, both himself and the arbitration court suffered serious damage as a result. The top floor of the building was almost completely burned out and the roof collapsed.

Placido Domingo will sing on the stage of the Moscow House of Music According to Placido Domingo, one of the three noble dons known to the world as “the first tenors of our time”, as well as a conductor and director of opera houses in Washington and Los Angeles, “opera and football transcend all boundaries because they speak a language that everyone understands—a language of emotions that brings people together all over the world.” One can expect that it is in this language, not counting Russian

Tax authorities are liquidating a million enterprises The Tax Department proposes to introduce a simplified system for liquidating shell companies. As Sergei Dukanov, head of the department of state registration and accounting of legal entities and individuals of the Ministry of Taxes, told reporters yesterday, in the whole country there are over 1 million “ghost” organizations that actually do not carry out activities and do not submit any tax reports.

Forecast for the coming days The northwestern regions will continue to be protected by the Scandinavian anticyclone, from which no snow can be expected, but frosts will remain, especially severe at night, down to -15°C. During the day, thanks to the March sun, the frosts are slight. The central regions will be in the rear of the cyclone leaving the Volga for the Urals.

Intelligence agencies are against juries trying espionage cases Russian intelligence services are opposed to having the results of their work evaluated by juries. Sources of the Vremya Novostei newspaper claim that in the near future, employees of the Federal Security Service will take the initiative to abolish the participation of juries in cases within their competence.

The USA and Russia met in Ulaanbaatar The host side made the two-day program of the official visit of Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, which began yesterday in Mongolia, a real benefit for Russia.

Governor of the Irkutsk Region Boris Govorin and Managing Director for Production and Technology of OJSC TNK-BP Viktor Vekselberg signed an agreement on the creation on a parity basis of OJSC East Siberian Gas Company (ESGK), which will implement the gas supply and gasification project for the region on the basis of Kovyktinskoye gas condensate field. The authorized capital of the OJSC will be 30 million rubles.

The Tax Ministry presented another invoice to Sibneft The Ministry of Taxes and Duties will not stop issuing invoices to Sibneft based on the results of the company’s work in 2000-2001. After it became known earlier this week about claims against the parent company in the amount of about $700-800 million, tax officials made public similar claims against Sibneft's main producing subsidiary, Noyabrskneftegaz.

William Forsythe staged the play at the Mariinsky Theater The curtain is open, but the lights in the hall are not turned off, the grandmothers are hissing menacingly, demanding tickets, the grandmothers seating the audience, someone is talking on a mobile phone (and forgets to turn it off - the sponsors of the Mariinsky should give the Mariinsky a jammer!), and a young man is already present on the stage. In complete silence he makes several movements, turns around, and goes to the back.

Nazarbayev met with an unlucky member of the presidential family It is a difficult task to save the image of the country and its leadership. And also expensive. But not for a country like Kazakhstan. They take this seriously there. At the end of last year , the television company NTV-Kazakhstan was created for this purpose. But if the results of her work have not yet had any impact on the Russian-Kazakh information field, then the PR on the American field ended in embarrassment.

The kidnapper of General Shpigun was met on a country road The leadership of the Chechen separatists suffered another heavy loss yesterday. As representatives of the Russian special services announced, on Tuesday in Ingushetia, as a result of a special operation by the Russian FSB, Brigadier General, former “commander of the Urus-Martan Front of Ichkeria,” 41-year-old Akhmed Basnukaev, was killed.

Acting Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko yesterday made the biggest personnel decision in his prime ministerial career - he removed Vladimir Malin, chairman of the Russian Federal Property Fund, from his post. However, Mr. Khristenko had no choice: the decision to remove the head of the Russian Federal Property Fund from work was dictated to him by the famous Basmanny Court, which granted the corresponding petition from the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Dmitry Rogozin took the place of Sergei Glazyev as head of the Rodina faction The conflict between the two co-chairs of the Rodina bloc, Sergei Glazyev and Dmitry Rogozin, came to its logical conclusion yesterday. Forces hostile to Glazyev won, removing him from his post as head of the Rodina faction. 22 out of 38 Duma “Rodinets” signed a letter to the Rules Committee about the removal of Glazyev and the appointment of Rogozin to his post.

An Islamist clan in France has united al-Qaeda and militants from the North Caucasus French investigators yesterday brought charges against six Islamists detained last week in the Lyon area and under investigation in the case of the so-called “Chechen trace”. The bin Shelali clan became the target of a judicial investigation earlier this week and has every chance of ending up in the dock very soon.