The team is preparing for the main start of the season Today our team will play the first match of a series of matches for third place in the Eurotour. The Russians will play the first match at the CSKA Ice Palace, and the return match awaits them in the Czech Republic on Sunday. To be fair, it must be admitted that few of the players on the Russian team care about the final place in the Eurotour.

The State Duma did not put an end to climate agreements Yesterday's parliamentary hearings in the State Duma on the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol could have been the death knell for international agreements on the control of emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere. There was every reason for assumptions about the inevitability of a fatal outcome from the protracted discussion on the protocol.

Kazakhstan wants to independently supply gas to Europe Preparations for the implementation of the gas project at the Karachaganak field have entered the most difficult stage. According to the press service of the government of Kazakhstan, this issue was discussed at yesterday's meeting of the cabinet of ministers of the republic.

The Department of the Prosecutor General's Office in the Ural Federal District began an investigation into a criminal case initiated on the fact of embezzlement of funds from the budget of the Chelyabinsk region. According to regional prosecutor Anatoly Bragin, the audit concerns funds allocated to the State Unitary Enterprise Yuzhuralgeologorazvedka. Disappearance of 2.5 million rubles. was discovered last summer by the Accounts Chamber of the Chelyabinsk Region.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks in Ireland with the leading troika of the European Union. Iraq was also discussed. EU High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security Javier SOLANA told Vremya Novostei newspaper columnist Elena SUPONINA about the position of the Europeans in Dublin. -- Russia stands for holding an international conference on Iraq. Do you, Mr. Solana, have any confidence that such an event will help this country?

CLUBS King Crimson Festival. The first two concerts in a series designed to introduce current and former members of the legendary group to the Moscow public. The TU project is coming this weekend - - Trey Gunn (war guitar, electronics) and Pat Mastelotto (drums, electronics). TU is half of King Crimson's lineup for the last twelve years. Both musicians are the brightest innovators both in the technique of playing their instruments and in the art of combining electronics and hard rock.

A series of films by Anatoly Pristavkin starts on the Culture TV channel The press center of the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company "Culture" held a press conference dedicated to a new series of documentaries about the life of prisoners.

Kuchma remained above the political fray Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who in Ukraine is considered the most likely successor to President Leonid Kuchma, will participate in the presidential elections on October 31 this year as a single candidate from the parliamentary majority. This decision was made on Wednesday by the majority leaders with the blessing of Leonid Kuchma and in his personal presence. Viktor Yushchenko remains the main rival of Viktor Yanukovych.

American producers agreed to change the design of the controversial vodka brand Under judicial pressure from Alfa Group structures, the American Diageo, Pier Smirnoff agreed to modify the design of the controversial vodka brand Smirnoff/Smirnov, over which arbitration battles have not subsided for several years.

Badri Patarkatsishvili decided to take up peacekeeping Yesterday, Chairman of the Union of Large Taxpayers of Georgia Badri Patarkatsishvili left Tbilisi for Batumi, having gathered colleagues from Tbilisi business circles. The business elite is interested in normalizing the political situation around Adjara, since the investment climate throughout the country depends on this.

The speaker shared plans with the president Serious changes are coming to the work of the State Duma. House Speaker Boris Gryzlov told Russian President Vladimir Putin about them yesterday during a personal meeting. To begin with, the Duma's rulers plan to cut 335 of the 1,801 employees in the chamber's apparatus by July 1 of this year. The main victims of the reduction will be workers of retirement age.

It will be almost impossible to leave Moscow in the summer Instead of fresh air on weekends, Muscovites, it seems, will have to inhale the aromas of the exhaust fumes of their own cars. On the eve of the opening of the summer season, the heads of the traffic police of the Moscow region honestly warned the capital's motorists that it would not be possible to get out of the city without hours of traffic jams this year - the capacity of the main radial roads has long been exhausted.

The Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC) intends to completely stop pumping its oil through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline after the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline is put into operation, AIOC President David Woodward said yesterday. Until now, Azerbaijan has assured the Russian side that it will be interested in using the northern route to Novorossiysk even after the completion of the construction of the pipeline to Ceyhan.

From 2007, the governing council will distribute the budget Russian education reformers have finally decided on the form in which school self-government will exist. Yesterday, the director of the Free Waldorf School, Anatoly Pinsky, who leads the project on public self-government in the new Ministry of Education and Science, said that this role will be played by governing councils at schools.

Russian schoolchildren are fighting Latvian education After a short lull, protests by Russian schoolchildren have resumed in Latvia. In February, the Latvian parliament decided that from September 1, in the senior classes of state Russian secondary schools, education will be conducted primarily in the Latvian language. The wave of demonstrations that arose then showed that Latvia was failing to implement in practice the right of citizens to receive education in their native language.