Residents of Russia consider the elimination of terrorists justified The majority of Russians are sympathetic to the killing of terrorists by special services and consider it the execution of justice and a method of struggle. These are the results of a nationwide survey of the population, published by the Public Opinion Foundation on the eve of the Israelis' liquidation of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantisi.

The forecast about a “quiet” spring was not confirmed At the end of last week, spring floods hit several Siberian regions at once. “Big water” came, as usual, completely unexpectedly and where it was least expected: in Khakassia, the Kemerovo region and Altai. Information has already appeared about the first victims of the flood: in Kuzbass, according to various sources, from three to five people drowned. The incident once again demonstrated how thankless forecasting natural disasters is.

In Moscow, at the Reception House on Kosygina Street, representatives of the Russian establishment solemnly celebrated the 80th anniversary of Vnesheconombank.

The head of the Bundesbank resigned The two-week scandal surrounding the 61-year-old president of the German Bundesbank, Ernst Welteke, ended on Friday with the banker's voluntary resignation. All this time, the federal government and especially Finance Minister Hans Eichel made efforts to keep the flames of the scandal alive.

Gennady Padalka and Michael Fink are leaving for the ISS six months early The International Space Station is preparing to welcome new owners. This morning, the crew of the ninth main expedition will take off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome - Russians Gennady Padalka and Michael Fink, as well as the representative of the European Space Agency, Dutchman Andre Kuipers, who has joined them for a couple of weeks.

Kyiv limits Russia's information influence The Russian language is being squeezed out of the Ukrainian information space. From today, only television and radio companies broadcasting exclusively in the Ukrainian language will be able to obtain or re-issue a license to broadcast in Ukraine. From today, licensed national TV channels are also required to switch to Ukrainian. TV shows purchased in Russia must be accompanied by Ukrainian subtitles.

For Lokomotiv midfielder Dmitry KHOKHLOV, the match with CSKA was the first in this Russian championship. Having suffered a back injury in the Champions League meeting with Monaco, Dmitry was forced to miss the start of the national championship. However, the peculiar debut turned out to be a success: Lokomotiv won against CSKA, and Khokhlov himself scored the only goal in this meeting. — Dmitry, did you expect such a triumphant return? — It’s too early to talk about triumph.

Russia is trying to rebuild its high-tech economy Today in Moscow, at the Expocentre exhibition complex on Krasnaya Presnya, the V International Forum “High Technologies of the XXI Century” (“HT XXI-2004”) begins work. The forum is being held on the initiative of the Moscow government and with the support of the Russian government. The main goal of the event is to promote the development of the national innovation system.

Forecast for the coming days The solar anticyclone did not disappoint our expectations and arrived in the southeast of the central region on schedule. On Sunday night, with little cloudiness in a number of areas of European territory, the air cooled to light frosts. Moscow and the region were not spared the frosts. In the next 24 hours, the anticyclone will rush through the Middle Volga region into the Kazakh steppes.

They don’t want to see his representative on the board of directors The board of directors of the Anglo-Dutch metallurgical group Corus declared war on the company's second largest shareholder, Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov. Last Friday, less than a week before Corus' annual shareholder meeting on April 22, Chairman Jim Lang wrote a letter to other Corus shareholders urging them to vote against Mr. Usmanov's nomination to the board.

Chubais does not want to follow the path of Khodorkovsky One of the country's main liberals, the head of RAO UES of Russia, Anatoly Chubais, responded to Mikhail Khodorkovsky. In an interview with The Financial Times published on Friday, Mr. Chubais, however, does not say anything about the “crisis of liberalism in Russia,” but says: “Let Khodorkovsky repent of his own sins, I will deal with my sins myself.” Mr.

On Friday evening, a plane of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations returned from Baghdad, which took citizens of the Russian Federation and CIS countries out of the country affected by the uprising. Among the 117 people taken out of Iraq was Interenergoservis employee Sergei Brazhnikov, who was wounded in the leg by a stray bullet. This flight on Friday was the only one, although three more flights were previously planned - two to Baghdad and one to Kuwait.

The events of 1998, it would seem, are receding further into history. The point is not only that six years have passed, but the current political and economic situation is too strikingly different from the crisis.

An exhibition dedicated to the anniversary of the Russian monetary unit has opened at the Moscow Kremlin Museums The exhibition “350 years of the Russian ruble” is demonstratively modest. This is understandable - this is not the best time for the hero of the day. The Russian ruble fell below its current value only during the memorable inflation that occurred after the Bolshevik revolution.

Classic banking business may turn out to be unprofitable Data on the profitability of bank deposits and corporate loans, published by the Central Bank on Friday, shocked experts: the traditional banking business is becoming unprofitable. Thus, according to the Central Bank, in February the average rate on short-term (up to a year) loans fell by 1.2%, while deposit rates fell three times slower.