Today, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi is meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and Secretary of the Russian Security Council Igor Ivanov. Particular attention at the negotiations will be paid to the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, around the Caspian Sea. Issues of bilateral cooperation will be discussed. Russian-Iranian trade turnover increased by a third in 2003 and reached $1 billion.

Transoceanic Metropolitan Laurus and Patriarch Alexy II held the first joint divine service The coming week could become an important milestone in the history of Russian Orthodoxy. For the first time after 80 years of historical schism, the heads of two Russian churches - Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and the first hierarch of foreign Orthodoxy, Metropolitan Laurus - agreed to meet.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former security adviser to the Carter administration and a consultant at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, recently visited Kyiv. The famous American political scientist, whose opinion is listened to by modern politicians, met with President Leonid Kuchma and members of the Ukrainian government. After this, Zbigniew BRZEZINSKI answered questions from Svetlana STEPANENKO, a correspondent for the Vremya Novostei newspaper in Kyiv.

The first private rocket plane undergoes successful testing The appearance of the first private spacecraft - even if it is very modest in size and suitable only for short-term flights - is just around the corner. The SS1 (SpaceShipOne) rocket plane, created by Scaled Composites, rose to a height of 64 km at the end of last week, after which it returned safely to the ground.

“Russia has changed a lot since it began cooperation with the Council of Europe. This cooperation has led to great successes in Russia,” Council of Europe Secretary General Walter Schwimmer, who was here on a visit, said on Saturday in Moscow. In his opinion, Russia has become better at “protecting the rights of citizens, largely thanks to judicial reform.” Mr.

The Japanese automobile concern Mitsubishi Motors is forced to go through a new round of the protracted crisis after a month ago the American-German giant DaimlerChrysler AG refused to solve its financial problems and announced its intention to sell its 37 percent stake. On Sunday, local media published some provisions of the company's new restructuring plan.

The stock market decline promises a new surge in interest in trust management services Russian stocks have been falling in price for more than a month now. Since April 12, when, as if in honor of Cosmonautics Day, the RTS index reached a historical maximum of 785.52 points, the stock indicator lost 27%, dropping to the level at the beginning of the year.

As a result of a raid carried out by French intelligence services and police in the Parisian suburbs of La Courneuve and Romainville, two people from Algeria living in France were detained. They are suspected of involvement in the so-called “Chechen connections.” This term is used by French anti-terrorist structures in relation to Islamist organizations involved in recruiting and sending militants to Chechnya.

Ukraine explained to the Russian leadership why the privatization of Krivorozhstal is its internal matter Severstal Group's chances of acquiring Ukraine's largest enterprise, Krivorozhstal, have not changed after Saturday's meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian prime ministers. Mikhail Fradkov, following a meeting with a colleague from Kyiv, made it clear that one should not hope for political support from the Russian top leadership, which Alexei Mordashov’s company was so counting on.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be held in South Africa On Saturday, the FIFA Congress at its meeting in Zurich decided that the 2010 World Cup will be held in South Africa. The southerners emerged victorious in a dispute with four northern states at once - Morocco, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. The fact that the 2010 World Cup will be held in Africa has been known for a long time.

Saturday was a day of protests in Cannes, where the annual film festival takes place. A demonstration by about 500 French entertainment industry workers, unhappy with the French government's plans to reform a special fund to help unemployed actors, disrupted the festival for several hours. Although the screening of the main film of the day's competition, Shrek 2, went well, several other screenings were interrupted or cancelled.

Sakhalin projects are being considered to be expanded to the mainland Participants in the consortium for the integrated development of fields in Eastern Siberia and the Far East continue to meet and make loud statements.

The fight against AIDS is hampered by optimistic statistics The next World Day of Remembrance for those killed by AIDS, celebrated on May 16, will clearly not become a day of national mourning in Russia. On the eve of this date, the head of the Federal Center for the Prevention and Control of AIDS, Vadim Pokrovsky, again complained that the HIV danger in Russia is underestimated by both the population and the official authorities. The state, Mr.

There is an unwritten political law: if you are a boss, set specific tasks, but set deadlines for their completion in such a way that no one can check. This is exactly how the Russian executive branch works, inheriting the Soviet tradition. The style of behavior of the Russian authorities is increasingly reminiscent of the picture described 25 years ago by the main hero of the day in May, Bulat Okudzhava: “The Roman Empire of the time of decline / Maintained the appearance of solid order.

"Army Pie" on Moscow screens Pie, of course, has nothing to do with it. In the original, the film by the Swiss Mark Eschmann is called “Ready, Attention, Charlie!” - with this energetic call, Swiss soldiers meet completely hopeless situations. Like the one in which the main character, the tremulous young man Antonio, found himself, who decided to marry the daughter of an Italian mafioso. But he was taken under arms straight from the church.