Mikhail Fradkov postponed reforms in the electric power industry Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov held a meeting last Friday at which he announced the suspension of the electricity reform until the end of the year - until changes are made to the action plan in connection with the administrative reform and individual steps are analyzed. It is difficult to conclude from the prime minister’s statement whether all transformation processes will be suspended or not all.

The great playwright Samuel Beckett, the founder of the theater of the absurd, once said that in the Soviet Union the theater of the absurd is impossible, because life itself is absurd. In Russia, last week law enforcement agencies actively worked in the genre of theater of the absurd. As a result, the country received a conditional military victory and an unconditional military and political defeat.

The Union of Right Forces was left without a leader for an indefinite period The Union of Right Forces, at its second congress after the 2003 parliamentary elections on Saturday, did not choose a new party leader. Moreover, the Union of Right Forces did not even set a time frame for his election. At the same time, most of the delegates agreed that a party without a leader is not really a party.

A new wave of controversy about Shakespeare's personality has begun in Europe and America. On June 24, the British literary circle “De Vere Society” solemnly celebrated a very significant anniversary date - the 400th anniversary of the death of the author of “Hamlet” and “Romeo and Juliet”. Those who remember the date of death of William Shakespeare will probably be surprised: after all, according to all encyclopedias, the Bard died on April 23, 1616.

165 thousand dollars will go to the development of the Russian province The Vladimir Potanin Charitable Foundation has summed up the results of its annual competition “A Changing Museum in a Changing World.” Of the 450 projects sent from 66 regions of the country, the 15 best were selected and received a grant budget of $165,000. The parade-presentation of the projects of the winners of the “Changing Museum in a Changing World” competition turned into a celebration of the Russian province.

Canadians go to vote on weekdays Parliamentary elections will be held in Canada today. In this country, elections are almost always held on Monday, for which citizens are even allowed to leave work four hours early. The election may end decades of Liberal rule, but there will be no significant change in Canadian life. The elections will not change Canada’s relations with Russia: our relations are minimal. Six months ago, no one doubted the new success of the ruling liberals.

The prosecutor's office of the Verkh-Isetsky district of Yekaterinburg opened a criminal case into the death of a three-year-old boy who fell into a sewer manhole. The emergency occurred in the center of Yekaterinburg, not far from the regional government building, where the boy was walking with his older sister and father. According to the father, while playing, the son ran to the side and fell into an open hatch.

Capital deputies accuse the mayor's office and housing investors of collusion Muscovites who are hoping to move from dilapidated five-story buildings to new housing within the boundaries of their district should be less trusting of the initiatives of the capital’s authorities.

The state lost its majority in Gazprom The meeting of Gazprom shareholders, held last Friday, nevertheless brought a surprise. According to its results, there were more managers on the board of directors of the concern than government officials (four versus three). At the same time, the head of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, promised after the meeting that by the end of the year, direct state participation in the share capital of the gas monopoly will increase to a controlling stake.

President Kocharyan did not go to the summit Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, unlike most of his colleagues in the CIS - such as Kyrgyz Askar Akayev, Ukrainian Leonid Kuchma and Georgian Mikheil Saakashvili - is not participating in the NATO summit opening today in Istanbul. Armenia, like Russia, is represented at the summit only by the head of the Foreign Ministry. Yerevan explains this decision by the current state of its relations not with NATO, but with the host of the summit, Turkey.

The famous young tenor José Cura sang at the New Opera “So many people, so many opinions,” thought observers of Moscow opera life after the outstanding opera director Peter Konwitschny, with a straightforward belief in the existence of windmills, announced that opera is in no way show business, and a week later, the noisily famous tenor Jose Cura, with romantic excitement on his face, said that he certainly respects Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras, because they are “legends of show business,”

NATO targets Transcaucasia and Central Asia A meeting of heads of NATO member states opens today in Istanbul, amid heightened security measures. Leaders of all 26 countries that are members of the Alliance, including US President George W. Bush, as well as many leaders of the CIS countries will come to Istanbul. Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be in Istanbul.

IMF criticizes Russian economic policy A routine event - a visit to Moscow by a mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to collect material for an annual report on the state of the Russian economy - unexpectedly ended in a sensation. IMF experts, leaving the Russian capital, made a public statement. Despite the general benevolent tone, the main diagnosis put to the Russian authorities is clearly visible - dizziness from oil successes and fear of new reforms.

The most famous transport plane of the Second World War crashed in the Moscow region On Saturday at 18.45, a Li-2 plane fell on the village of Zaozerye, Ramensky district, Moscow region. This machine was the only “working” copy of the Li-2 that survived from the Second World War. The plane took off from the Myachkovo airfield and managed to fly only 2.5 kilometers. The residents of the cottage, the roof of which was caught by the plane, were not injured, and there was no explosion or fire.

CIS presidents are looking for where to put a comma Just a week has passed since, in Astana, the leaders of the five EurAsEC states convinced each other and the intellectual elite of their countries that their bright future lay in the Eurasian Union.