Georgia is preparing to celebrate on November 23 the first anniversary of the “Rose Revolution”, which led to the early resignation of President Eduard SHEVARDNADZE. Now the 76-year-old former head of the republic is working on his memoirs and does not communicate with journalists at all. But he made an exception for Vremya Novostey’s staff correspondent in Georgia, Mikhail VIGNANSKY. —What do you remember a year after those events in Tbilisi?

The first verdict in the March 11 case was handed down in Madrid. Yesterday in the Spanish province of Asturias, two local residents were arrested during a major operation to catch drug traffickers. In addition to drugs, they sold detonators, fuse and dynamite. Asturias is a mining province. During the operation, the Spanish police became convinced that for some reason the local authorities turned a blind eye to the fact that even a child could buy explosives stolen from the mine there.

Today in Israel, the leader of the political wing of Hamas in the West Bank, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, will be released. He was detained in June 2002 in Ramallah on charges of aiding terrorist activities and sentenced to a year and eight months in prison. However, the investigation was unable to prove his direct involvement in the terrorist attacks. Sheikh Hassan Youssef was always very careful.

Two more participants in the attack on Beslan have been identified The bodies of two more militants who participated in the seizure of school No. 1 in Beslan and were destroyed by the special services during the assault were recently identified by investigators. According to Vremya Novostei, they turned out to be 17-year-old native of North Ossetia Adam Kushtov and 31-year-old Buran Tetradze.

Grounders form a group of outsiders at the Masters Cup At the final men's tennis tournament "Masters Cup" in Houston, the matches of the first round ended. Marat Safin replenished his bank account with $120 thousand, which is due to each player for winning a group stage match. Safin beat the French Open finalist, Argentinean Guillermo Coria, in two sets - 6:1, 6:4.

The secrets in German banks will become clear Germany, apparently, will become another country where the concept of banking secrecy will be conditional. This bastion of the banking business fell to the authorities' persistent attempts to improve the position of the federal budget. Now a scandal is flaring up in Germany over the law “On increasing tax integrity” adopted by the Bundestag on December 29, 2003.

Military designers have come up with a new method of working with state defense orders The recently completed inspection of a number of the most secret facilities of the Russian military-industrial complex (MIC) - closed research institutes developing unique technologies for the latest types of weapons - led to very unexpected results.

CSKA beat Tau thanks to a long bench Yesterday in Moscow, as part of the third round of the ULEB Euroleague, the rivals who shared the leadership in Group “C” met. CSKA, which had won Benetton (Italy) and Panathinaikos (Greece) in previous matches, hosted the Spanish Tau Ceramica (Vitoria), which managed to upset the French Pau-Orthez and fellow countrymen from Unicaja. CSKA spent most of the match in the role of catching up and kept its fans in terrible suspense.

RAO UES of Russia will build, but not everything it wants The government continues the cycle of reviewing investment programs and financial plans of natural monopolies. As you know, this year the Cabinet of Ministers of each industry is allocating a separate day for analysis, this is due to the fact that RAO UES of Russia and Gazprom somewhat missed the deadline for submitting programs to the government. Therefore, today on the agenda is RAO UES of Russia.

The Ministry of Defense has more and more money, but fewer and fewer resources The annual meeting of the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, which began yesterday with the participation of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, is generally proceeding on a positive note. Modernization of the army is being carried out quite actively, more money is being allocated than before. However, they are still not enough and they are not always spent rationally.

The defeat of the Estonians retained Yartsev’s post as team coach Head coach of the Russian national team Georgy Yartsev can calmly take a breath. His team defeated the Estonia team 4:0 in the 2006 World Cup qualifying round. Not God knows what kind of opponent, but you should have seen how the coaching staff of the Russian team rejoiced when Karyaka, Izmailov, Sychev and Loskov sent one goal after another into the goal of the Estonia team.

Peugeot wants to launch a joint project with DaimlerChrysler The French concern PSA Peugeot Citroen yesterday finally decided which of the world's automakers it would choose for a close partnership. Contrary to the previously announced possible launch of a joint project with Mitsubishi Motors, the company ultimately preferred the more reputable concern DaimlerChrysler AG.

Forecast for the coming days The pre-winter period in European Russia turned out to be unusually warm. In the center of Russia, the average daily air temperature on some days was 3-4°C above normal. But the warm weather appears to be over. Winter has arrived on the European territory of Russia. On Thursday, a new cyclone and its atmospheric front will bring snowfalls and blizzards to the Central Federal District, on Friday the snow will intensify and will not end until Sunday.

Palestinians do not believe that 75-year-old Yasser Arafat could have died like an ordinary old man - from illness or old age. Prime Minister of the autonomy Ahmed Qurei ordered the creation of an official commission to investigate the mysterious causes of the death of the elderly Arab leader and send an official delegation to Paris. The Palestinians want to get from French doctors Arafat's medical history and restore the full picture of the fatal disease.

The World Toilet Organization demands recognition of its social significance Under the slogans of the need to urgently improve the quality of life, a forum of the World Toilet Organization (WTO) opened yesterday in Beijing, bringing together representatives of “core” public associations from Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Great Britain, Australia, Russia, Finland and Indonesia, the USA and India .