On the eve of the anniversary, 40th Biathlon World Championships, which starts on Saturday in the Austrian town of Hochfilzen, four-time Olympic champion Alexander Tikhonov has a lot on his mind. Not only as the president of the Russian Biathlon Union, but also as the first vice-president of the International Biathlon Union - the official representative of this organization at the World Championships.

Spanish pilots open Moscow for the third time The Spanish airline Iberia announced the opening of a regular Madrid-Moscow flight yesterday. This is its third attempt to penetrate the Russian market since the collapse of the USSR. The previous two were commercially unsuccessful. Currently, only the Russian Aeroflot operates regular flights between the capitals of the two countries. The competition between Aeroflot and Iberia started yesterday with a bad omen.

Kommersant continues its legal battle with Alfa Bank The Kommersant publishing house yesterday failed to recover 300 million rubles paid to Alfa Bank as compensation for the reputational damage allegedly caused by its publication in July.

Yuri Luzhkov discovered an illegal provision in the United Russia charter A real emergency happened in the leadership of the United Russia party. Co-chairman of the Supreme Council of the party in power, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov sent a letter to the leader of United Russia, Speaker of the State Duma Boris Gryzlov, in which he actually accused the party leadership of falsifying the decisions of the United Russia congress.

The cartel may change the formula for calculating the price of its oil At its next session, which will be held in two weeks in Isfahan, Iran, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) may change the composition of the OPEC basket. As stated by the acting General Secretary of the cartel Adnan Shihab-Aldin, instead of seven varieties of raw materials extracted by cartel members, it will include eleven.

Friendship with the USA cannot be measured in battalions Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko fulfilled one of the key promises of his election campaign and announced the withdrawal of the Ukrainian peacekeeping contingent from Iraq. The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) stated that a new government has already been elected in Iraq, designed to stabilize the situation in the country.

Militants hit anti-Saddam tribunal National mourning in Iraq yesterday in memory of the victims of the bloody terrorist attack in Al Hill, which killed 106 people, did not stop the violence. In Baghdad, two explosions killed 13 people and injured 30 people. As in Al Hill, the victims were ordinary people hoping to get a job in the Iraqi National Guard, as well as random passersby. Militants eliminated two members of the special tribunal created for Saddam Hussein and his associates.

Alexander Zhukov was “drawn” to the apparatus battle in the government The once routine process of forming the government budget commission presented a new surprise. Not only was it for the first time in many years that the commission was headed personally by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov instead of the Minister of Finance, but he also chose as his deputy not Alexei Kudrin, which would be logical, but Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov.

Sales of American auto industry leaders are falling Leading American automakers are now more concerned than ever about competition with Asian companies, whose products have reached the peak of popularity in the United States. Industry giants such as General Motors and Ford were simultaneously forced to announce production cuts.

Russia, it would seem, has given comprehensive answers to criticism from Washington regarding the domestic and foreign policies of our country. However, the Americans continue to ask Moscow the same questions. US Secretary of State Condoleezza RICE said the same thing in a quick interview with Vremya Novostei columnist Elena SUPONINA. This is her first comment on this topic since the Putin-Bush summit in Bratislava exactly a week ago. Ms.

Alexey Miller and Sergey Bogdanchikov demonstrated a legal entity The heads of Gazprom and Rosneft, Alexey Miller and Sergei Bogdanchikov, went on national air yesterday to publicly end the controversy surrounding the merger of their companies. They reported in an interview with federal television channels, which took place at the Gazprom office, that a decision had been made on the merger scheme.

The Russian team is among the favorites of the European Winter Championship The 28th European Indoor Athletics Championships kicks off tomorrow in Madrid. These competitions date back to 1966, although the first four tournaments had the status of the European Games. Starting from the 1970 season, continental championships began to be assigned serial numbers. For a long time they were held every year; in the 1990s, the frequency of these competitions increased to two years.

Ukrainian politicians doubt the solution to the murder of Gongadze Yesterday, new details of the Gongadze case emerged, the sensational disclosure of which was announced by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. “Three police officers who were directly involved in the murder have been detained,” the rest are “wanted,” Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko said yesterday. It is reliably known that two of the detainees have the rank of police colonel.

On Moscow screens the film “On the Roadside” Miles (Paul Giamatti), an unsuccessful writer (however, no one except himself considers him such - in the Miles archive there is only one novel, and even then unpublished), who makes a living teaching hated literature, together with his best friend Jack (Thomas Hayden Church, a television actor who always tenses up at the slightest opportunity to be recognized, go on a tour of California to try local wine and get a little insight into life: Miles is

The merger of Rosneft reduced the capitalization of Gazprom The final decision on the merger of Gazprom and Rosneft should “greatly please” the gas concern’s investors, said Bob Foresman, head of the Russian division of the investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Gazprom’s consultant on this deal. “This is a very important step towards liberalizing the gas concern’s share market,” he told Interfax-AGI.