Vladivostok received the status of capital After several years of fierce debate, deputies of the regional parliament yesterday finally awarded Vladivostok the status of the capital of the Primorsky Territory. On March 30, at a meeting of the legislative assembly of the Primorsky Territory, the bill “On the status of the city of Vladivostok - the administrative center of the Primorsky Territory” was adopted in the second and third readings.

The prosecutor's office will pay for trying to disqualify the head of the Serovsky district of the Sverdlovsk region It is impossible to remove the head of a municipality by court decision. This conclusion was reached by employees of the prosecutor's office of the Sverdlovsk region, who examined the judicial precedent in the Serovsky district. There, the magistrate court ruled to disqualify the head of the district, Alexander Kozyaev, for one year.

Doctors and government urge entrepreneurs to take a more active part in the fight against AIDS If not sensational, then at least a statement long awaited by thousands of HIV-infected Russians was made yesterday by the Minister of Health and Social Development, Mikhail Zurabov. According to him, in the near future the cost of drugs for the treatment of AIDS patients in our country may be significantly reduced - almost seven times.

Deputies are ready to exempt small businesses from using cash registers The persistent requests of small entrepreneurs to remove from them the obligation to issue cash receipts to customers seem to have been heard. Contrary to the government's position, Russian legislators are ready to support the proposal to abolish the use of cash registers for small businesses.

The Ministry of Transport wants to introduce tolls for roads without waiting for a special law Due to insufficient budgetary funding for highways in Russia, the Ministry of Transport is forced to speed up the creation of a mechanism for attracting private investment in this area and the organization of toll highways. This was stated yesterday by the head of the Ministry of Transport, Igor Levitin, at an extended board meeting of his department.

Brokers will try to appoint their representative to the board of directors of the MICEX Stock Exchange At the next meeting of shareholders of the MICEX Stock Exchange, which is scheduled for April 21, its board of directors will be updated taking into account the changes that took place last year in the composition of the shareholders of the trading platform.

John Paul II underwent another operation The Pope underwent another operation yesterday at the Italian Gemelli clinic. He was given a nasal-gastric tube to provide nutrition to the body. This was announced by Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. Due to Parkinson's disease, from which the pontiff has been suffering for several years, problems have arisen with swallowing: even liquid food has ceased to pass into the body.

The accusations against the Russians were unjustified Olga and Elena Romashchenko were accused of illegally staying in Moldova. This was recognized by the Chisinau district court. The Russian sisters had the necessary registration. Lawyers also filed motions to overturn the unlawful prosecution of similar claims against other 22 Russian citizens expelled from Moldova ahead of the March 6 parliamentary elections.

Vyacheslav Dudka became the new governor of Tula Yesterday, deputies of the Tula Regional Duma at an extraordinary meeting approved the candidacy of the new governor of the Tula region. The place of the famous agrarian, communist and member of the State Emergency Committee Vasily Starodubtsev, who headed the region for the last eight years, will be taken by the chief engineer of the defense instrument design bureau Vyacheslav Dudka. Initially, the discussion of Mr.

The opposition in the Duma fought for power On Wednesday, deputies immediately began the first meeting of the State Duma after a week-long break with political struggle. By the lunch break, the political struggle ended with the broken nose of Rodina deputy Andrei Savelyev and the deprivation of the LDPR leader, Deputy Speaker of the Duma Vladimir Zhirinovsky of the right to vote for a month. At first, the deputies wanted to completely take away the post of vice-speaker from Mr.

Forecast for the coming days Even at the end of March, winter in most of the European territory of Russia has not given up; it is still cold here. In the next 24 hours in the northwestern region at night the thermometers will drop to -5...-10оС, during the day there will be no precipitation and the temperature will warm up to +1...+6оС, there will be no precipitation on Friday as well, the prevailing temperature at night will be -2.

Mikhail Shvydkoy is concerned about where culture is heading The head of the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography, Mikhail Shvydkoy, began the press conference on cultural policy issues extremely emotionally.

Sharon thanks loyal politicians for budget The Israeli Parliament approved a budget for 2005 in the amount of 266.6 billion shekels ($62 billion). If this had not happened before April 1, the government would have had to resign. 58 deputies voted for the budget in the second and third readings, 36 voted against it and one abstained. The remaining 25 Knesset members were absent from the vote.

Bank Hapoalim money laundering case continues Employees of the Department for Combating International Crime of the Israeli Police detained yesterday at Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport the famous businessman Vladimir Gusinsky, owner of the RTVi television channel and co-owner of the Maariv newspaper. Messages about this appeared yesterday afternoon on the feeds of Russian news agencies, but were later clarified. As it turned out, Mr.

The White House wants to create a unified aircraft manufacturing corporation in a year and a half The draft presidential decree on the creation of the United Aircraft Company (UAC), which the Ministry of Industry and Energy presented yesterday for consideration by the government commission on military-industrial issues, was not agreed upon with other departments. Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov announced this before the start of the commission meeting.