Former head of the Russian Presidential Administration Alexander Voloshin yesterday commented on the scandalous report on fraud with Iraqi oil, which is being considered in the US Senate. Let us recall: the report claims that quotas for the trade of Iraqi oil under the UN Oil-for-Food program were provided to Russian companies and other organizations in exchange for Russian support for Iraq in the UN Security Council.

Alexey Miller intends to lift all restrictions on trading in Gazprom shares Yesterday the market tried to draw its own conclusions from official information that the merger of Rosneft and Gazprom would not take place. In the morning, the head of the gas concern Alexey Miller spoke on NTV, he said that the concern’s main task now is to liberalize the stock market: “Liberalization will be carried out in full, and we plan for this to be done in 2005,” he said He.

American authorities demand huge contributions from tobacco companies to combat smoking The largest tobacco producers may soon face huge costs that could seriously undermine the tobacco industry. The reason for this may be another law of the American government aimed at combating smoking.

The mute virtuoso turned out to be a street musician The now pan-European campaign to identify the amnesiac virtuoso pianist, who has been in a UK psychiatric clinic for more than a month, seems to have been successful. Yesterday, encouraging news came from Italy, where a certain 33-year-old Pole showed up, allegedly recognizing his old acquaintance in the mute musician.

Academicians responded to proposals from the Ministry of Education and Science with sound effects Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation Andrei Aleksandrovich Fursenko made history yesterday. It seems that never before has any statesman received the high honor of being booed by the general meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The pension fund does not know what to do with the money Pension reform in Russia seems to be faced with two problems that, to the average person, may seem mutually exclusive: where to get the money to compensate for the growing deficit of the Pension Fund and where to spend the trillions of rubles collected from taxpayers so that they generate income.

CLUBS Bella Cura. Performance by the Drama Theater of Elena Gora (Poland). Authors and performers Elzbieta Kosiecka, Lydia Filipek and Natalia Nikolska. Everyday scenes from the lives of three women, played in German, Polish and Russian, interspersed with arias by Mozart, Donizetti, Rossini and songs by Sibelius, Ruzicki, Tchaikovsky and Zagnie. "Home" , 19.30. Silk and Nikolay Oorzhak (Tuva). Silk is an experimental drummer ensemble working with ancient musical traditions.

The Belarusian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday announced the undesirability of Polish Embassy Counselor Marek Butko’s stay in the country and invited the diplomat to leave the country within a month, taking into account his “active personal actions aimed at destabilizing Belarusian society.” Spokeswoman for the Polish Embassy Monika Sadkowska told Vremya Novostey that Butko is not in Minsk now, because “he has already been on vacation in Poland for two weeks.” According to news agencies, on

Minister of Regional Development Vladimir Yakovlev told deputies about the dark present of housing and communal services The Minister of Regional Development of Russia Vladimir Yakovlev and the head of the Federal Agency for Construction and Housing and Communal Services Vladimir Averchenko made a report yesterday in the State Duma on the progress of housing and communal services reform.

On May 18, International Museum Day, according to tradition, the Ostankino museum-estate opened for the spring-summer season. Director of Ostankino Gennady VDOVIN told Sergei KHACHATUROV about the problems of Russian museums in general and the life of the Ostankino museum in particular. How is the restoration of Ostankino going? - Slowly but surely. The restoration is unique in its complexity. After all, the palace built by Count Sheremetev is made of wood and imitates a stone building.

The monotonous reading of the verdict on the Yukos executives lulls the public to sleep The announcement of the verdict in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky may take several weeks. Lawyers for the ex-head of YUKOS came to this conclusion yesterday on the third day after the start of reading the verdict in the Meshchansky District Court of the capital.

The wife of the former Saratov governor will not fight for mansions The scandalous criminal cases against the wife of the former governor of the Saratov region Dmitry Ayatskov, Olga Sergeeva, have been closed.

Viktor Yushchenko abolished state regulation of gasoline prices Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who spent months watching the battles unfolding between Russian oil workers and his own government over the price of petroleum products, finally intervened in the conflict. Today he will meet with LUKOIL President Vagit Alekperov, as well as TNK-BP Executive Director German Khan (yesterday the Anglo-Russian holding did not rule out that TNK-BP Head Robert Dudley could join them).

Marietta Chudakova wrote a book for our children. And for us Zhenya Osinkina, a fourteen-year-old girl from an intelligent Moscow family, learns that her older friend Oleg has been sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. In order to rescue Oleg from captivity, it is necessary to prove his alibi and find the real killers. And to do this, arrive at the scene of the crime, in a distant Siberian village.

From May 21 to 28, the Moscow House of Music will host events as part of the series “Cultural Capitals of the World. Genoa". The program in honor of the 2004 European Capital of Culture, organized with the support of the Moscow government, the Italian Embassy in Russia and the Municipality of Genoa, looks quite elegant for an event with such a slightly official touch.