The Shaolin Monastery will deal a blow to competitors from Hollywood The abbot of the world-famous Shaolin Buddhist monastery is going to take a piece of bread from Hollywood directors and take advantage of the promotion that the products of the American dream factory have provided to his novices.

Vremya Novostey's questions were answered by 55-year-old Swedish parliament member Göran LINDBLAD, who, as a member of the PACE political commission, heads the work on the report “On the need for international condemnation of the crimes of communism.” -- The draft report was removed from the agenda of the October PACE session. Are you disappointed? -- No. I think we need more time - after all, I was appointed as rapporteur only in March. The discussion was open and honest.

Ford sells global car rental leader Hertz American automobile giant Ford Motor Co. will no longer rent out cars. Last Monday, the concern's management announced the sale of its division to Hertz Corp., the world leader in car rental. The buyer was a group of private investors, which includes large investment firms Clayton Dubilier & Rice, Carlyle Group and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity. The new owners agreed to pay $5.6 billion in cash for Hertz.

CLUBS The rebirth of the club “Ulitsa OGI”. Anatoly Gerasimov (saxophone, flute) and Lev Rubinstein take part in the festive concert. 19.00. Time for Jazz. “Club on Brestskaya” , 19.30. Psoy Korolenko (vocals, keyboards). “OGI Project” , 22.00. “Dirty Man” (Russia, 2004). Directed by Tanya Detkina. Starring Maxim Roganov, Svetlana Malysheva, Anton Privalov. The film is a participant in the “Young Cinema Forum” of the Berlin Film Festival.

Russian officials have completely confused foreign investors The investment forum “Russia and the CIS 2005: Towards a Balanced Economy”, which opened yesterday in Moscow, once again demonstrated how “unbalanced” the points of view of Russian officials are on modern Russian economic reality. Their diametrically opposed assessments seem to have further confused investors, who are already not particularly eager to get into Russia.

George Bush found the culprit The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a new boss - David Polison. He replaced the helpless Michael Brown, who failed to organize rescue efforts in four southern states of the country before and after Hurricane Katrina. The message about this coincided with terrible news: in New Orleans, 45 corpses were found in hospital beds in a half-flooded hospital. Last night, President George W.

MEDT will support foreign investments The government intends to seriously make life easier for foreign investors in Russia. As Minister of Economic Development German Gref said yesterday, the next meeting of the Foreign Investment Advisory Council (FIAC) is scheduled for October 17. By this time, amendments to a number of legislative acts regulating the work of foreigners in Russia should be prepared.

Gref promotes placement of state-owned shares on the London Stock Exchange Officials are discussing the possibility of completing the privatization of the Far Eastern Shipping Company (FESCO) through the sale of 19.8% of the shares of this third largest shipping company in Russia on the foreign stock market. Yesterday, the head of the Ministry of Economic Development, German Gref, told reporters that the idea is being discussed by relevant departments.

The prosecutor's office proposed depriving accreditation of more than half of foreign adoption agencies The Prosecutor General's Office continues to attack foreign adoptive parents - or rather, their representatives. Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky yesterday demanded from the Minister of Science and Education Andrei Fursenko to prematurely terminate the accreditation of more than half of the existing representative offices of foreign adoption organizations.

Watch from August 15 on Moscow screens “Wedding Crashers” (USA, 2005, David Dobkin). Two bosom buddies (Vince Vaughn and Luke Wilson) prefer to spend all their free time at other people's weddings. As you know, sneaking into wedding celebrations is as easy as shelling pears: the groom's relatives think that you are from the bride's side, the bride's relatives think that you are from the groom's side, and rich food, drinks and pretty bridesmaids are always right there.

Melaanskaya Street on the section of the route from Tbilisi airport to the center of the Georgian capital has been renamed and now bears the name of George W. Bush. The signs, which read "George Bush Stack" (George Bush Street), went up on Tuesday. The opposition considers it at least unethical to name a street after the living president of the United States, even if he survived a failed assassination attempt in Tbilisi in May (a live grenade thrown in his direction did not explode by luck).

Politician's death will delay German election results At the final stretch of the road to early parliamentary elections in Germany, an unexpected obstacle was discovered. The elections are scheduled for Sunday, but a few days ago a candidate from the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany died suddenly in Dresden. In accordance with existing rules, voting in this constituency is postponed by three weeks.

The first large-scale exhibition of the famous pop artist opens in Moscow today Russia has truly never seen a Warhol like this before. The thing is that the organizer of the exhibition, the Andy Warhol Museum in his hometown of Pittsburgh, is the largest and most diverse repository of the artist’s creative heritage and archival materials. Opened on May 13, 1994, the museum was the first in America dedicated to the art and life of an artist of the postwar period.

“The Case of Dead Souls” failed to repeat the success of “The Idiot” When, after the triumphant success of the series based on Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot,” a general search for Russian classics for film adaptation began, it became clear to any sensible observer that not many would be able to find a gold mine in this mine. It is clear that a classic in itself, no matter how good the source material is, no matter how many famous actors participate in the filming, does not guarantee anything.

A meeting with oligarch Boris Berezovsky cost the Speaker of the Latvian Sejm Ingrida Udra (Union of Greens and Peasants) a Russian visa. According to the Latvian agency BNC, for this reason the speaker was allegedly denied entry into Russian territory. This was reported to journalists by a high-ranking source in the Latvian Foreign Ministry, who wished to remain anonymous. Ingrida Udre was planning to visit Siberia in August to meet local Latvians.