Yesterday in London, at the fashionable Mandarin Oriental Hotel, 650 representatives of the world elite celebrated the 80th birthday of Margaret Thatcher - the only and so far unique female prime minister in British history. Queen Elizabeth II and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh agreed to attend the reception, although they usually do not attend private celebrations of prime ministers. Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, former US President George W.

Orthodox monasteries are acquiring strange farms Exotic animal husbandry may soon become the specialty of Russian Orthodox monks. The other day, one of the monasteries of the Volgograd diocese began breeding ostriches. As the Blagovest-Info information service reports, for now the inhabitants of the Holy Trinity Kamenno-Brodsky Monastery keep three teenage birds on their farm. However, in the future they are expected to produce up to forty heads per year.

It remains to determine five participants in the World Cup Europe has practically decided on the representation that it will send to the upcoming World Cup. The hosts - the German national team - will host the winners of the qualifying groups - the teams of Holland, Ukraine, Portugal, France, Italy, England, Croatia and the Poles and Swedes who entered directly into the world football forum from second place.

Ukrainian national corporation recognized as a monopoly The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) yesterday banned the merger of the country's leading aircraft manufacturing enterprises into the Antonov state aircraft manufacturing corporation. According to the committee, the emergence of such a corporation would lead to a serious limitation of competition in the market for repair and maintenance of Antonov aircraft.

RTS and MICEX suspended trading in VSMPO-Avisma shares Since yesterday, the RTS and the MICEX, by order of the Federal Financial Markets Service, have suspended trading in ordinary registered shares of the titanium corporation VSMPO-Avisma in order to protect the rights and legitimate interests of its investors.

Bailiffs are seeking staff expansion Bailiffs are ready to resist the transfer of their service from the Ministry of Justice to the jurisdiction of the judges whom they protect and whose decisions they execute. The service's management is confident that all judges' complaints can be removed by increasing funding and staff. Director of the Federal Bailiff Service Nikolai Vinnichenko proved his usefulness in its current form yesterday with numbers.

FIRST Monday 17 October Prevention until 11.45 11.45 “Jumble” 12.00, 15.00, 18.00, 3.00 News 12.20 Big lunch 13.30 “COMEDY OF DAYS LONG PAST”. Hood. movie 15.10 Lolita. Without complexes 16.00 “MISTRESS OF DESTINY.” Series 17.00 Federal Judge 18.10 Crooked Mirror 18.40 “ADJUTANTS OF LOVE”. Series 19.50 Wait for me 21.00 Time 21.30 “HUNTING FOR WAPESTER”. Series 22.30 Special investigation 23.40 Night news 0.00 "Brotherhood of the Bomb." Doc. movie 1.10 "RUINED PALACE". Hood. movie 3.05 What?

Yuri Semin could not save the Russian team The draw for the World Cup qualifying play-offs will take place today in Zurich. Anyone interested can take a look. So, for general development. Because we now have no substantive interest in this procedure. The Russian team, having drawn with the Slovak team - 0:0, lost this qualifying round. She lost mediocrely and shamefully. Of course, we didn’t lose it the day before yesterday. We lost it from the very beginning, from the first match.

Bailiffs are again interested in Yukos property Almost a year after the sale of Yukos' main production subsidiary, Yuganskneftegaz, the bailiffs decided to again talk about selling the assets of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's former company. The Federal Bailiff Service (FSSP) reported yesterday that, according to its data, Yukos's debt to creditors now amounts to 199.3 billion rubles. and $475 million.

Almost half of Russian beneficiaries refused free medicines The Russian authorities have finished “collecting applications” to replace free medicines with money. By October, federal benefit recipients had to decide what they would choose next year - benefits in kind or cash - and, as the first calculations showed, the votes were divided approximately equally.

Harold Pinter wins the Nobel Prize in Literature The Royal Swedish Academy has found a way out of the difficult situation. After academician Knut Anlund announced his resignation from the venerable society, which a year ago awarded the highest literary award to the extravagant, if not scandalous, Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek, his former colleagues had to comply with two not so easily compatible conditions at the next award .

Mikhail Fradkov still hopes to reduce VAT While sad news from the region called Kabardino-Balkaria crowded out all others, the government at the next meeting discussed how to “catch up and get ahead” with the help of the regions (this is how Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov formulated the new slogan of the Cabinet of Ministers the day before). That is, to double GDP by 2010 at any cost. The current Russian government is neither catching up nor ahead.

Forecast for the coming days The weather was dry and unseasonably warm for almost two months. But finally, in the coming days there will be a change in the weather. And it’s about time, because today, according to the folk calendar, is Intercession Day. The warm anticyclone began to migrate east. On Friday in the northwestern region in the warm part of the cyclone there will be no rain, during the day +10...+15оС.

With the signing of the agreement on the construction of the North European Gas Pipeline (NEGP), Gazprom confirmed its position as a leading company in the infrastructure of the European gas market. The main consumers will be not only Germany and the Scandinavian countries, but also Great Britain, which until recently was one of the largest exporters of blue fuel, but is now experiencing a gas shortage.

The President of Venezuela decided to come to Moscow at the wrong time The visit of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Moscow will not take place these days. “The president will not come,” Omar Echeverria, Venezuela’s charge d’affaires in Moscow, told Vremya Novostey yesterday. A source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told us about the same thing: “Such a visit is not and has not been included in the plans”...