Shawnee Davis becomes the first black Winter Olympics champion The owner of the Turin gold medal in the 500, Svetlana Zhurova, yesterday failed to build on her success at a distance twice as long. Although yesterday the Russian woman showed quite a decent result, beating the current world record holder, the standard bearer of the US team at the opening ceremony of the Games, American Chris Whitty, in a head-to-head debate.

The governors of the Urals are preparing to abandon direct elections of heads of municipalities Last week, two Russian governors spoke out in favor of changing the status of heads of municipalities. The first to make such statements was the head of the Sverdlovsk region, Eduard Rossel.

Alexey Miller and Saparmurat Niyazov no longer argue about gas prices for Ukraine President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov celebrated his 66th birthday in gas troubles. First, he talked with the chairman of the board of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, then received the Ukrainian delegation represented by the Minister of Fuel and Energy Ivan Plachkov and the head of Naftogaz, Alexey Ivchenko. With the Russian guest, Mr.

Maslennikov is not entered into the team jumping tournament On Monday our medal hopes are tied to the dance couples competition in figure skating. The main thing is that subjective judging does not interfere in the distribution of awards based on the results of the third type of program - free dance. The referees' sympathies for the Italian couple Barbara Fusar-Poli - Maurizio Margaglio became obvious already during the performance of the compulsory dance.

Yuri Shutov was sentenced to life imprisonment The St. Petersburg court on Friday finished announcing the verdict in the case of deputy of the city legislative assembly (LA), ex-assistant to the mayor and ex-candidate for governor Yuri Shutov. At the same time, the expectations of many observers who had been closely following this process since 1999 that Shutov’s case would fall apart did not come true. In St.

The weight of statistical errors did not drag down MTS shares AC&M-Consulting has published the final figures for January connections to cellular networks of Russian operators. For the first time in the history of its existence, the Mobile Telesystems operator registered a reduction in the number of its subscribers in the Moscow region, and Megafon-Moscow, also for the first time during its operation, was ahead of all competitors in the number of new connections.

The newspaper "City News" was recognized as flammable Volgograd Vice-Mayor Andrei Doronin did not disguise his decision to close the “politically incorrect” newspaper “Gorodskie Vesti” with statements that the publication was being liquidated as part of the ongoing reorganization of the administration’s information structures. At a press conference last Friday, he confirmed that the newspaper was being closed for publishing a cartoon of Christ, Moses, Buddha and Muhammad.

The Balkans won in Berlin The winners of the 56th Berlin Film Festival were announced at a ceremony on Saturday. The Golden Bear went to the Bosnian drama by Jasmila Zbanic. The jury, chaired by Charlotte Rampling, divided the Grand Prix (“Silver Bear”) in half between “Soap” by the Danish Pernille Fischer Christensen and “Offside” by the titled Iranian Jafar Panahi.

The mayor of Moscow and the head of RAO UES discussed the problems of developing the capital's electric power industry Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov was happy last Saturday that the management of RAO UES of Russia had finally begun to take seriously the problems of the capital's electric power industry.

Jazz deserves triumph The current festival "Triumph of Jazz" has turned into a circus. Of course, in the good sense of the word - everything was fun, easy and masterly. The festival (again a one-day event) has changed its location - from the usual “Russia” it has moved to the Great Hall of the House of Music on the Red Hills.

Christian churches are being burned in Nigeria The death toll in the “cartoon scandal” has already reached dozens. At least 16 people, most of them Christians, were killed in unrest in Nigeria on Saturday. Half of Nigeria's 130 million people are Muslim, and protests in Africa's largest country have taken on the character of a religious war.

The advertising capacity of stars will be determined by a special formula The American agency Davie-Brown Talent, which specializes in casting celebrities for advertisers, promises to translate the popularity of movie and show business stars into the accessible language of dollars and thereby provide a new criterion for evaluating their work.

Alexander Lebedev creates a new airline The National Reserve Corporation (NRK) intends to create Russia's first low-cost passenger airline by the end of the year. Alexander Lebedev, a State Duma deputy and the main shareholder of the National Reserve Corporation (NRK), told the industry news agency Aviaport about this at the end of last week.

A propaganda campaign has begun in Belarus The presidential elections in Belarus, scheduled for March 19, are attracting special attention from the international community. The United States and European structures have made a number of statements, from which it follows that if the electoral process is undemocratic, the West will apply sanctions against Belarusian officials.

Today in Moscow negotiations are to take place on the creation in Russia of a joint venture to enrich uranium for Iran's nuclear power industry. The Russian proposal is one of the last chances to resolve the Iranian problem through diplomatic means. What is this proposal and how is it beneficial to our country? The former Russian Minister of Atomic Energy, Director of the Institute of Strategic Stability, Academician Viktor MIKHAILOV, told Vremya Novostey about this. —What is Russia’s proposal?