Bush prepares for third anniversary of Iraq war Today, US President George W. Bush will give the first of a series of speeches he has planned to mark the third anniversary of the coalition invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. According to White House spokesman Scott McKellan, George W. Bush will address the nation three times on Iraq before the end of the month. The President wants to convince his fellow citizens that his Iraq course is correct.

Deputies changed the consumer basket Last Friday, the State Duma adopted in the third and final reading a law amending the composition and cost of the consumer basket. The deputies decided that Russians need to eat more meat, fish, fruits and change their wardrobe more often. A change in the composition of the basket, which includes a minimum set of food products, non-food goods and services, is long overdue. Its current “filling”, formed back in 1999, is clearly outdated.

Western creditor banks filed a lawsuit for bankruptcy of Yukos YUKOS is facing complete ruin. Last Friday it became known that on March 6, its creditors - foreign banks - appealed to the Moscow Arbitration Court with a demand to declare the company bankrupt. If the judges support the foreigners’ claim, then external management will be introduced in the holding with all the ensuing consequences for the company’s shareholders.

"The Magic Flute" at the New Opera Theater In the strange New Opera theater, which sometimes surprises with thoughtless, almost provincial productions, and sometimes suddenly takes on the appearance of a normal player on the European opera field, the second performance has appeared, made by current stars of European directing (the first such was Bellini’s “Norma” staged Yossi Villera and Sergio Morabito).

AvtoVAZ found $4.5 billion in the Russian Development Bank The new management of AvtoVAZ, consisting mainly of people from the state-owned Rosoboronexport, seems to have appreciated its ambitions for the development of the plant and intends to implement them with money from the state-owned Russian Development Bank. Last Friday, AvtoVAZ President and General Director Igor Esipovsky and Chairman of the Board of the RBR Yuri Isaev signed an agreement of intent between the plant and the bank.

Gazprom agrees on cooperation with Algeria The high-profile arms-debt deal between Russia and Algeria almost overshadowed another important topic of bilateral cooperation. The Gazprom delegation, led by Chairman of the Board Alexey Miller, took the penultimate step towards a memorandum of cooperation with the Algerian state oil and gas company Sonatrach. This document is planned to be signed during a return visit to Moscow, which is tentatively scheduled for April.

The infamous British politician has died At the end of last week, former British Secretary of War John Profumo (pictured) died in London's Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. He was 91 years old. His surname, unusual for the British ear (Profumo’s ancestors were Italians), was a reminder for more than forty years of one of the most notorious political scandals with a spy odor.

The formation of shipbuilding holdings began A surface shipbuilding holding will be created in Russia, but not necessarily on the basis of Severnaya Verf, as previously assumed. The head of the Federal Agency for Industry (Rosprom), Boris Aleshin, announced this on Friday at a scientific and practical conference on shipbuilding problems organized by the All-Russian Fleet Support Movement. According to him, when the holding is created there will be no base enterprises at all.

200 years of the Moscow Kremlin Museums On March 10, 1806, Emperor Alexander I signed a decree “On measures for the permanent preservation of valuables in the Armory and Workshop Chamber.” From this day the history of the Kremlin museums begins. The bicentennial anniversary became a truly state event.

The remake of the legendary film by Grigory Alexandrov turned into a masterpiece of conceptual art The other day, young and famous directors and video artists Andrei Silvestrov and Pavel Labazov presented their new version of the film “Volga-Volga”. They re-edited the epoch-making Soviet comedy, following the directions of Viktor Shklovsky, who wrote in 1938 that the action of the comedy was drawn out and the middle was slipping.

The main intrigue of all the recent pole vault competitions was Elena Isinbaeva’s regular assault on another record. This time the world record holder stormed 4 m 93 cm, but to no avail. Nevertheless, this circumstance did not prevent the Russian woman from climbing to the top step of the podium. Elena ISINBAEVA shared her impressions of the performance in Moscow with Vremya Novostei correspondent Olga ERMOLINA.

FOOTBALL. Russian Cup. Return matches of the 1/8 finals. March 13 “Dynamo” - “Wings of the Soviets”, “Saturn” - “Amkar”. March 14. "Spartak" - "Luch-Energia". March 15th . "Spartak" Ks - CSKA. UEFA Cup. March 15--16. Return matches of the 1/8 finals. Premier League. 1st round. March 17. “Moscow” - “Amkar”, “Torpedo” - “Tom”. March 18. “Spartak” M - “Luch-Energia”, “Dynamo” - “Shinnik”, “Spartak” Nch - CSKA. March 19. “Lokomotiv” - “Krylya Sovetov”, “Rubin” - “Rostov”, “Zenith” - “Saturn”.

Following Basmanny, markets in Otradnoye, Saransk and Kazan collapse Yesterday, in the north-east of the capital, the roof collapsed between two warehouses of the Otradnoe wholesale and retail market. And this is the fourth such emergency in the country over the past two weeks, starting with the tragedy at the Moscow Basmanny market. Fortunately, this time there were no casualties, just like last Thursday, when the roof beam of the Central Market in Saransk burst.

February 10 -- March 10, 2006 “Politicians through the Eyes of the Media,” a joint project of the Vremya Novostei newspaper and the Medialogy company, are ratings of political figures who are most actively discussed in the Russian media.

The Hague Tribunal has lost its main accused On Saturday, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, 64, was found dead in a holding cell at Scheveningen Prison. This means that a few months before the end, the most ambitious trial in post-war history on charges of crimes against humanity against the head of a sovereign European state was interrupted. A court verdict regarding the most controversial figure in Balkan history at the end of the 20th century will never be rendered.