Bulgarian authorities took extraordinary precautions in connection with the two-day informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers that opened yesterday in Sofia. Three thousand police officers have been mobilized to maintain order in the areas adjacent to the National Palace of Culture (where ministers meet). Traffic on nearby streets is blocked.

Zbigniew Brzezinski discovered a “mixed system” in Russia At the July G8 summit in St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin will have to answer questions from his Western colleagues about the situation with democracy in Russia itself and in neighboring Belarus, as well as about our country’s relations with Georgia, Moldova and other states of the former USSR.

Opponents of Lukashenko were arrested for two weeks The leader of the united Belarusian opposition, Alexander Milinkevich, was sentenced yesterday to 15 days of administrative arrest. The head of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) Vintsuk Vecherko and trade union leader Alexander Bukhvostov received the same sentences. Communist leader Sergei Kalyakin was sentenced to 14 days. The arrests are related to the Chernobyl Way protest that took place on Wednesday, April 26.

The head of Hyundai is accused of corrupt lobbying The Chon clan, which owns South Korea's largest automobile concern Hyundai, faces the threat of criminal prosecution for the third time in the four years of President Roh Moo-hyun's rule. The head of the clan and the chairman of the concern, Chung Mong Gu, is accused of creating illegal funds in the amount of $116 million in the late 1990s to bribe government officials.

FIRST CHANNEL Monday, May 1 6 . 00, 10.00, 12.00, 18.00 News 6 . 10 "THE KING AND THE BIRD". Drawn Cinema 7 . 30 "STITCHES-ROADS". Hood. movie 8 . 50 “Play, beloved accordion!” Holiday Edition 10 . 10 "THE FOREST QUEEN". Hood. film (S) 12 . 10 "KALINA RED". Hood. movie 14 . 20 Festival of Humor 16 . 20 "GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE". Hood. movie 18 . 10 Golden Gramophone (S) 21 . 00 Time 21 . 20 "KILLER COUPLE: STARSKY AND HUTCH." Hood. film (S) 23 . 10 "COMANDANTE". Hood. movie 1 . 00 Boxing.

Dmitry Kozak demanded from Dagestanis unquestioning submission to the police Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Southern Federal District (SFD) Dmitry Kozak arrived in Dagestan yesterday to eliminate another “hotbed of tension” that unexpectedly formed earlier this week in the Dokuzparinsky district of the republic.

The list of applicants for the Big Book Prize has been announced Twenty Big Book Award experts read the 897 essays nominated for this impressive award. (The gold medalist should receive three million rubles, the silver one - one and a half, the bronze one - only a million). Simple arithmetic suggests: there were approximately 44 opuses for each expert. The result of their work was a long list of applicants, consisting of 71 texts (59 published books and 12 manuscripts).

But he will not participate in the operation against Iran. Today, at the end of his first visit to the United States, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will hold talks with President George Bush. Yesterday the guest spoke with Vice President Dick Cheney and First Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick.

Gazprom and BASF agreed to exchange strategic assets It took Gazprom and BASF thirteen months to determine the structure of the asset exchange transaction. At the beginning of April 2005 in Hanover, the chairmen of the board of two concerns, Alexey Miller and Jurgen Hambrecht, in the presence of Vladimir Putin and Gerhard Schröder, decided in principle to exchange strategic assets.

CSKA is eager to break the unpleasant tradition in the Euroleague The Final Four of the main continental club tournament, the men's Euroleague ULEB, starts today in Prague. At 19.30 Moscow time, the winner of the last two years' trophy, Maccabi (Tel Aviv), and the Spanish Taugres from the Basque city of Vitoria meet in the first semi-final. In three hours, multiple Russian champion CSKA and Spanish Barcelona will take to the floor of the Sazka Arena, which seats 18 thousand spectators.

Russian customs officers found several more corruption cases Russian customs, which has been hit with an avalanche of corruption allegations this week, yesterday received a series of new complaints. Unlike the criminal cases against customs officers announced in previous days (see yesterday's issue of Vremya Novostei) , which dealt with investigations that were either quite old or insignificant in scale, this time cases were reported about fresh and more serious ones.

Russian Federation passports are offered for purchase through competition The homeland is not for sale, but Russian citizenship may be offered to buy for those who want to legally own a passport with a double-headed eagle.

Diana Reeves at the House of Music There is such a hackneyed journalistic trick: when they want to praise an average but good-looking artist, they write that “there is worse than him, there is better, but there is no such thing .” In a sense, he is very special, and he/she cannot be measured by a common yardstick. For some, singer Diana Reeves doesn’t need such reservations: she’s just the best.

The former judge went to Strasbourg in the company of investigators The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) accepted the complaint of former Moscow City Court judge Olga Kudeshkina. Her lawyer Anna Panicheva announced this yesterday. According to the lawyer, the case will be considered as a priority, and the ECHR has already ordered the Russian government to answer all questions raised by the court by June 19 of this year.

Hockey. NHL. Stanley Cup. First round. “Montreal” – “Carolina” – 1:2 OT (series score 2:1), “Rangers” – “New Jersey” – 0:3 (0:3), “Philadelphia” – “ Buffalo -- 4:2 (1:2) -- Afinogenov "B" (0+2), Kalinin "B" (0+1), "Colorado" -- "Dallas" -- 4:3 OT (3 :0) -- Zubov “D” (1+0). The Rangers' first appearance in the playoffs in recent years looks set to be a disaster for them.