Kaliningrad residents should be the first in Russia to receive new-style international passports The Kaliningrad region will become one of the pioneers of ultra-modern passporting in Russia. Already in mid-February, residents of the westernmost region of Russia, bordering the countries of the European Union, will be able to receive foreign passports of a new type - with biometric data.

2m Crouch puts England at the top of our group On Saturday, representatives of Russian Premier League clubs played a significant role in the 2008 European Championship qualifying matches. Some, like Scotsman Harry O'Connor or Lithuanian national team goalkeeper Zydrunas Karcemarskas, scored a plus. But the Czech Martin Jiranek almost became an anti-hero.

Chronicle of sporting events The Euro 2008 qualifying match between the Russian and Croatian national teams, which will take place on September 6 at the Lokomotiv stadium, will be officiated by a Spanish team of referees led by Enrique Mejuto Gonzalez. It is noteworthy that Gonzalez refereed the Russians’ opening game in the previous qualifying round. Then Georgy Yartsev's team lost the victory in the last minutes in the match with Slovakia - 1:1.

Russian planes will be checked for counterfeit products Rostransnadzor last Friday announced an audit of the entire system of providing spare parts for Russian civil aviation. The head of this agency, Valery Saleev, sent a letter to commercial airlines demanding that by September 11, they submit to his agency information about suppliers of spare parts for aircraft, contracts concluded with them, volumes of supplies, and cases of detection of counterfeit and falsified products.

The Ministry of Natural Resources threatens YUKOS with revoking the license for the Yurubcheno-Takhomskoye field YUKOS's mining assets may go under the hammer even before the official sale begins. Last Friday, the Ministry of Natural Resources threatened to take away the company’s license for the Yurubcheno-Takhomskoye oil and gas field in the Evenki Autonomous Okrug, whose reserves reach 237 million tons of oil and 387.3 billion cubic meters of gas.

A scandal is breaking out in Israel due to the fact that yesterday, on the initiative of the Russian side, the first Russian National Exhibition in Israel was canceled.

Musical theater opened the season with a “gala catharsis” This is how the genre of the festive performance was designated, dedicated to the return of the theater to its newly built stage - “Gala Catharsis in Three Parts”.

Spain won the World Cup final in the absence of the injured Pau Gasol The Spanish national team became the world champion among men's teams for the first time. In the final match at the Saitama Arena in Japan, basketball players from the Iberian Peninsula, even in the absence of their injured leader Pau Gasol from the NBA Memphis club, defeated the sensational offenders of the US national team of the Greeks - 70:47.

The new Russian Ambassador to Romania, Alexander Churilin, has begun work in Bucharest. Having started his career as an Africanist, he worked for a long time in the American direction and was a negotiator on disarmament and security issues. In recent years, the 59-year-old diplomat headed the historical and documentary department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Yesterday Alexander CHURILIN answered questions from Vremya Novostey.

Poles cancel popular TV series for their Soviet past From the beginning of September in Poland, a new television season traditionally begins and the broadcast schedule changes. This time there are big changes on Polish state television. Firstly, the focus is on young people. Secondly, under the influence of the new political government, personnel purges are underway and the broadcasting network is being revised.

Edita Piekha and Olga Voronets may become deputies of the Nizhny Novgorod parliament People's Artists of the USSR Edita Piekha and Olga Voronets were included in the list of candidates for the Nizhny Novgorod regional branch of the Russian Party of Pensioners in the elections to the legislative assembly of the Nizhny Novgorod region and, if they pass on the list, they can apply for deputy seats in the regional parliament.

First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Ukraine Mykola Azarov said the other day that the parameters of the Ukrainian budget for 2007 directly depend on the price of Russian gas. The head of the Ministry of Fuel and Energy of Ukraine, Yuriy BOYKO, told Vremya Novostei correspondent Svetlana STEPANENKO about the situation in the fuel and energy complex. -- Is a sharp jump in prices for Russian gas possible for Ukraine in 2007?

Government The Russian side is interested in continuing fruitful cooperation with the World Bank Group - in particular, to solve the problems facing Russia as the head of the G8, said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov. According to Mr. Zhukov, following the restoration of sustainable economic growth and strengthening of internal political stability, Russia's international weight has increased significantly in recent years.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday called on Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to agree to the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Darfur province. Al-Bashir rejected UN Security Council Resolution 1706 immediately after its adoption on Thursday, saying he would order peacekeepers to be shot at if they appeared in Darfur. Khartoum saw “colonialism” in the resolution, whose nine co-sponsors included the United States and Britain.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who recently visited Tehran, was unable to convince the Iranian leadership to suspend uranium enrichment. At the same time, the Iranian leadership confirmed its readiness for negotiations. Now the Iranian problem will be discussed again by the “six” consisting of Russia, the USA, China, Great Britain, France and Germany. On September 7, it will meet at the level of political directors (deputy foreign ministers) in Berlin.