American Alcoa is exploring the Far East The Russian Far East turned out to be of interest not only to domestic aluminum producers (primarily RUSAL and SUAL), who plan to build factories there and are now looking for sites. The Khabarovsk Territory attracts them with its proximity to one of the promising markets - China, and also has an important advantage over other regions - access to the sea and satisfactory river navigation along the Amur.

They are trying to subordinate the Kaliningrad Public Chamber to the regional administration In the westernmost Russian region, the new political season begins with a scandal. It is possible that in the near future the regional Public Chamber will be “shake up”, making it part of the power vertical. The newspaper Vremya Novostei already wrote about this scenario this spring.

President Alkhanov does not like the name of his republic The President of the Chechen Republic Alu Alkhanov, who was in St. Petersburg at a meeting of the Russian-Arab Business Council, unexpectedly proposed renaming his region. In his opinion, the name Chechnya, “which has been assigned to the republic in recent years,” sounds somewhat dissonant, contains a negative connotation, is perceived negatively and has no legal basis. “I have always said that the name of the Chechens is Nokhchi.

On the last day of summer, NASA announced the winners of the tender for the construction of new spacecraft, which in the future should replace the current shuttles. Atlantis and Discovery will replace the Orions, which will be created by the Lockheed Martin corporation. The company won a competition from the Boeing-Northrop-Grumman alliance and will receive billions of dollars from NASA to build a fleet of new reusable spacecraft.

Ramzan Kadyrov called on the Russian leadership to fight xenophobia The Chechen authorities reacted sharply to the events in Kondopoga and are ready to take an active part in resolving the situation. The President of the Republic, Alu Alkhanov, said that forced displacement of nations is unacceptable, be it Chechens, Jews, Tatars or representatives of any other ethnic groups. Especially if this happens in connection with the work of “criminal structures”.

On Wednesday in Kyiv, Russia and Ukraine will continue negotiations on gas. The problem of gas supplies will also become the main one at the negotiations of Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuri Yekhanurov in Moscow, where he will arrive in mid-February. At the same time, Ukrainians are actively looking for ways to get rid of their dependence on Russian gas. Vladimir SHANDRA, Minister of Industrial Policy of Ukraine, tells Vremya Novostey about this.

Perhaps, besides Moscow, there is hardly another capital in which the territory of art depends not on public consciousness, but solely on the whim of the authorities.

The Vremya Novostey newspaper decided to find out from politicians and political scientists what, in their opinion, is the cause of the mass unrest in Kondopoga, whether the situation with interethnic relations in Russia is getting out of the control of the authorities and what should be done to prevent the replication of such excesses .

Russia has finally mastered the production of automatic transmissions The first domestic automatic transmissions appeared in Russia. This new product for the country was presented by its manufacturer, KATE, during the International Motor Show 2006 and Motor Show/MIVS 2006 exhibitions at the Crocus Expo trade and exhibition complex in Moscow.

The Salzburg Festival shone with performers, but not with performances Salzburg was and remains a special, magical place: this tiny baroque city with marvelous streets, passages and squares, sandwiched between the muddy Salzach stream and the cliffs, can be walked around in three to four hours. But in the summer months, sometimes even two weeks are not enough to realize all the fresh ideas that musicians and theater people live here.

The head of the pre-trial detention center was taken hostage by his own prisoners In one of the capital's pre-trial detention centers yesterday afternoon, a group of prisoners managed to take their own guards hostage, including the head of the pre-trial detention center himself. As it turned out, there were only three invaders, and 15 captives, including 9 women. For six hours, representatives of the Federal Penitentiary Service tried to negotiate with the attackers.

Tom Wolfe. I'm Charlotte Simmons. Translation from English V. Pravosudova. Amphora, 2006. The novel, which became a reference book for American youth in the mid-2000s, was written by the founder of the so-called “new journalism” Tom Wolfe in 2004. Thirty-six years have passed since the publication of The Electric Cooling Acid Test, which brought him fame as the main literary informal in America.

CLUBS Barbez (New York). A group consisting of descendants of Russian emigrants, a wild cocktail of instruments and styles. Barbez is often compared to another New York group, also from Eastern Europe, the group Gogol Bordello. Barbez plays, among other things, marimba, theremin and clarinet. The music is a mixture of French, Argentine and Eastern European folk with crazy and in a good way “raw” punk.

The winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) opens today in Strasbourg. There are three scandalous topics on the agenda: information about secret US prisons in Europe, the problem of human rights in Chechnya and the question of whether the totalitarian past of former communist regimes should be condemned. From May to November 2006, Russia will preside over the Council of Europe.

The first European lunar station left behind only a small crater Last Sunday, the European Space Agency smashed the SMART-1 satellite onto the lunar surface with great solemnity. A bright flash in the Lake of Excellence, where at 5 o'clock. 42 min. Greenwich time, an automatic station fell, which could be observed not only by specialists and engineers who monitored every turn of the lunar apparatus, but also by many amateur astronomers.