The secret services of Karachay-Cherkessia are wondering who they spent the whole day storming One of the central blocks of the capital of Karachay-Cherkessia, the city of Cherkessk, yesterday turned into the arena of fierce military operations, the likes of which federal forces in the North Caucasus have not had to wage for more than a year. Early in the morning, local intelligence officers discovered and blocked a group of suspected militants in one of the apartments.

The head of the Biathlon Union was re-elected for another four years The current president of the Russian Biathlon Union, multiple Olympic champion Alexander Tikhonov was re-elected yesterday to the post of head of the RBU. At the reporting and election conference, held at 201 km of the Simferopol highway in the Tula region in the Grumant park-hotel, 50 out of 74 delegates, representing 46 regions and regions of Russia, voted for Tikhonov.

Ministries have compiled a list of their good deeds On Wednesday, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov will sum up the results of the outgoing year. The White House jokingly calls it the “ten Cabinet good deeds.” And yesterday the results of the year, summed up by ministries and departments, appeared on the government website. As usual, the two government titans - the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade - spoke the most conceptually.

Russian youth team will compete for world championship awards Today, the World Championship among youth teams (players under 20 years old), one of the rare competitions that is traditionally held at the junction of the Old and New Years, starts in the Swedish cities of Mora and Leksand. The tournament dates back to the 1976/77 season, and the national team of our country invariably comes to the championship as one of the favorites.

The scale with which the 100th anniversary of dear Leonid Ilyich was celebrated is impressive. There is a complete feeling that time has gone back, so all the TV channels were plunged into tearful nostalgia about the bygone state and the hero of countless jokes, Comrade Brezhnev. The exception is Leonid Parfenov’s analytical, smart and sensible film about the hero of the day, although even there there was a strange touch with the past.

PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Federal Tax Service promise to sue each other Another major scandal has arisen around YUKOS. Yesterday, various sources commented on the Federal Tax Service's lawsuit against PriceWaterhouseCoopers CJSC, accusing it of colluding with YUKOS in implementing a tax evasion scheme.

Turkmen special services pushed back the military Today in Ashgabat there will be a meeting of the Khalk Maslakhaty (People's Council) - the highest body of representative power of Turkmenistan, at which a fateful decision is expected to be made. Delegates gathered from all over Turkmenistan will be asked to decide on a list of candidates for the post of president of the country, head of government and chairman of the Halk Maslakhaty itself.

The British destroyed a police station in Basra In the city of Basra in southern Iraq, the British army yesterday stormed and then used explosives to level the building of the Iraqi police special unit for combating particularly serious crimes. The operation was authorized by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The command of the British forces informed him that the police station was preparing to massacre 76 Iraqi prisoners.

December was marked by the figures of departed leaders - Brezhnev, Pinochet and Turkmenbashi. It seems that the creators of the “Judge for Yourself” program, who were discussing whether Pinochet was a hero or a dictator, made a mistake with one of the experts, Sergei Kurginyan.

The launch of a new operating system, as has already happened in the practice of the computer giant Microsoft, was not without problems. The premiere of Windows Vista took place a month ago, and experts have already found flaws in the program that were made by the developers. The first to notice Vista's imperfections were employees of information security research centers and computer hackers.

Banking business in Russia is growing faster than in other countries of the world The Russian banking system in the past year turned out to be the fastest growing in the world. The rate of lending to the population has increased by one and a half times, and the real sector of the economy has increased by a quarter. Such data were presented by Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin at the traditional weekly meeting of government members with President Putin.

Events of political history help to better understand the present and future The Vremya Novostei newspaper presents another review of political books that may be of interest to a wide range of readers. Lies, hope, revolution “Notes from a notebook from 1956.” Istvan Erken. (“Enigma”, Cultural Center of the Hungarian Republic, 2006.) To be honest, it’s not often that publishers manage to achieve full compliance of the title and printing design of a book with its content.

Prime Minister of Georgia Zurab Nogaideli held talks in Baku yesterday on gas supplies with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his counterpart Arthur Rasi-zade. Recently, Georgia agreed with Russia on the supply of 1.1 billion cubic meters of gas in 2007; Turkey will transfer another 800 million to Georgia from its quota for the Azerbaijani Shah Deniz field.

Aeroexpress will connect the airport and Savyolovsky station The Aeroexpress company yesterday promised to open direct rail service between Moscow and Sheremetyevo Airport by the end of next year. In 2007, Aeroexpress intends to invest $67 million in the project, of which $58 million will go to the construction of a railway terminal at the airport, and the rest to the purchase of five trains produced by the Demikhovsky Machine-Building Plant.

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