The Duma will give the president the right to remove governors for any crimes Last Friday, the State Duma approved in the first reading amendments to the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes of Russia, allowing the president to remove governors from office on the recommendation of the prosecutor’s office not only for serious and especially serious crimes, as was the case before, but for any crimes in general. The document was submitted to the House by the Russian government.

January 9 -- February 9, 2007 “Politicians Through the Eyes of the Media,” a joint project of Vremya Novostei and the Medialogia company, are ratings of the political figures most actively discussed in the Russian media.

Kenyan's son is on the warpath for the White House Today, Democratic Senator from Illinois Barack Obama ( pictured ) will give a speech at the University of New Hampshire, in which he will outline his program for the fight for the US presidency. Obama, a 45-year-old African-American, entered the election campaign last Saturday. Obama's main rival among Democrats is 59-year-old Senator Hillary Clinton.

The first elections in 16 years were held in Turkmenistan Yesterday, Turkmenistan elected a president for the first time in this century. This has happened in this country only once - in 1991. Then Saparmurat Niyazov became the head of state, who later received the name Turkmenbashi the Great and died suddenly on December 21, 2006 . Yesterday's elections were a great holiday for Turkmen voters.

Expert engineer convicted in case of swimming pool collapse in Perm region The court of the city of Chusovoy, Perm Territory, on Friday rendered a verdict in the case of the collapse of the roof of the Dolphin swimming pool. In December 2005, 14 people were killed when the roof of a sports complex collapsed.

Recently, at an international conference in Munich, President Viktor Yushchenko said that in Ukraine “a political consensus has been reached on strategic development goals.” The head of the Party of Regions faction, coordinator of the ruling Anti-Crisis Coalition in the Rada, Raisa BOGATYREVA, spoke to Vremya Novostey about the foreign policy course of Ukraine and the prospects for relations with Russia.

Khimki waited four years for victory over CSKA The strongest club in Europe, CSKA, suffered its second defeat in the Super League. The failure of the army team in the away match with Khimki (74:75) is considered super sensational, despite the fact that such an outcome in the match between the current champion and the silver medalist should not be surprising. However, the result of this game looks like a big surprise if you look at the history of the previous relationships between the rivals.

Vladimir Putin called on the West to answer in Munich German Chancellor Angela Merkel has the right to feel special satisfaction: Vladimir Putin, who spoke at her invitation on February 10 in Munich at the 43rd Security Conference, turned this event into an event of truly international proportions. The editor-in-chief of the Swiss newspaper Tan drew attention to this circumstance during the Russian president’s speech.

The Social Insurance Fund is preparing to pay benefits to unemployed mothers The flood of information that bombarded Russian women last year about increasing maternity and child care benefits seems to have completely disoriented women. In January, when numerous amendments regarding changes in the system of material support for mothers came into force, the Social Insurance Fund noted a decrease in the number of applications .

The Boris Eifman Theater is thirty years old The Boris Eifman Theater celebrated its anniversary last Saturday not in its native St. Petersburg, but in the capital, on the stage of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater.

The energy conflict between Russia and Belarus has radically changed the seemingly relatively reliable system of relations between the “allied states.” The foreign policy rhetoric of Minsk changed to the diametrically opposite one, and Russia received yet another proof of the unreliability of the Lukashenko regime as a partner and the difficulty of interaction with transit countries (not only Belarus, but also Ukraine and Poland).

Last week, Russian authorities voiced the idea of ​​the need to build an oil pipeline bypassing Belarus. Belarus' attempts to limit the transit of Russian oil, according to the Russian side, are a strong enough argument for finding the necessary investment resources for large-scale construction. There is political will for this, and the project can be implemented as soon as possible. Oil exports are too important for our country.

Pyongyang names the price of a nuclear bomb Today in Beijing is the last day of discussions at the next round of negotiations on the DPRK nuclear issue . If the outcome of the meetings is a joint statement by the participants (the two Koreas, China, Russia, the United States and Japan), this will mean that serious progress has been achieved in the negotiations taking place at the level of deputy foreign ministers of the six countries.

A private gallery is more like a small museum The art community has an ambiguous attitude towards the “Our Artists” gallery. It is located far away, in the village of Borki, you need to go by car or by minibus. But, on the other hand, this is the prestigious Rublyovka, which has much more status than any alley in the center of the capital. However, the same “cool” location immediately raises suspicions of some extra-aesthetic activity serving the new owners of life.

Scientists were promised a huge bonus for defeating greenhouse gases The anomalous winter of 2007, with its high temperatures and almost summer-like storms, could bring scientists not only new material for research, but also additional funding. Climate surprises seem to have fed up eccentric British billionaire Richard Branson so much that he has decided to personally incentivize a researcher who promises to reduce the impact of greenhouse gases on the Earth's atmosphere. Last Friday, Mr.