The Dalai Lama will be received spiritually As if internal political problems were not enough for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, he also invited the spiritual leader of Tibet to London, knowing full well that Beijing would not like this. The debate over whether this should have been done continued in the British capital even after the plane with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama on board landed at Heathrow Airport yesterday.

The Spanish Defense Minister was sent on maternity leave The annual speech of the head of the Spanish defense department to members of parliament had to be urgently cancelled. Parliamentarians, who never had a chance to hear a report on the main directions of the country's military policy, reacted to the disruption of the schedule with understanding. The reason was more than valid - the minister was taken to the maternity hospital.

The program of the Edinburgh Fringe in Moscow festival has been announced "Fringe" - translated from English as "roadside" - is a non-competitive program of the famous Edinburgh Theater Festival. It appeared almost simultaneously with the festival itself: already in 1947, several English theaters, not invited to the festival, came without an invitation and showed their performances next to those that were selected by the management.

Watch from May 22 on Moscow screens Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (USA, 2008, Steven Spielberg). “Ta-ta-ta-ta! Ta-ta-ta! Ta-ta-ta-ta! Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta!.." Perhaps none of the living movie fans ever wanted to hear these sacred call signs again, from which it follows that the professor of archeology and tireless adventurer Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford - "Indiana Jones ", what else?) is back in business and returned to the big screen after almost a dozen years of absence.

Taimuraz Mamsurov called on foreign ambassadors to support the Ossetians’ desire for unity The recommendations of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who recently asked regional Russian politicians to be more careful in interpreting historical facts , especially in speeches on the international stage, apparently went unheard.

The two-day visit of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to Baku, which ended yesterday, became one of the most expressive evidence of a change in the political course of official Ashgabat after the death of the former Turkmen dictator Saparmurat Niyazov. After all, it was relations with Azerbaijan, separated from Turkmenistan by the Caspian Sea, that were going very badly.

At the end of May, the Transneft board of directors will approve the amount that the company is ready to allocate for dividends based on the results of 2007. It is expected that payments will exceed the 2006 level by 40% and amount to about 1.15 billion rubles. However, one cannot expect much generosity from Transneft. The company's profit for 2007 amounted to 4.02 billion rubles, and it is still far from reaching the level of 2003 (15.9 billion rubles).

Employees of the historical museum-reserve were awarded the State Prize 2007 Yesterday, at a special briefing in the Kremlin, the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yuri Osipov, and the Director of the State Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky, read out the decree of President Dmitry Medvedev and announced the names of nine laureates of the State Prize for 2007.

The northwestern regions will be under the influence of the Scandinavian anticyclone. The air there is cold, so frosts down to -2...-3°C are expected in some places at night. And during the day the air will warm up to +12...+17оС. Short-term rains in places are not excluded only in the Pskov region - closer to the cyclone and atmospheric fronts that will be located over the central regions.

Estonian authorities accuse veteran of genocide Yesterday, Estonian judge Mart Reino suspended the trial of the first and only Hero of the Soviet Union currently living in Estonia, 88-year-old Arnold Meri (pictured), due to the health of the accused. The trial of the veteran began yesterday morning at the House of Culture in the Estonian city of Kardla on the island of Hiiumaa. Due to the defendant's poor health, a 15-minute break was announced every hour and a half.

Moscow's new migration program is focused on the needs of the construction sector Having recently announced their readiness to continue large-scale housing construction, the Moscow authorities decided to provide the city's construction companies with additional labor.

Yesterday, US Ambassador to Caracas Patrick Duddy was summoned to the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry in connection with the May 17 incursion into the airspace of this Latin American country by a US Navy C-3 Viking reconnaissance aircraft. Venezuela did not accept the diplomat’s assurances that the incident was an “accident” due to a navigation glitch.

The museum and exhibition boom in Moscow continues Despite the Museum Day on May 18 and the closed Art Moscow fair, the intensity of the capital’s artistic life shows no sign of abating. The exhibitions opened by May 18 are open. New vernissages do not keep you waiting long. However, everything is in order... This year's Art Moscow fair surprised, first of all, the gigantic empty corridor on the third floor, which shocked the minds of many gallery owners.

The President intends to reform the judicial system Back on Monday , at a meeting on the fight against corruption, President Dmitry Medvedev announced yesterday's meeting on reforming the judicial system. Not only the judicial system itself, but also the configuration of power in the country depends on this reform, which is undoubtedly political in its essence. According to Mr.

Democratic Senator Barack Obama, contending for the presidency of the United States, entered into an argument with Republican candidate John McCain, saying that “we need to change foreign policy” and “ talk not only to friends, but also to enemies .” According to Obama, “Iran is a serious threat,” but the USSR, with which the United States negotiated, was much more dangerous with its “thousands of nuclear warheads,” while “Iran has none.” He criticized the Republican administration's reluctance