TV1 Review
www.1tv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba_sch@hotmail.com)
Research Analyst, Center for Defense Information,
Moscow office
HEADLINES,
Monday, January 27, 2003
- Mikhail Margelov has been elected Deputy Chairman of
the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE) from the Russian side.
- The winter session of PACE opens in Strasbourg. The situation
in Chechnya will be at the top of the agenda. Lord Judd,
who recently returned from his trip to Chechnya and
Ingushetia, will present a report on the subject.
- The Russian government is reviewing the mechanisms
for helping war veterans. Russian President Vladimir
Putin declared: Our country will commemorate the
anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad at the end of
the week. We have fewer and fewer veterans with every
year, but every year they need government support more
and more.
- President Putin arrived in Ukraine in the second
half of the day. During his three-day working visit
he will meet with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma
and leaders of other Commonwealth of Independent
States nations. Tonight he will attend a concert in
honor of the opening of the “Year of Russia in
Ukraine” at the “Ukraina” Palace.
- The 11th annual “Triumph” Literature and Arts Award
was presented at Moscow’s A.S. Pushkin Museum of Fine
Arts.
- Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov refuted
reports, which appeared recently in the Western and
Arab press, that Moscow has promised Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein political asylum if he retires from his
post.
- The Leningrad Blockade was lifted 59 years ago
today. The city had survived 16 months of cold,
starvation and bombings.
- Russian foresters received two new An-3 airplanes
from the Polet enterprise. They have needed new
patrol planes since the serious fires in Siberia and
the Far East.
- 42-year-old Oleg Budargin, the mayor of Norilsk, won
the gubernatorial election in the Taimyr Autonomous
Okrug with 70% of the votes.
- President Putin discussed the situation in Iraq and
in North Korea, as well as other key aspects of
international relations, in a telephone conversation
with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
- Georgia refused to allow a Russian Il-18
military-transport airplane fly through its airspace.
The Il-18 was headed to the 106th Russian military
base in Batumi,.
- President Putin met with Cabinet members and asked
them to prepare suggestions for the future of the tax
system.
- Federal Border Troops Director Konstantin Totsky
declared that Chechen separatist leader Ruslan Gelaev
is currently in Chechnya, after having crossed the
border from Georgia last fall.
- A new highway will connect Russia’s western and
eastern borders.
- The Krasnoyarsk Krai Court has dismissed the
region’s electoral commission, having found its
actions during the gubernatorial elections unlawful.
- The law on the sale of agricultural land is coming
into force. Now, land used for farming can be sold,
given as a gift, inherited and mortgaged. Analysts
compare the significance of this step to the famous
Stolypin Reform of the early XX Century.
- A powerful cyclone has descended upon the Maritime
Region. Heavy snow has not ceased for over 24 hours.
Winds are reaching 25 meters a second.
- Garry Kasparov has won the first of the six games he
will play against the computer program previously
considered invincible.
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