* The Russian government will consider the implementation of the 2004 federal budget.
* Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe Alvaro Gil-Robles, currently in Moscow, will meet with Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia (14.00).
* The Federation Council (the upper house of the Russian parliament) will host:
- a roundtable on the topic "Legislative, organizational and methodological problems of audit and accounting in agricultural cooperatives" organized by the Federation Council's committee for agrarian and food policy (10.00);
- parliamentary hearings on the topic "Budget provision of the northern constituent entities of the Russian Federation and problems of their stable development held by the Federation Council's committee for the North and small ethnic groups affairs (10.00);
- a roundtable on the topic "The improvement of the infrastructure of the stock market: trading and accounting systems" organized by the Federation Council's committee for financial markets and currency circulation (11.00);
- the 8th session of the council for the small and medium-sized business support overseen by Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov; it will focus on the role of small and medium-sized business in economic growth of municipalities (15.00).
* The Russian State Duma (the lower house of parliament) will host:
- a meeting between State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov and his Azeri counterpart Murtuz Aleskerov (9.15);
- a session of the State Duma Council (10.00);
- a roundtable on Russian-Azeri political relations organized by the State Duma committee for CIS and compatriots affairs (11.00).
The Russian News Information Agency Novosti will host the following press conferences:
- on the "Under the Flag of Good!" charity marathon which is held to help children who need operations and other emergency treatment; its program includes a soccer match between the teams Rosich (politicians) and Starko (pop stars) (15.00);
- on the biometric identification technologies (15.30);
- with State Duma deputy, director of the Institute of CIS countries Konstantin Zatulin on the topic "Ukraine facing a challenge: all should be decided within the next 1.5 months" (13.00).
* Kyrgyz ambassador to Russia Alas Dzhumagulov will give a press conference on the situation on the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border and upcoming presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan (11.00).
* The Russian-U.S. symposium for bilateral exchanges will open in Moscow. It is organized by the U.S. embassy in Russia and the Russian Education and Science Ministry. U.S. ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow, First Deputy Education and Science Minister Grigory Balykhin, rector of Moscow State University Viktor Sadovnichy and others are expected to attend the symposium (9.00).
* Moscow will host a press conference following the 27th session of the CIS Electric Energy Council (17.15).
* Moscow will host a press conference on the results of the Our Victory event in Moscow on May 15 and main plans of the Nashi (Ours) movement (11.00).
ST. PETERSBURG
* The Neva Book Forum 4th international fair will open in St. Petersburg. Its guests will be Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish writers whose books were published in Russian. The 10th annual conference of the Russian Library Association will be held during the forum. St. Petersburg was proclaimed the Russian library capital-2005.
VILNIUS
* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Transportation Minister Igor Levitin will arrive in Lithuania on a routine visit. Levitin is a cochairman of the Russian-Lithuanian intergovernmental cooperation commission.
NEW YORK
* The presentation of the Russia exhibition dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the United Nations will take place in New York. The exhibition will open in the Guggenheim Museum in September. Leading Russian museums will take part in this unprecedented exposition of the Russian art.
MONTE CARLO
* The World Entrepreneur of the Year final ceremony will open in Monte Carlo (May 26-28). Winners of national entrepreneur contests from 33 countries will participate in the finals. Among them will be Ruben Vardanyan, the Troika Dialog president and winner of the Russian Entrepreneur-2004 contest.
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