By Natalia Antipova
Yesterday Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with Sergei Bagapsh, the President of Abkhazia, at his Sochi residence Riviera. After the meeting, during which the two leaders discussed "mutually beneficial projects", such as energy, railways, the sea shelf, and tourism, Mr Bagapsh told journalists that Abkhazia would get a loan of between 1 and 1.5 billion roubles. Moreover, he said that Abkhazia would closely follow developments regarding Georgia's progress in joining NATO.
"We are reliably informed about what is happening there," said the President of Abkhazia, before adding that this information comes from "our intelligence service and other peoples' spies." And as for what is happening in Abkhazia itself, Vladimir Putin will be able to see for himself. Yesterday he was invited to visit the Republic and, according to Bagapsh, he accepted. It is possible that the visit will take place in summer because, after all "the best seasons in Abkhazia are summer and autumn."
Savings in Chechnya are held in TNT
By Vladimir Demchenko
Remnants from the Chechen wars could allow an unemployed Chechen woman to make a fortune. She handed in over 180 kilograms of TNT to the police, and now the state is obliged to pay her more than 3.5 million roubles. The Ministry of the Interior organised the purchase of arms and explosives from the Chechen population in order to reduce the quantity of weapons in private hands. But who would have expected there to have been so much of this particular weapon? Now people who live in what were once key battle areas hunt for military supplies and are able to make a good living out of it. On Wednesday, in the town of Ushkala in the Itum-Kalynsk District, a local resident delivered 182 kilograms of TNT to the local police station.
"Ours is a mountainous region, and there were often exchanges of fire with the militants," the Itum Kalinsk Regional Interior Ministry Department Chief Igor Terentev told Izvestia, "so such finds are not rare. A woman was herding her animals and came across a bag of TNT in a hiding place. There were nine bags in total. She told the police about it, and we sent cars to take it to the Regional Interior Ministry Department."
The current terms stipulate that the Government will pay 20 roubles for one gram of TNT, RDX or other explosives. Thus, the woman who handed over more than 200 kilograms is now owed more than 3.5 million roubles.
"That is a huge sum of money here," said Igor Terentev, "her family is not rich, she's about 35 years old, she doesn't have a job, and she's a housewife. So the money won't be wasted."
Similar "caches" in the mountains of Itum Kalinsk have been found before. Igor Terentev said that several months ago a local resident handed in 170 kilograms. The police officer didn't know how much he was paid. And at the end of April, a man in the Shatoi District handed in 74 kilograms.
Fugitive Thai Ex-Prime Minister Buys Island
By Artyom Rumyantsev
He has been the Prime Minister of Thailand, an ambassador-at-large from Nicaragua, and a model citizen of Montenegro, but now Thaksin Shinawatra is getting ready to buy part of St Nicholas Island in the Adriatic Sea. The island, which the locals call Hawaii, is only a kilometre away from the Montenegran town Budva, has excellent beaches, and is an ideal place for developing a tourist industry.
The sale by auction will take place on May 23. The auction is being organised by a Montenegran bank, which is selling off property that used to belong to the former "Balkan tobacco boss" Stanko Subotic, who is wanted by Interpol.
In addition to his Nicaraguan diplomatic passport, Mr Shinawatra now also has a Montenegran passport, or so reported The Nation, a Thai newspaper, citing an advisor to the former Prime Minister as its source. Did Shinawatra pay for his new passport or did he use his connections in the highest political circles in Montenegro to acquire one? What name is the passport in? For now these questions remain unanswered.