* The Russian government will hold a session to consider the implementation of the law on the replacement of social benefits in-kind with cash payments in 2006, amendments to the law on state regulation of foreign trade, etc.
* Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov will preside over a meeting of his counterparts from the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization at the President Hotel (9:30 a.m.).
* First Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin and Russian ombudsman Vladimir Lukin will visit several pre-trial detention centers in Moscow and the Moscow Region.
* The Federation Council (parliament's upper house) will host:
- a roundtable on humanitarian cooperation and aid in Russia (10:00 a.m.);
- an international conference on the stable development of and ecological problems in the Russian regions (10:00 a.m.);
- a roundtable on raising the value-added tax (10:00 a.m.);
- parliamentary hearings on national security and migration policy (2:00 p.m.);
- parliamentary hearings on the development of the Russian market of precious stones and metals (2:00 p.m.);
- a session of the council for the development of small and medium-sized business (3:00 p.m.).
* The State Duma will host a session of the lower house's council (10:00 p.m.).
* RIA Novosti will host the following news conferences:
- on the results of the Eurasian Monitor research carried out this fall in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan (11:00 a.m.);
- with State Duma members of the United Russia faction Vladimir Pligin and Andrei Makarov on the upcoming party congress (12:30 p.m.).
* A conference, National responsibility sphere: authorities, church, business and society against drugs, overseen by Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia, will open (11:00 a.m.). Presidential Envoy to the Central Federal District Georgy Poltavchenko, Health and Social Development Minister Mikhail Zurabov, Information Technologies and Mass Communications Minister Leonid Reiman, Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov and others will attend.
* A seminar on the topic, Regional interests in Eurasia, organized by RIA Novosti and the Russian Strategic Research Institute will open (November 24-27).
* The sixth Moscow international financial forum, Banks and Business: Development Trends, will be held (10:00 a.m.). Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov, Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Andrei Sharonov, head of the presidential expert department Arkady Dvorkovich, etc. will attend.
* Itogi weekly and Fitch Ratings will host Banker's Day 2005 dedicated to the results of the banking year (6:30 p.m.). Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, Central Bank First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev, President of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Shokhin, etc. will attend.
* An international conference on the development of nuclear power on the basis of fast neutron reactors with a closed fuel cycle will open (9:30 a.m.). Strategy and international cooperation prospects will be discussed (November 24-25).
* A news conference on army conscription in the fall of 2005 will be held (11:30 a.m.).
* A conference, Islam and Christianity: toward dialogue, on the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the Vatican Declaration On the Relation Of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, will be held (11:00 a.m.).
CHEBOKSARY
* Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref will visit Chuvashia, a Russian constituent republic in the Volga area.
KIEV
* Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski will arrive in Ukraine on a two-day official visit.
TUNISIA
* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, currently on a North African tour, will arrive in Tunisia, where he will meet with Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
PARIS
* The 11th session of the Russian-French inter-parliamentary commission will be held. State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov will head the Russian delegation.
ROME
* Russian Justice Minister Yury Chaika will arrive in Italy on a three-day official visit. He will meet with his Italian counterpart, Roberto Castelli.
TALLINN
* Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen will visit Estonia.
STRASBOURG
* The 20th session of the Assembly of European Regions (until November 25). Russian representatives, including Murat Zyazikov, the president of the North Caucasus Republic of Ingushetia, will attend.
VIENNA
* A session of the IAEA Board of Governors will be held. It will focus on the Iranian nuclear problem.
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