Italy stands for the creation of a Greater Europe, which will include Russia, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said today at a press conference in Rome following talks with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. It is reported by RBC. "This will allow Europe to turn into an independent political entity capable of holding an equal conversation with the only superpower today - the United States," the head of the Italian government stressed.

Recently, the first and only store of the Ukrainian retail chain Silpo closed in Moscow, writes Vedomosti . Its owner, the Fozzi Group corporation, expected to create a subsidiary chain of stores in Russia, which was officially announced four months ago. Now Fozzi is thinking about winding up its Moscow division, explaining this by the intention to focus on the Ukrainian business.

A Polish expedition discovered the Nazi ship Goya, which was sunk by a Soviet submarine at the last stage of World War II, RIA Novosti reports. The wreckage of the ship lies at a depth of 75 m, a few kilometers from the Baltic coast to the north of the town of Rozewie, Krzysztof Starnawski, head of the expedition of the Society of Discoverers, said on Thursday.

British designer Michael Gill has created the world's first inflatable church , Reuters reports. When inflated, it is a plastic building in the Gothic style with a height of 14 meters. It has an organ, a pulpit, and even fake PVC stained glass windows. It can be folded, loaded into a trailer and transported wherever needed.

Photo from the satellite of the nuclear object in Yonben. Photo by ar The DPRK said that the processing process of 8,000 rods with spent nuclear fuel is at the final stage, reports the AR with reference to the KCNA agency. The DPRK Foreign Ministry said that this information was sent to the United States and all "interested countries". Earlier, American experts estimated that the Koreans of Plutonium have enough to create 6-8 atomic bombs.

He intends to recover 800 thousand rubles for the illegal use of the image of a wolf and a hare from the cartoon "Well, you wait!" Entrepreneur Alexander Khait is the brother of the famous satirist writer Arkady Khait. Irina Tulubyeva, representative of Khait's interests in court, told RIA Novosti that a claim for infringement of the right to a trademark and the recovery of compensation was filed with the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region.

In one of the rural schools in the Kremenchug district of the Poltava region, 41 children were poisoned by Cheremukha gas. As RIA Novosti was informed on Friday by the press service of the Ministry of Health, all the children were hospitalized. Four children are in intensive care. In total, eighty children study at the school in the village of Goreslavets.

28 students of the Volgograd gymnasium number 8 were hospitalized, six of them are in intensive care as a result of an accident that occurred at the Lukoil-Volgogradneftepererabotka oil refinery. As ITAR-TASS was informed in the regional main department for civil defense and emergency situations, the incident occurred at about 15:00 Moscow time on Thursday. The accident occurred during the launch of new equipment.

An officer of the CIS Collective Peacekeeping Forces (CPFM) in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict was beaten in the Zugdidi region of Georgia. "The head of the 306th observation post of the KPKF, located in the village of Shamgona in the Zugdidi region, Senior Lieutenant Alikaev was beaten by local residents," a source at the KPKF headquarters told Interfax on Friday.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said that Iraq's debts "should be respected and paid," RIA Novosti reports. "We believe that the contracts in force in Iraq must be respected and fulfilled. We believe that debts must be respected and paid," Kasyanov told reporters after a meeting with his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi.

In Beijing on Thursday, a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held, at which issues of further measures to combat the spread of SARS in the country were discussed. According to RIA Novosti, the meeting was chaired by Secretary General of the CPC Central Committee, President of the People's Republic of China Hu Jintao.

In the Republic of Korea, two Russian citizens were shot dead in the port city of Busan, Interfax reports. One of them was killed, the second was hospitalized with a serious wound. Police say the perpetrators attacked their victims on Thursday evening. At least 10 bullets were fired at the Russians. The names of the victims have not yet been disclosed, but it is known that the deceased worked for a company exporting Russian seafood to South Korea.

At present, the wear and tear of water supply in Russia is 66%, sewerage - 63%, electricity - 58%, boilers - 55%. Nikolai Koshman, chairman of the Gosstroy of the Russian Federation, announced this on Friday in Belgorod at a meeting of the leaders of the regions of the Central Federal District, dedicated to the reform of housing and communal services, Interfax reports.

The Board of Directors of TVS did not consider the issue of appointing a new general director today. It is reported by "Echo of Moscow". Despite the fact that this issue was included in the preliminary agenda, the Board of Directors considered today only one item - the general meeting of shareholders was scheduled for May 8, - Tatyana Blinova, the company's press secretary, told Interfax.

"Law enforcement agencies are doing everything necessary to solve this high-profile crime," Leonid Troshin, head of the information and public relations department of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, told Interfax on Friday. Troshin noted that the investigating authorities have accumulated considerable experience in investigating and solving contract killings.