At least 14 people, four of whom are Russians, died in Angola as a result of the crash of an An-12 aircraft, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told reporters on Saturday. According to NTV, the Russians were members of the plane's crew. These are commander Nikolai Kuznetsov, co-pilot Igor Ivashchenko, navigator Igor Panshin and flight engineer Vladimir Burachkov. The plane crashed on takeoff from the airport in Menongue on 16 May.

An Il-76 aircraft of the Russian Emergencies Ministry delivered 30 tons of humanitarian cargo to Beijing, intended to combat SARS. Equipment for artificial lung ventilation, antibiotics, and disinfectants have been sent to the Chinese capital. Delivered cost $1 million. A ceremony was held at the Beijing airport to hand over the humanitarian cargo to the Chinese side, which was represented by the Vice Minister of Health of the People's Republic of China, Wang Longde.

The famous French actor Gerard Depardieu will play the role of the police commissioner of the city of Cannes in a new series of the Russian TV series Lethal Force, which Channel One has begun filming. Interfax was informed about this by the producers of the series. It is at the invitation of the hero Depardieu that Russian policemen will arrive on the French Riviera, where together with him they will catch the Russian criminal authority Troitsky (Nikolai Fomenko will play his role).

Georgian businessman Giga Chkheidze was abducted on Friday evening by unknown armed men in masks in the regional center of Baghdadi, located near the city of Kutaisi. This was reported by Interfax TV company Rustavi 2 with reference to eyewitnesses. However, neither the businessman's relatives nor the police make statements about his abduction.

Tbilisi is recognized as the most polluted city in Europe, Interfax reports. According to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Georgia, experts from the ministry and the British company AEA-Technology conducted studies that showed that the level of air pollution in Tbilisi exceeds the permissible norms for cities of the same size and with the same number of vehicles.

An explosive device, a powerful bomb with a capacity of up to one and a half kilograms of TNT, was found at the Spartak stadium in Vladikavkaz, ITAR-TASS reports. This happened during the usual bypass of the stadium by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on the eve of the next football match of the Russian Championship. An explosive device was planted in the upper rows of the north stand. The bomb has now been defused. An investigation is underway.

Paul McCartney admitted that he once wrote a song for Frank Sinatra, but he decided that Paul was just joking and rejected his creation. According to Ananova, referring to Virgin Radio, the song was called Suicide ("Suicide". - Ed.). Paul McCartney believes that the song was "quite nothing", and does not understand why Sinatra did not perform it. In fact, Sinatra considered the work of The Beatles quite suitable material for processing.

10 residents of the village of Komissarovskoye, Omsk region, have been diagnosed with viral hepatitis, an operational duty officer of the regional department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations told RIA Novosti on Saturday. According to him, from May 11 to May 15, 30 rural residents, including 28 children, were hospitalized in the hospital of the Sherbakul regional center. All victims complained of headache, general malaise, they had a fever.

There was a plane crash in Angola on Friday. As a result, four people died. An An-32 military transport aircraft carrying a cargo of fuel from the country's capital, Luanda, to the Menongue military base, crashed while landing. There were no passengers on board the aircraft, only crew members and those accompanying the cargo were killed, RBC reports. According to preliminary data, the cause of the accident was a technical malfunction of the aircraft.

In Kostroma, Oleg Yumov, a student of the directing department of GITIS, was brought to administrative responsibility. As the police informed the IMA-Press agency, Yumov, together with two friends, came from Moscow to Shchelykovo (Ostrovsky district, Kostroma region) to visit the house-museum of the playwright A.N. Ostrovsky. After the tour, the company decided to celebrate the trip.

On Neptune, a change of seasons was found The study of the colossal zones of the cloudiness of Neptune showed that this planet, as well as for the Earth, is characterized by seasonal changes in the weather, and now in the visible hemisphere of the gas giant, the 40-year summer is just beginning.

In Moscow, at the intersection of Leningradsky Prospekt and Begovaya Street, a strong fire broke out in underground collectors with electric and telephone cables. In the management of the state fire service, Interfax was informed that the signal about the fire was received at about 21.40. Several dozen fire crews, as well as rescuers and a detachment of diggers, immediately arrived at the scene. At present, thick black smoke is pouring out of six wells, ITAR-TASS reports.

The Interim Administration in Iraq publicized the plan to eliminate the Ba'ath party. All high-ranking members of the party will be removed from their posts. They will also be banned from working in the public sector, according to the BBC. Under Saddam Hussein, the Ba'ath Party had about 700,000 members in its ranks, but the purge is believed to affect 15,000 to 30,000 functionaries. Two thousand of them work in government agencies. The plan will go into effect on Saturday.

At least 29 people have died and 40 others have been injured in a road accident in southeastern France, AP reported. On Saturday morning, a bus carrying 77 tourists from Germany crashed near Lyon. According to Sky News, bus passengers won a trip to Spain in a lottery. Among them were both pensioners and young people. About 40 people were injured, 24 of them are in serious condition. Five people were not injured.

Kamal Mustafa Abdullah Sultan al-Chikriti. Photo AFP General Kamal Mustafa Abdullah Sultan al-Chikriti, former Secretary General of the Republican Guard of Iraq, surrendered on Saturday to the coalition forces. This was reported by AFP with reference to representatives of the central command. According to these data, the general "surrendered to the coalition troops in the early morning (on Saturday.