Photo AFP On the night of Wednesday to Thursday, Israeli troops held raids in Jennin, Nablus, Tulkarme and Ramalle on the western bank of the Jordan River, Reuters reports. The decision on the beginning of military operations in the Palestinian territory was made at its meeting on Wednesday of the Israeli government. The purpose of the operations is the arrests and destruction of Islamic militants.

Photo from the site www.uraal.ru The Russian government approved the "main directions of monetary policy for 2004", reports Reuters. Prime Minister Kasyanov considers the main task of this policy to reduce inflation along with ensuring an adequate course policy and increasing the role of the banking system in the investment process.

Two Cuban gymnasts who competed in the Anaheim World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in the United States have told the local press that after the world championships are over, they are going to seek political asylum in the United States. The Cuban national team has already finished its performance at these competitions and left the USA.

Boris Gryzlov. Photo BBC On Thursday, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia during a large-scale operation detained a criminal group of 11 people, RIA Novosti was told in the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The operation was carried out by the Criminal Police Service and the Main Directorate of Own Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia together with the prosecution authorities.

Roman Abramovich. Grani.ru collage Roman Abramovich can make another expensive purchase in the world of sports. According to the British tabloid Sun, the Russian businessman is ready to buy Minardi, the Formula-1 team. According to the newspaper, car racing - the second love of Abramovich after football. In order to become the master here, according to Sun, a businessman must be laid out about £ 75 million.

A regular bus from the suburban village of Bolshoy Dalniy was already in Odessa when one of the passengers, 21-year-old Veronika Dovgan, began labor pains. A dentist, who happened to be among the passengers, delivered the baby. The weight of a newborn boy is 3500 grams. Height - 51 centimeters. “Currently, the condition of the mother and baby is satisfactory.

Eight citizens of Poland, traveling on the Simferopol-Odessa train, were hospitalized in the Odessa City Infectious Diseases Hospital with a preliminary diagnosis of food poisoning. As reported to Interfax, cited by Gazeta.Ru, the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Ukraine, after providing the necessary assistance and improving their health, the victims left for Poland on the Odessa-Pshemysl train.

The euro exchange rate against the dollar fell on Thursday to $1.10 per unit of the single European currency, continuing to decline on concerns about the prospects for the European economy, Reuters reports. The latest statistics indicate that the European economy is now lagging behind the US and Japan in terms of business activity, and this contributes to the weakening of the euro.

Georgia is unable to pay its foreign debts, Irakli Managadze, President of the National Letter of Georgia, said on Thursday. "Georgia is actually already in a state of default, since we are not fulfilling our debt obligations according to the schedule set by the Paris Club," RIA Novosti quotes the president of the NBG.

Georgia is actually facing the threat of a default - the country is not able to service external debts. As reported by ITAR-TASS, President of the National Bank Irakli Managadze told journalists in Tbilisi.

The search for a helicopter missing in Kamchatka is complicated by deteriorating weather conditions, RIA Novosti reports. Now in the southern regions of Kamchatka there is low cloudiness (300-600 meters), precipitation in some places. The weather will worsen during the day, as a cyclone is coming from the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. Search activities are planned taking into account the deteriorating weather conditions.

The head of the UBEP department of the Main Internal Affairs Directorate of Moscow was detained. This was reported to RIA Novosti on Thursday at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. "The day before, on August 20, in Moscow, while receiving a bribe in the amount of 20,000 dollars, the deputy head of the operational-search unit of the UBEP, the head of the department of the UBEP of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of Moscow, was detained," the Interior Ministry said.

In a cafe located in the center of Makhachkala, two visitors were killed. According to Gazeta.ru, this was reported to Interfax on Thursday by a source in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Dagestan. "Last night, an unknown person fired a lot of shots at two men sitting at the tables with an unidentified pistol," the source said. As a result, one of the victims died on the spot, and the second died in the hospital.

Konstantin Pulikovsky. Photo from the site www.kirovenergo.ru The plenipotentiary of the President of the Russian Federation Konstantin Pulikovsky categorically refuted the version that the disappearance of the Mi-8 helicopter, on the board of which was the Governor of the Sakhalin Region Igor Farkhutdinov, may be associated with the large-scale military exercises in the Pacific Ocean.

Film and record labels on Tuesday said they were appealing a Los Angeles court decision in April that found file-sharing systems Grokster and Morpheus not guilty of violating copyright laws. The verdict in the case against Grokster (owner of the p2p system of the same name) and Streamcast Networks (owner of Morpheus) was announced on April 25.