A Chinese court found the organizers of the mass orgy, which was attended by about 900 people, guilty, reports Reuters. Two of them received life sentences, another 12 - terms from 2 to 15 years for "organizing and assisting in the organization of a brothel." In one of the hotels in the city of Zhuhai (Guangdong Province), 380 tourists from Japan arrived specifically for the orgy. The receiving party was represented by 500 prostitutes.

At least 50 lives have been claimed by a cyclone that hit the state of Andhra Pradesh in southern India. Torrential rains and winds reaching 100 kilometers per hour demolished buildings, severely damaged agricultural plantations and caused coastal flooding, according to local authorities. Even before the onset of bad weather, almost 20,000 villagers were evacuated from dangerous areas.

Iran will sign on Thursday an Additional Protocol to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, establishing tougher conditions for inspections at nuclear facilities, Reuters reports. This was announced by the head of the Iranian nuclear department Gholamreza Agazadeh. The Additional Protocol to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons allows for inspections of nuclear facilities without notifying the authorities of the country where the facility is located.

Washington Times: в ФСБ считают, что глава ЮКОСа "нарвался сам" время публикации: 10:57 последнее обновление: 10:57 Западные бизнесмены уже второй месяц пытаются определить истинные причины ареста и заключения в тюрьму бывшего главы нефтяной компании ЮКОС Михаила Ходорковского, пишет сегодня The Washington Times(перевод на сайте Inopressa.ru). Ходорковский - самый богатый в России человек, состояние которого оценивается в 8 млрд долларов.

On Wednesday, Yuri Luzhkov, who won the Moscow mayoral election on December 7, will officially take up the post of mayor of the capital. The inauguration ceremony will take place in the White Hall of City Hall. The chairman of the Moscow City Electoral Committee, Valentin Gorbunov, will present Luzhkov with a mayor's certificate, after which he will put on the mayor a symbol of mayoral power - a chest gold braided chain with a medallion depicting George the Victorious.

In Alma-Ata on Wednesday night, a passenger plane en route from Alma-Ata to Sharjah made an emergency landing. This was reported to RIA Novosti by the press service of the Emergency Situations Agency of Kazakhstan. The Tu-154 aircraft of the Atyrau Aue Zholy airline took off at 23.42 local time. After takeoff, he was found to have a malfunction of the nose landing gear. At 01.04 local time, the plane made an emergency landing in Alma-Ata.

The Georgian General Staff may form in 2004 a battalion of the Georgian National Guard from among the Kist Chechens living in the Pankisi Gorge, Interfax reports. "The General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces does not rule out the possibility of forming a national guard battalion in the Pankisi Gorge from among the reservists - local residents," Brigadier General Vladimir Imnadze, Acting Chief of the General Staff, told reporters on Wednesday.

Photo from Newsru.com On Tuesday, the Moscow Basmanny Court refused to satisfy the lawsuit of the official owner of the New Izvestia newspaper Oleg Mitvol against the political observer of the Echo of Moscow radio station Yulia Latinina, who accused him of assigning an publication actually owned by Boris Berezovsky. This was reported by Lenta.ru with reference to the trial of Latynin.

An explosive device was found in the service garage of the city administration of Stavropol, located in the central part of the regional center, Interfax reports. The bomb was defused by explosives. The press service of the regional FSB specified that the explosive device was stuffed with metal balls in the amount of about a thousand pieces and amounted to 900 grams of TNT.

An international scientific conference dedicated to the 85th anniversary of Alexander Solzhenitsyn has opened in Moscow. Scientists, writers, literary critics from Russia, the USA, Great Britain, France and China take part in it.

The European Court of Human Rights will consider, as a priority, as soon as possible the complaint of the lawyers of the former FSB officer Mikhail Trepashkin, RIA Novosti reports. This was stated on Wednesday at a press conference in Moscow by Trepashkin's lawyer Elena Liptser. In early November, she sent a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights, in which she refers to the violation by the Russian investigating authorities of two articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.

On Wednesday evening, a sharp cooling is expected in Moscow, Aleksey Lyakhov, director general of the Hydrometeorological Bureau of Moscow and the Moscow Region, promised Interfax. He explained that on Wednesday afternoon it will be 0 - minus 2 degrees in the city, however, after 16 hours the air temperature will begin to drop, and on Thursday night the thermometer will drop to 6-8 degrees below zero, in the region to 10 degrees.

The militants who ambushed a border detachment in the Tsuntinsky district of Dagestan on Monday night spent at least several days in this area before they were discovered. According to Interfax, this was announced by the deputy head of the North Caucasus Regional Directorate of the Border Service of the FSB of Russia, Major General Sergei Solovyov. "By the time a group of militants was discovered near the village of Shauri, she had already spent several days there.

A 43-year-old resident of West Sussex was sentenced to life in prison for sending her second husband to the next world, writes Independent. She committed this crime in 1994. Stephen Webb, 31, died on his birthday after eating a curry that his wife, Dena Thompson, spiked with a horse's dose of the antidepressant Dothiepin. The next morning, the inconsolable widow showed the police empty packages of aspirin and Dothiepin and stated that her beloved had probably decided to commit suicide.

Oleg Gazmanov and his wife Marina had a daughter, the newspaper "Life" reports. A joyful event took place on December 16 at the Family Planning Center. The girl was born a little prematurely. Nevertheless, the delivery was uneventful, and mother and girl are doing well. December 16 morning Gazmanov flew on tour to Israel.