A 48-year-old Australian hired a hitman for $3,000 to kill a 16-year-old girl who was raped by his son. Plumber Choaqui Bou-Anton was arrested on Tuesday at his home in southwest Sydney. He is accused of organizing the murder, writes the Sydney Morning Herald. His 19-year-old son Hater Bou-Anton, also known as Kevin, was charged with being an accessory to the murder. He is also accused of a sex crime committed on March 30 in one of the clubs in Sydney.

Sibneft. Photo from the site www.lenta.ru The meeting of the Sibneft shareholders may not take place, the representative of the minority shareholders told RBC. So far there is no quorum at the meeting. The start time of the meeting was postponed for an hour. The shareholders express confidence that the quorum will be sufficient and the meeting will take place.

One of the "Ivasey" - Georgy Vasiliev - translated into Russian American Christmas hit John Pierpont Jingle Bells, ITAR-TASS reports. The bard explained that his song "Jingle Bells" is a guide to seducing girls on New Year's Eve. "This is a ballad about a man who loves to ride in a sleigh with girls," Vasiliev said in an interview with the agency.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky's lawyers on Tuesday filed a cassation appeal against the decision of the Basmanny Court of the capital, which extended the detention of the ex-head of Yukos until March 25. As the businessman's lawyer Genrikh Padva told Interfax, the defense is asking the Moscow City Court to cancel the decision of the Basmanny Court and send the case for a new trial. Padva considers the decision to extend Khodorkovsky's pre-trial detention illegal.

Psychiatrist Heinrich Wilmer, who testified at the trial of the German cannibal, said that the defendant was sane. Heinrich Wilmer said that the cannibal Armin Meiwes should not be kept in a psychiatric hospital. Officially, Meiwes is accused of murder, although prosecutors admit that the victim, whom Meiwes met on the Internet, wanted to be killed and eaten herself. Meiwes's defense argues that if he is found guilty, then only of mercy killing.

The Central Election Commission of Russia at a meeting on Tuesday registered proxies of the candidate for the post of President of Russia Vladimir Putin. In total, there are 252 people on the list of Putin's confidants. Among them are rectors of a number of higher educational institutions of the country, heads of enterprises, actors, civil servants. 29 proxies of the head of state running for a second term are in the civil service.

In Moscow, the inventor's apartment was robbed. As Rosbalt was informed at the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the capital, at about seven o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, a 35-year-old military pensioner turned to the police, who said that in the period from December 26 to 29, an unknown person, having broken the lock of the front door of his apartment on Boytsovaya Street, stole patents for inventions in field of hydrodynamics, 30 thousand dollars and a photo archive.

Vladimir Putin congratulated the heads of state and government of foreign countries on the upcoming New Year, RIA Novosti was told in the press service of the President of Russia. In his message to President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma, the head of the Russian state noted that the Russian-Ukrainian partnership has significantly strengthened in the course of joint work to agree on the principles of cooperation in the Sea of ​​Azov and the Kerch Strait, and the formation of the Common Economic Space.

In Dagestan, border guards detained two militants, Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Livantsov, head of the press service of the North Caucasus Regional Border Directorate of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, told Interfax-AVN on Tuesday. "On Monday, in the rear of one of the frontier posts, near the Khirbak Pass, on the outskirts of the state border line, a border detachment from a reinforcement unit discovered and detained two militants," Livantsov said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom has called for the revocation of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1994, reports the Jerusalem Post. "I would be happy if the Nobel Committee took away the prize from a man who constantly impedes the settlement of differences between peoples," Shalom said at a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

The Vatican on Monday said that the representative of the Pope in Burundi was shot dead in his car, according to CNN. According to missionary news agency Misna, 58-year-old prelate Michael Courtney suffered multiple injuries and bled to death while receiving medical treatment. An anonymous representative of the Vatican acknowledged the death of the papal nuncio, but refused to give any details until the relatives of the deceased were notified of the incident.

During 2003, 132,685 people were prosecuted for economic crimes in Russia. Such preliminary data on the results of the work of units for combating economic crimes of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation were shared on Tuesday with Interfax in the press service of the Main Directorate for Combating Economic Crimes (GUBEP) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.

Passenger aircraft AN-24 en route from Novy Urengoy to Novosibirsk airport "Severny" made an emergency landing at Novosibirsk airport "Tolmachevo". As Interfax was informed in the regional department for civil defense and emergency situations, the incident occurred on Monday evening. An emergency landing was made due to a failure of the left engine. There were 36 passengers and 4 crew members on board. There were no casualties. The cause of the engine failure is being investigated.

In Moscow, the corpse of an unknown man, handcuffed, was found at a construction site in 4th Krasnogvardeisky Proezd, Newsru.com reports with reference to Interfax. Measures are being taken to establish the identity of the deceased and the circumstances of his death. An investigation is underway and a task force is working.

A 30-year-old resident of Chelyabinsk and her 2-year-old son were admitted to city hospital #9 with a diagnosis of mercury vapor poisoning, reports REGNUM news agency . On December 23, she first applied to the regional department of civil defense and emergency situations with a statement that she found mercury in the bed of her two-year-old child. According to the woman, she has been finding balls of poisonous metal in her son's crib for two months now.