In Brazil, all prisoners escaped from a prison located on the island of Fernando de Noronha, reports AFP. There were two in total - Jataiton Alex da Silva and Fabricio de Lima, who were serving sentences for involuntary manslaughter and burglary, respectively. They broke the bars that blocked the exit from the cells to the roof of the prison, hijacked the most luxurious yacht on the island, stole two barrels of diesel fuel for her and sailed away towards Natal.

A rally "Wake for Democracy" was held on Pushkinskaya Square. Its participants believe that the elections have turned from a democratic procedure into a profanation. According to the correspondent of Graney.Ru, about 200 people gathered on the square. Approximately 50 of them are journalists. Supporters of Irina Khakamada, representatives of the Union of Right Forces, youth Yabloko, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the National Bolshevik Party were represented at the rally.

Work on changing the structure of the federal government should be completed within the next few weeks, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov said before the government meeting. It is reported by RIA Novosti. At a cabinet meeting on Thursday, the issue of measures to implement the decree of the President of the Russian Federation on the system and structure of federal executive bodies is being discussed. The prime minister urged all ministers to start work today on building a new management system.

The administration of US President George W. Bush is ready to impose sanctions against Syria in the near future, which it suspects of complicity with extremists. About this, according to Reuters, said on Wednesday a representative of the State Department. Washington, in particular, accuses Syria of failing to prevent extremists from Iraq from entering its territory, as well as of occupying neighboring Lebanon.

On the outskirts of the village of Sukhaya Vpadina, Stavropol Territory, on Wednesday an attack was made on employees of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Mineralovodsky District. Interfax, cited by Gazeta.ru, was told this on Thursday by a source in the law enforcement agencies of the region. "Two unidentified people opened fire on a Niva car of the Mineralovodsky District Internal Affairs Directorate.

Yukos has proposed an extraordinary meeting of Sibneft shareholders on March 28 to decide on transferring the functions of the sole executive body to the company's president, appointed by the board of directors, Reuters reports. In April 2003, the oil companies announced a deal that saw Yukos absorb Sibneft, becoming the owner of 92 percent of its shares.

Yukos has suspended a claim to recover a debt from the administration of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, which owns the Krasnoyarsknefteprodukt company, Ekho Moskvy reports. Yukos vice-president Alexander Burmistrov told Interfax that they decided to postpone the court session in order to try to reach an agreement with the regional authorities. Yukos wants Krasnoyarsknefteprodukt to pay 60 million rubles a year.

To date, the CEC has already accredited over 600 international observers from 48 countries for the presidential elections in the Russian Federation, the head of the Central Election Commission, Alexander Veshnyakov, announced on the Voice of Russia radio. The largest group - more than 300 people - are observers from the OSCE. "All in all, we expect more than a thousand international observers at the presidential election," Veshnyakov said.

In Moscow, an investigator and an employee of the environmental police were detained while receiving a bribe, an official representative of the Main Directorate of Internal Security (GUSB) of the Russian Interior Ministry told RIA Novosti.

In Switzerland, at the request of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, the accounts of 20 Russian citizens involved in the so-called Yukos case were blocked, Natalya Vishnyakova, spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General's Office, announced. It is reported by RIA Novosti. According to Vishnyakova, among them are the former head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev, Leonid Nevzlin, Vladimir Dubov, Mikhail Brudno.

China's central bank promised on Thursday to keep the yuan stable and maintain its exchange rate at a "reasonable" level, once again signaling that it does not intend to radically change monetary policy, despite the calls of its trading partners, Reuters reported. The most active critics of China's policy are the United States, which believes that the rigid peg of the yuan to the dollar underestimates the exchange rate and artificially increases the competitiveness of Chinese exports.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov has been appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union State of Russia and Belarus. This decision was made by the presidents of Russia and Belarus, RIA Novosti was told in the press service of the President of the Russian Federation. On Thursday, Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with Alexander Lukashenko. The conversation took place on the initiative of the Belarusian side.

The parents of Natalya Kiseleva, an employee of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, who died in a terrorist attack in the metro, filed a lawsuit with the Tverskoy Court of Moscow in connection with the death of their daughter. Lawyer Igor Trunov told Gazeta.ru that the lawsuit is being filed in connection with the loss of a breadwinner. Parents demand from the Moscow government to compensate moral and material damage.

The Altai Regional Court refused to remove the head of the region Alexander Surikov and the famous pop artist Mikhail Evdokimov from the gubernatorial elections, Ekho Moskvy reports. Another candidate, former State Duma deputy Vladimir Semyonov, filed lawsuits to remove these candidates. He accused Surikov and Evdokimov of violating the electoral law.

The political council of the Khakassian regional organization of the LDPR announced that at its meeting the question of Oleg Malyshkin's participation in the election of the chairman of the government of the Republic of Khakassia was considered, Gazeta.Ru reports. The party leadership will make a decision on Malyshkin based on the results of the presidential elections and the elections of the authorities of the city of Abakan, which will take place on the same day.