On Tuesday, August 22, the congress of the clergy of the Chechen Republic elected a new mufti of Chechnya, Interfax reports. This post was occupied by the imam of the Shatoi region, an ardent opponent of the Wahhabis, 51-year-old Akhmad Shamayev. Shamaev graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Chemistry of the Chechen-Ingush University and the Physical Education Institute in Alma-Ata. He also has a higher spiritual education. For 25 years, Shamaev worked as a high school teacher.

The Northern Fleet headquarters called the version according to which the nuclear submarine Kursk was the victim of a terrorist attack organized by one of the crew members “complete nonsense,” Region-Inform reports.

In addition, the famous British production designer Arthur Max, who took part in the filming of the films “Seven” and “Gladiator,” will take part in the work on the new project.

On August 22 at 14:07 Moscow time, a significant part of Russian Internet sites turned out to be completely inaccessible to users due to an accident at the RosNIIROS counter at MMTS M9 on Butlerova Street in Moscow (official name - Software and hardware complex for optimizing traffic routes Internet eXchange).

Columbia Pictures is set to produce the third installment of the teen horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer. In the first film, a group of young people accidentally kill a man. Frightened, the guys hide the corpse. After some time, the whole company begins to be terrorized by a mysterious hooded man, and kills them all in turn. The film was released in 1997 and grossed $72 million in America, and the sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, released in 1998, grossed $40 million.

Several wives of sailors from the Kursk nuclear submarine continue to believe that their husbands are alive. The women appealed to the international community, submariners of the navies of foreign countries, as well as philanthropists with a request to provide financial support to continue the operation to rescue the crew of the sunken nuclear-powered ship.

The Russian government at a meeting on Tuesday adopted the draft budget for 2001 year, Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matvienko told reporters about this. According to her, “there are no strong amendments to the document.” Matvienko reported that the government-approved draft budget for 2001 will be submitted to the State Duma for consideration on August 26.

According to information from Norwegian intelligence services, the newest American submarine, a Memphis-class missile carrier, has entered the repair dock of one of the Norwegian ports, writes Le Monde. According to the US military command, the missile carrier only observed the progress of the operation to rescue the Kursk. There is no visible damage on the American submarine.

In Sochi on Monday evening, the wife of a mentally ill patient called the police to calm down her enraged husband. When the 27-year-old police officer entered the house, the hooligan jumped out of the window. The policeman caught up with him, but received a fatal wound from the pursued man with a knife in the stomach. The police managed to detain the criminal when he, having changed clothes at the dacha, returned home.

The cause of the Kursk submarine disaster was an explosion of ammunition, most likely a torpedo, Reuters reports citing Kjell Grandhagen, a representative of the Norwegian General Staff. According to the Norwegian reconnaissance vessel Marjata, there is no indication that the Kursk collided with another vessel (this is the version believed by the main Russian authorities).

The message received on Tuesday morning that the German consulate in St. Petersburg (Furshtadskaya, 39) was mined turned out to be false, the press service of the Main Office told RIA Novosti. Department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. After an inspection by a team of explosives specialists, the consulate returned to normal work. It was not possible to “figure out” the anonymous joker, added the St. Petersburg riot police on duty.

Investigator of the General Prosecutor's Office for Particularly Important Cases Nikolai Volkov, who led the case of abuses at Aeroflot, is retiring.

During the operation to rescue the crew of the Kursk submarine, no fundamental mistakes were made, Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev said on August 21 in the Vremya program. At the same time, he noted that the final conclusions will be made by a government commission. Marshal Sergeev said that he received the report that Kursk was not communicating on the night of August 13 and from that moment on he approved all decisions made.

Late in the evening of August 21, RIA "RosBusinessconsulting", citing unnamed "sources in the OGV of the Russian Federation in Chechnya", distributed a message that businessman Boris Berezovsky had arrived in Khankala to meet with the military commandant of Chechnya, Ivan Babichev. Babichev, according to RBC, refused to talk with Berezovsky. 45 minutes later, the same information with reference to RBC was published by Gazeta.Ru.

On Tuesday in Abkhazia, unknown persons fired at a car with a grenade launcher, as a result of which three people were killed and two more were seriously injured. As RIA Novosti was informed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic, the tragedy occurred near the village of Gudaa, Ochamchira district. Representatives of law enforcement agencies have not yet commented on the circumstances and possible motives of this crime.