On Tuesday evening, the website of OPEC, the organization of oil exporting countries, was defaced by unknown hackers. This was a kind of response to the outbreak of excitement that arose around this organization after the rise in oil prices, reports the Associated Press. After the user entered the address of the OPEC website, graffiti appeared on the screen - a message to OPEC members.

On Tuesday, the Presnensky Intermunicipal Court of Moscow upheld the claim for the protection of business reputation filed by the international group of companies ITERA against the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, RIA Novosti reports. In accordance with the court decision, the newspaper's editors are "obliged to publish a refutation of false information" about the activities of ITERA, which were set out in two articles.

Employees of the Consulate General of France in St. Petersburg managed to find their compatriot Gaston Thivet, who for 50 years could not return to his homeland. As Denis Salem, head of the French humanitarian association named after Edouard Calif, told RIA Novosti, their organization has been searching for Europeans who went missing in the territory for more than five years. former Soviet Union. According to him, Thivet was unable to return to France after visiting his wife’s homeland, Ukraine.

Archaeologist Robert Ballard, who conducted research on the bottom of the Turkish part of the Black Sea, said that his team discovered the remains of wooden buildings at a depth of 100 meters and this could serve as convincing evidence of a catastrophic flood that occurred 7,500 years ago. The expedition also discovered boards, pieces of wood and branches untouched by worms or molluscs “This exceeds our wildest expectations,” said expedition leader Robert Ballard.

On Wednesday, actor and director Oleg Tabakov, as chairman of the jury for the International Stanislavsky Theater Prize, announced the names of this year's laureates. Name Award Stanislavsky awarded: for best actress Theater-Studio Oleg Tabakov Evdokia Germanova ; for best acting - Armen Dzhigarkhanyan .

As it turned out, two police officers spilled 140 kilograms of mercury in the entrance of a residential building in Vladivostok on August 27. The police captain, with the help of his friend, took the mercury he had bought from house No. 3 on Rudneva Street in order to resell it. However, at the entrance, the law enforcement officers dropped the fire extinguisher in which they were carrying the toxic metal, and mercury splashed out.

The largest trial related to corruption is underway in China, BBC reports. More than 200 government officials at all levels are involved in the smuggling of goods that occurred through the port of Xiamen. They are accused of bribery on an especially large scale (we are talking about millions of dollars) and of facilitating the duty-free passage of goods worth several billion dollars through customs.

The Moscow government did not have the right to issue permission to place shopping arcades in the passage on Pushkinskaya Square. This conclusion was reached by the commission on the explosion on Pushkin Square and the legality of the location of sales tents in the passage.

More than one and a half thousand shells and mines from the Second World War were discovered five kilometers from the village of Ozerny on the border of the Smolensk and Tver regions. As Alexander Muravitsky, head of the Main Directorate for Civil Defense and Emergency Situations of the Smolensk Region Administration, told RIA Novosti, the department's sappers under the command of Vladimir Bondarenko have already neutralized more than 500 shells and mines.

The European Union has lifted political and economic sanctions against Austria, imposed at the beginning of this year after ministers from the far-right Freedom Party joined the Austrian government, RIA Novosti reports.

Despite the fact that the official opening of the Olympic Games will take place only on Friday, the first competitions in Sydney have already taken place. Women's and men's football tournaments have started. Russian teams in this sport, as you know, did not make it to the Olympics. In the women's tournament, two matches were played in Group A. The hosts of the Games, the Australians, lost to the European champions, the German athletes - 0:3.

The Millennium Dome exhibition complex, a giant "flying saucer" built on the banks of the Thames in London's suburbs towards the end of the millennium, is facing demolition before the end of this year. Such an unfortunate future for the building, which was a source of pride for Londoners, was seriously discussed after negotiations on the sale of the building for 105 million pounds sterling to the Japanese bank Namura ended in failure.

On Wednesday, at the capital's Sheremetyevo-1 airport, repeat offender Mikhail Sadovsky, who had been hiding in Germany for five years, will be handed over to Russian operatives. The decision to extradite him was made in August by a Cologne court.

At about 0:00 Moscow time, a team of employees of the linear department of the police department began evacuating all passengers from the Yaroslavsky railway station building in Moscow. Dog handlers with dogs examined the premises for the detection of an explosive device, which was reported by an unknown person over the phone. An emergency rescue vehicle also arrived at the scene.

The Kremlin categorically excludes the possibility of Mikhail Kasyanov's resignation from the post of prime minister.