“You don’t know where the worst corruption is? So I’ll tell you!”, the residents of Israel have every right to say. Over its short history, this country can boast of several prime ministers accused of corruption, and over the past five years, not a single head of the Israeli government has escaped the relevant proceedings.

At least 20 people were killed and 16 more were injured in a car accident in Peru, 480 kilometers from the capital, Lima, according to the Ananova website. Around noon local time, a passenger bus fell from a 500-meter cliff in the mountain range. According to police representatives, the cause of the accident could have been excessive speed on a difficult mountain road.

The Seimas of Latvia is introducing a ban on teaching all compulsory subjects in Russian in Russian schools of the republic, RIA Novosti reports . On Thursday, parliament adopted an amendment to the Education Law, according to which, from September 1, all subjects in senior secondary schools of national minorities must be taught in Latvian.

In Moscow, Honored District Police Officer of Russia, Lieutenant Colonel of the capital's Vykhino Department of Internal Affairs, Nikolai Kolkin, detained a robber, who turned out to be a discharge athlete. news agency The ITAR-TASS was informed about this by the press service of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the South-Eastern District of Moscow. According to the news agency, this happened on the night of January 22, 2004.

The crew of the Russian trawler "Kalachevsk" rescued four sailors who had been drifting in the Sea of ​​Japan on a life raft for more than 15 hours. As reported by the online publication Gazeta.Ru , a life raft carrying four people was discovered in the waters of the Sea of ​​Japan at 13:50 local time (03:50 Moscow time). According to the publication, the rescued said that they were part of the crew of the foreign schooner Erebus, flying the flag of the state of Belize.

In a globalizing economy, the secret to the country's economic growth is the low exchange rate of the national currency. It allows exporting companies to receive high revenues in expensive currencies of other countries (primarily dollars), despite the fact that in their homeland, where payments are made in their own currency, everything will be cheaper for them.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili intends to restore full control over the situation in all autonomous republics. “Georgia is a single country, and whoever opposes it should get out of it,” Saakashvili said live on the Rustavi 2 television company, Interfax reports . The Georgian president noted that he would restore order in the country, including Adjara.

An unidentified flying object fell into Argentina on Wednesday morning. Residents of the settlement of San Roque in the province of Corrientes talk about a fireball flying from the sky, which fell to the ground, exploding twice, RIA Novosti reports . The peasants who ran to the crash site found a crater in the field and a heavily burnt metal object. As it was later determined, its weight was 40 kilograms, length - 3.6 meters and width - 1.6 meters.

The Spirit rover has stopped transmitting data and has not responded to commands from Earth for the past 24 hours, BBC News reported Thursday. According to experts from the American aerospace agency, the cause of the loss of communication may be a power failure, failures in the software or in the memory of the device. At the moment, NASA is trying to determine the exact cause of the problem and restore contact with the spacecraft.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told his Palestinian counterpart Nabil Shaath on Wednesday that the leadership of the autonomy should stop talking about the complete coincidence of its position with the position of Moscow, the Kommersant newspaper writes . According to the head of the Foreign Ministry, such statements discredit Russia as an impartial mediator in the process of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.

22.01.2004, 20:42:10 version Print | PDA/PDA Fragment of the official poster of the film ''The Lord of the Rings. Return of the King'' "The Lord of the Rings", or From Rags to Riches The King of Middle-earth has returned Three - to the Elven lords in the substellar limit, Seven - for the gnomes reigning in the foothills, Nine - to mortals, whose time and destiny are verified, And one thing - to the Lord on the black throne.

The 15-kilometer individual race at the Biathlon World Cup, which takes place in Anterselva, Italy, ended in victory for Russian biathletes. Anna Bogaliy, without making a single mistake, took first place, and Svetlana Ishmuratova remained in second place with one mistake.

Gasoline prices in Russia have reached American levels. This, as indicated on the website of the Financial Izvestia newspaper , was announced on Thursday by the executive director of the Moscow Fuel Association, Grigory Sergienko. However, according to him, the price of fuel in the country remains lower than in European countries.

Following the example of New York, Liverpool intends to become the first city in Britain to be smoke-free, according to the Guardian newspaper website. An informal group called Smoke-Free Liverpool, made up of city council representatives, health officials and industry executives, is proposing a ban on smoking in public places by 2008, when the city is declared European Capital of Culture.

The Moscow City Duma adopted on Wednesday a law on public security centers, according to which a service of public informants will appear in the capital. This was reported by the daily newspaper " Gazeta " in a material published on Thursday. According to the publication, informants will inform the police and government officials about violations of order free of charge. True, those who have especially distinguished themselves in this field will be paid bonuses from the city budget.