A group of supporters of Russian presidential candidate Irina Khakamada sent an appeal to the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation demanding to suspend the broadcast of one of the election videos on television channels. According to Khakamada voters, the video, code-named “What is the President of Russia?” violates the principles of equality of candidates.

The editors of the British Arabic-language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi received a letter signed by the “Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades (Al-Qaeda)”, which categorically denies the involvement of this network in the major terrorist attacks that have just been carried out in Iraqi cities. “God knows, we are not guilty of this act, or any other aimed at intimidating Shiites,” the letter says. "Our mujahideen love God and his prophet, and will not do anything that will harm the Iraqis." ...

Despite the optimistic indicators of economic development of the Russian defense industry, the General Director of the Russian Conventional Arms Agency, Alexander Nozdrachev, believes that the number of bankruptcies in this industry will increase, RIA Novosti reports . On Wednesday, before an extended meeting of the RAW board, he spoke at a press conference at which he summed up the development of the industry in 2003.

On Tuesday, primary elections began in ten American states, as a result of which a single candidate for the US presidential seat from the Democratic Party should be determined. Primaries are held in the states of Georgia, Vermont, Ohio, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island (Rhode Island) and California (California). The leader of the Democratic race remains Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who won 18 of the 20 states where primaries have already been held.

Two police officers on a business trip to Chechnya were injured as a result of a landmine explosion in Grozny. As a source in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Chechen Republic told the RIA Novosti news agency , this happened on the afternoon of March 2 in the Staropromyslovsky district of the city, at approximately 12:20 Moscow time. A landmine exploded under a UAZ police car, in which there were employees of the Rostov Region Central Internal Affairs Directorate.

Russian biathlete Olga Zaitseva took third place in the pursuit race at the World Cup, which began in Fort Kent, America. She covered a distance of 7.5 kilometers without a miss, but in the end she lost a minute and a half to the German Uschi Diesl, who became the winner. The leader of the overall World Cup standings, Norwegian Liv-Gret-Poiret, took second place. The weather in Fort Kent, unlike Lake Placid, was cloudy and warm.

In the Pakistani city of Parachinar, a short circuit caused a fire to break out in a crowded Shiite mosque, killing 13 people - eight women and five children. Some of them suffocated in the smoke, others died in a crush while trying to go down the stairs. Forty-eight people, also mostly women, were injured, city spokesman Ahmed Khan Orakzai told the AP.

During Operation Whirlwind-Anti-Terror, Far East police officers seized more than 12 thousand units of ammunition from illegal circulation, as well as 1,608 firearms, Interfax reports . In addition, more than 11 kilograms of explosives, 25 explosive devices and 56 kilograms of narcotic substances were confiscated.

Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Parliamentary Committee on Freedom of Speech Mykola Tomenko released on Wednesday at a press conference fragments of documents he received in Germany from former General of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Valery Kravchenko.

Border guards Sergeant Major Mukhtar Suleimenov and Senior Sergeant Abdulkhalik Kurbanov, who killed Ruslan Gelayev, were presented with government awards. news agency The ITAR-TASS was informed about this by the press service of the North Caucasus regional border department of the FSB of the Russian Federation. Both border guards died in a shootout with Gelayev, but managed to mortally wound a field commander who was trying to escape across the border into Georgia.

German and Swiss lawyers will defend Russian Vitaly Kaloyev, suspected of murdering an air traffic controller for SkyGuide. According to the online publication Strana.Ru , journalists were told this at the Russian Embassy in Bern. A Swiss lawyer, whose name has not yet been revealed, was assigned to the Russian by local authorities.

Three former republics of the Soviet Union, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, have received an official invitation to join NATO, RBC reports . Together with them, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia were offered to join the alliance.

For three whole months, French President Jacques Chirac and Interior Minister Nicola Sarkozy received anonymous letters. The first message, delivered to recipients on December 14, said that politicians were “more preoccupied with themselves than with the state, the economy is corrupt, and the education system has almost been reduced to nothing.” The letter ended with a promising phrase: “You will hear from us soon!” The next letters arrived in January and February.

John Kerry won a landslide victory in the US primaries, the results of which determine the future Democratic Party candidate in the November presidential election. The Massachusetts senator, the Washington Post reports, won in nine of the ten states where voting took place: Ohio, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Georgia, and, most importantly, New York state and California.

group of companies There have been dramatic changes in the leadership of the Royal Dutch/Shell , the most important of which was the resignation of Sir Philip Watts from two posts at once - chairman of the board of directors and chief financial officer of the Shell Transport and Trading Company. His successor was the head of the Danish company Royal Dutch Petroleum, Jeroen van der Veer, for whom all members of the board of directors voted.