The Canadian national hockey team has reached the semifinals of the World Hockey Championship, which is taking place in Austria. In the quarterfinals, the current world champions Canadians beat the Slovak team with a score of 5:4. In the semi-finals, Canada will play the winner of the Russia-Finland pair. The Slovaks opened the scoring in the match already in the 45th second, when Marian Gaborik shot past Martin Brodeur after passes from Zygmunt Palffy and Lubomir Wisnovski.

The rights to the LUKOIL logo in the European Union belong not to the oil company, but to the Spanish company Sarmet on plus, which sells petroleum products, Kommersant wrote on Thursday . According to the newspaper, LUKOIL is currently trying to litigate the rights to its trademark through the European Patent Court, located in Spain.

The American lawyer of the former head of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy, Yevgeny Adamov, Lanii Breuer, said that the issue of extraditing his client from Switzerland to the United States is moving from the legal to the political plane. In an interview with RIA Novosti, he said: “This is a political matter. The governments of the United States, Switzerland, and Russia are involved in it. This is inevitable, given the status of Dr.

On Wednesday, the parliaments of Austria and Slovakia almost unanimously ratified the text of the pan-European constitution, the Associated Press reports. In the Austrian parliament, only one deputy voted against the European Constitution. Slovak legislators were not so unanimous, but 116 people were in favor of adopting the document, with 27 against.

Dominique de Villepin, France's interior minister, announced new measures designed to tighten the country's immigration laws.

The Kommersant newspaper obtained a letter from Ivan Mironov, who was put on the wanted list in the case of an attempt on the life of the head of RAO UES Anatoly Chubais. The message was conveyed to Kommersant by Ivan’s mother, the wife of the ex-head of the former head of the State Press Committee of Russia Boris Mironov. According to her, someone dropped the text of her son’s letter on a computer floppy disk in an ordinary envelope into her mailbox.

On May 12, the State Duma adopted, by 384 votes to 18, amendments to the law “On Currency Regulation and Currency Control,” RIA Novosti reports . The bill is intended to resolve a number of problems when carrying out certain types of foreign exchange transactions by both residents and non-residents. In particular, now some types of payments can be made without using bank accounts.

The Federal Space Agency is going to launch into orbit an observatory for monitoring extragalactic objects, Radioastron, Vremya Novostey reports . "RadioAstron" will explore black holes, neutron stars, and the Earth's gravitational field. In addition, with the help of the observatory, scientists hope to discover new super-powerful energy sources. The laboratory is equipped with ultra-sensitive equipment, which has already been tested at the P.N.

The Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation on Thursday included in its inspection plan for this year an audit of the expenditure of funds from the Stabilization Fund. This was stated at a meeting of the Federation Council commission for interaction with the Accounts Chamber by Deputy Chairman of the Accounts Chamber Alexander Semikolennykh, RIA Novosti reports .

Republicans pushed a bill through Congress that would make gang attacks a federal crime, CNN reports. 279 out of 423 congressmen voted to pass a bill that would toughen penalties for gang members. Republicans propose increasing the minimum prison term to which gang members are sentenced for serious crimes from five to 15 years, allowing federal prosecution of persons as young as 16, and expanding the list of crimes punishable by death.

On May 11, the head of the Ministry of Finance, Alexei Kudrin, reported to the Federation Council on the effects of monetization of benefits and the delimitation of powers between levels of government, the Gazeta newspaper writes . According to him, territorial budget revenues increased by a third from 426 to 507 billion rubles, and the number of subsidized regions decreased by 14 from 25 to 11. Wage debts were halved - from 600 to 300 million rubles.

Eighty-nine Democratic members of the US Congress sent a letter to George W. Bush last week. In it, CNN reports, they ask him to explain the contents of a secret British memo that claims "intelligence and facts were manipulated" to justify the war in Iraq. The document was published on May 1 of this year in the Times of London newspaper. It represents the minutes of the summit meeting held on July 23, 2002, at which the Iraq issue was discussed.

The question of Ukraine's accession to NATO and the European Union will be decided by a referendum of the people of Ukraine, the President of Ukraine said on Thursday live on three Ukrainian TV channels, RIA Novosti reports . “The issue of Ukraine’s membership in the EU and NATO will be resolved through a referendum,” Yushchenko said in response to citizens’ question whether such important issues for Ukrainians should be put to a national referendum.

The Czech team beat the US team in shootouts in the quarterfinals of the World Hockey Championship, which takes place in Austria. After regular and extra time, the match was a 2:2 draw, and in the shootout only Martin Rucinski's shot was accurate. In the semi-finals the Czechs will play the winner of the Sweden-Switzerland pair. The Czechs dominated the first part of the match, but their advantage was expressed only in the number of shots. The Americans were in the lead.

President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko today at 21:00 will answer questions from Ukrainian citizens live on ICTV, STB and Novy Kanal TV channels, reports ProUa.com . Ukrainians can either send questions to Yushchenko by e-mail to Novy Channel (novavlada@novy.tv), or ask them live by phone. It is assumed that for these purposes, the number of the STB TV channel will be announced at the beginning of the broadcast.