During the Second World War, the British counterintelligence MI5 used the services of an astrologer, trying to predict the steps of Adolf Hitler, who, since 1923, made decisions in accordance with astronomical forecasts. MI5's "in-house astrologer" became known from documents recently declassified by the United Kingdom. From now on, the following facts are available to the general public.

Early elections for the mayor of Arkhangelsk will be held on May 25. This decision was made on Tuesday by deputies at an extraordinary session of the Arkhangelsk City Council, RIA Novosti reports . On February 29, the court verdict against the mayor of the city, Alexander Donskoy, came into force . This is grounds for early termination of his powers. The mayor himself previously submitted his resignation.

More than 100 thousand investors in the investment project "Business Club 'Rubin'" of the company "Sun", registered in St. Petersburg, will not be able to get their money back. According to the Kommersant newspaper , this is the first financial pyramid that collapsed in Russia in the 21st century. The damage caused to investors is estimated at approximately tens of billions of rubles, but its exact amount is still unknown.

The Moscow Arbitration Court declared the largest Russian shipping company, Volgotanker OJSC, bankrupt and opened bankruptcy proceedings against the company for a period of one year. reports this Interfax . The decision to declare a person bankrupt can be appealed within a month to the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal. The company's register of creditors includes claims in the amount of 4.4 billion rubles, including the principal debt - 2.5 billion rubles.

The Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation on Tuesday, March 4, completed the counting of ballots for the presidential elections of the Russian Federation, RIA Novosti reports . According to the results of the calculations, the election was won by Dmitry Medvedev , who received 70.28 percent of the votes.

In terms of sales in the UK in 2007, game discs overtook music CDs for the first time. According to the Entertainment Retailers' Association (ERA), published on the MCV website , over the whole of last year, £1.7 billion worth of game discs were sold in the country, and just £1.4 billion worth of music discs. Just a year ago, the situation was completely different - in 2006, music in the UK was sold for 1.6 billion, and games for 1.3 billion pounds.

There are no documents in the archives of the Israeli memorial complex Yad Vashem that would confirm the involvement of the commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) Roman Shukhevych in the murders of Jews in Ukraine during the Second World War. This was stated on Tuesday by the adviser to the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), candidate of historical sciences Vladimir Vyatrovich.

Iranian painter Farhad Moshiri has become the first contemporary artist from the Near and Middle East whose work fetched a million dollars at a public auction. As reported by Bloomberg, Moshiri's painting "Love" was sold at the first ever auction at Bonhams in Dubai for 1.048 million (including commissions). In total, Bonhams auctioneers managed to sell works of art worth $13 million, which was more than double the optimistic estimate of $6 million.

In 2008, the Ministry of Economic Development will launch portals for providing government services to citizens and small businesses, as well as a law enforcement web resource, Vedomosti writes . In total, the state will provide 500 services via the Internet. In addition, on the law enforcement portal it will be possible to use the database of local police officers, find information about citizens involved in disasters, and check the validity of a passport.

The criminals who robbed the house of one of the richest residents of Great Britain took only 12 thousand pounds sterling (less than 24 thousand dollars), as The Daily Telegraph newspaper wrote on Tuesday, March 4. When robbers broke into the mansion of 62-year-old oil trader Ely Calil, located in north London, in addition to the owner, his 17-year-old daughter Jasmine, two of her friends, and three servants were there.

Former senator from Bashkortostan Igor Izmestiev has been charged with new charges. As Interfax reports with reference to the investigative committee at the prosecutor's office, new episodes include the attempted murder of businessman Yuri Bushev , the arson of the car of businessman Yuri Yaroslavtsev and the organization of the murder of the chairman of the board of VSM-Oktan CJSC Vasily Khitarishvili.

The mayor of the capital of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Naryan-Mar, Leonid Sablin resigned, Interfax reports with reference to the city administration. The reason for this decision was not specified by the mayor's office. The date for early elections of the head of the district center has not yet been set. Currently, the duties of the head of the city administration are performed by the first deputy mayor for urban affairs, Vyacheslav Belkov, reports the news agency Rosbalt - North .

On Tuesday, Thai authorities appealed to Buddhist monks to stop using social networks to seduce women, reports Reuters . The call comes after police arrested a 23-year-old monk in northeastern Thailand accused of raping a teenage girl he lured to the monastery using an Internet social networking site. Deputy Minister of Culture Jakrapob Penkair also appealed to users of the social network hi5 with a request to demand that the monks leave the site if users notice them there.

On February 4, at the CeBIT computer exhibition in Hannover, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed on the creation of a Mediterranean Union, or, according to the new formulation, a Union for the Mediterranean. The agreement ended a highly tense diplomatic dispute between the two leading European states, which threatened a serious split within the EU.

04.03.2008, 18:21:26 version Print | PDA/PDA Illustration © Photos.com/Cube Back to the Pyramids A fraudulent company a la "MMM" was identified in St. Petersburg Financial pyramids have begun to revive in Russia. The list of victims of the activities of investment fraudsters was replenished at the beginning of 2008 by 100 thousand people who became victims of the St. Petersburg business club "Rubin". Just recently, even talking about this seemed ridiculous.