Federal budget expenditures on the construction of facilities for the Olympics in Sochi will decrease by 33 billion rubles. They will be replenished by investors, including the state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom . reports this Interfax with reference to the words of the Minister of Regional Development Dmitry Kozak . Among other investors, the minister named the oil company RussNeft and the Interros holding company of Vladimir Potanin .

A gold cup believed to date from the 4th to 3rd centuries BC, kept in a shoe box since 1945, sold at Duke's in Britain for $100,000 (£50,000). The authenticity of the artifact has not been definitively established, and therefore the final amount of the transaction was much lower than the auction estimate: according to BBC News, the cup was valued at 100 thousand pounds.

Leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) responded with sharp criticism to the statement of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama that Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and will not be divided in any way, Reuters reports. PA President Mahmoud Abbas said that East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel following the Six-Day War of 1967, should become the capital of an independent Palestinian state.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday made an official announcement about the drought in the state, The New York Times reports. The last time a drought was declared in California was seventeen years ago - in 1991. Schwarzenegger said he would ask the federal government for help to California farmers and order more intensive water conservation measures at various levels of government.

Lawyers for the Jordanian organization "A Prophet Among Us" said they would inform Interpol and put Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard on the international wanted list if he fails to appear in court in a blasphemy case. Earlier, Jordanian authorities opened a criminal case against Westergaard and the editors of ten newspapers for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, Fox News reports.

US Marine Andrew Grayson has been found not guilty of the 2005 massacre of civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha, Reuters reports . Grayson, a 27-year-old Marine intelligence lieutenant, was acquitted by a military court at Camp Pendleton in California. The trial in his case lasted five days, and the jury took several hours to consider its verdict.

A professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and his collaborators have come up with a way to determine the mass of black holes in distant galaxies. The scientist reported on his discovery at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis. The results of the study are briefly presented on the university website. Supermassive black holes have been discovered at the center of many galaxies.

Ozzy Osbourne has won a legal battle against a newspaper that claimed his health problems meant the Brit Awards were in jeopardy, Sky News reports . The article, entitled Ozzy's Freak Show, was published by the British tabloid Daily Star last February, shortly after the Black Sabbath singer co-hosted the Brit Awards with his wife Sharon and children Jack and Kelly.

The Norwegian Consul General in St. Petersburg, Otto Mamelund, was hospitalized with injuries he received under unclear circumstances, reports Fontanka.Ru . On the morning of June 4, Mamelund was taken to the hospital, where doctors discovered he had a concussion, a laceration to his chin, an abrasion on his forehead and a chest contusion. The condition of the 49-year-old Consul General was assessed as satisfactory.

05.06.2008, 13:08:25 version Print | PDA/PDA Photo by the press service of the Rosneft company Russians are selling shares of Rosneft The number of individuals - shareholders of the Rosneft company over the year decreased by 11 thousand people - to 143 thousand people. Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rosneft and Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Igor Sechin announced this at the regular annual meeting of shareholders , RIA Novosti reports .

The leaders in the ranking of the most attractive regions of the world for investment have changed, Vedomosti newspaper writes , citing a study by the auditing company Ernst & Young. If two years ago the majority of top managers of international organizations wanted to invest in the United States and Western Europe, now they prefer developing countries. Russia's investment attractiveness has grown from 5 to 21 percent in two years.

Zahi Hawass, head of the Egyptian Council for the Study of Antiquities, announced the identification of the so-called Headless Pyramid, located in the necropolis of Saqqara: according to the scientist, it belonged to the little-known pharaoh of the V dynasty of the Old Kingdom Menkauhor, reports Reuters. This pyramid was discovered in the 19th century by the German archaeologist Karl Lepsius. In his catalog it is listed as number 29.

The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) inaugurated the Japanese laboratory module Kibo, AFP reported on Thursday . The first people to visit Kibo were American Karen Nyberg and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. “This is a great moment for all the Japanese people,” Hoshide said before moving from the ISS to Kibo. After Nybreg and Hoshide, wearing protective masks, made sure that the air supply system in the new module was working properly, the rest of the ISS crew visited Kibo.

The winners of the Debut youth literary award in 2008 will receive more money than the previous winners: the winners of the first prize - 200 thousand (instead of 80 thousand), the second - 150 thousand, the third - 100 thousand, Vedomosti writes . Also this year, the composition of the nominations has changed: “essays” has been added to “large” and “short prose”, “poetry” and “criticism”. Last year the fifth category was “science fiction”.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, five million foreigners are currently living illegally in the Russian Federation. According to Interfax , this figure was announced at a press conference by the deputy head of the criminal investigation department, Gennady Ivanov. According to the official, 20 million citizens enter Russia every year, including in transit.