The International Planetary Society has announced that a microphone and transmitter will be sent to Mars in 2007, allowing Earthlings to hear sounds from another planet for the first time. The previous attempt ended in failure: in December 1999, the Mars Polar Lander spacecraft, which was supposed to deliver the microphone to the Martian surface, was lost.

Today, Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica commented on the situation with the arrest of ex-President Slobodan Milosevic at a press conference in Belgrade. Kostunica called Milosevic's detention by police "awkward and uncoordinated with the government and army" and said he was not informed about it in advance. According to the Yugoslav president, he was informed about the operation only 12 hours after it began.

The official representative of the Media-Most holding, Dmitry Ostalsky, stated that the meeting of NTV shareholders was illegal. “The so-called meeting of NTV shareholders, which is held on an illegal basis, will not have any legal consequences,” Ostalsky said. He noted that “in Russia there is freedom of assembly, but not freedom of assembly from the law.” Gazprom-Media, ignoring all provisions of the law, carried out its action, fulfilling the order of the authorities.

The leader of the Yabloko party, Grigory Yavlinsky, told NTV that in the message to the Federal Assembly of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he would like to hear more specific statements on key issues for Russia - for example, about judicial reform.

Today at 18:00 NTV journalists gathered in front of the Ostankino television center to give a press conference at which they announced their position to colleagues from other media on the situation around NTV. The press conference in front of the 17th entrance of the ASK-1 building is attended by management, journalists, and technical staff of the NTV television company. The PCF is attended by journalists from the main Russian and most foreign television and radio companies.

The United States ordered three American destroyers sent into the collision zone between a Chinese fighter and an American spy plane on Monday to leave the area and “continue to carry out previously assigned tasks.” This was reported by China's central television on Tuesday, RIA Novosti reports. Earlier, representatives of the US Department of Defense said that the destroyers should have approached the area where the incident occurred.

The Presidium of the Political Council of the Unity party elected Franz Klintsevich, first deputy head of the Unity faction in the State Duma, as acting chairman of the political council. The press service of the Unity party reported this on Tuesday, NTV reports citing Interfax.

On Tuesday, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church opens in Moscow under the chairmanship of Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II. According to ITAR-TASS, the Synod will consider issues of intra-church life, as well as some aspects of international and inter-church relations.

Today, one of the most famous film comedians, Eddie Murphy, turns 40 years old. He became the first black actor to become a comic superstar in America in the 1980s and 1990s. African-American by birth, Eddie performed variety acts from the age of 15. From the age of 20, he participated in the famous TV show “Saturday Night Live” and made his film debut quite early.

The congress, which brought together 292 delegates from various Slavic countries, opened in the building of the Russian Independent Institute of Social and National Problems in Moscow. Among the delegates and guests of the congress are activists of national Slavic committees, communist and left parties, representatives of the Cossacks and national-cultural associations of Slavic peoples, the Blagovest-info agency reports.

An international conference on the theme “Religion and the Environment” will open in Iran in the second half of May this year. This was announced on Tuesday by Iranian Vice President and Head of the Department of Environment Masoumeh Ebtekar during a visit to Tandura National Park in Khorasan province in the north of the country. The conference, which will run for a whole month (from May 22 to June 22), is being held by Iran in cooperation with the UN.

The index of confidence in the eurozone economies among consumers and businessmen has been declining throughout the first quarter of this year. In March, it dropped to 102.2 points against 102.8 in February, Bloomberg reports. The index is calculated by the European Commission based on a survey of 25 thousand consumers and 50 thousand companies. Economists surveyed by the agency predicted the index value for March at 102 points.

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic admitted that Belgrade secretly financed Serbian armed forces in Bosnia and Croatia during the years of these countries' struggle for secession from the former Yugoslavia. The admission comes in an appeal filed by his lawyer against Milosevic's arrest on charges of abuse of power and embezzlement of $118 million in public funds.

FRY President Vojislav Kostunica called the amount of $50 million that the United States decided to provide to Yugoslavia after the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic very, very small, ITAR-TASS reports. Speaking at a press conference in Belgrade today, Kostunica recalled that the damage to the country's economy during the NATO bombing amounted to $30 billion.

The intensity of solar activity decreases. In a few days, the dangerous region of the Sun will no longer be visible from Earth. This was reported to RIA by Pavel Svidsky, a representative of the Institute of Applied Geophysics. According to him, the magnetic storm, which lasted from March 31 to April 1, was one of the strongest. However, neither the Institute nor the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations has yet received any extreme messages related to this.