A new generation carrier rocket "Proton √M" with the Ekran-M spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 7:47 Moscow time. The world's first launch of a rocket of this class took place a day late due to technical reasons. Details were not disclosed. Today everything went without complications.

Swiss investigator Daniel Deveau on Saturday at 19:30 Moscow time officially accused Pavel Borodin , Secretary of the Union of Russia and Belarus, of money laundering. In addition, Borodin is accused of belonging to a criminal group. The charges were brought 8 hours after Borodin was brought to Switzerland from the United States. The question of whether he will be released pending trial will be decided by the Geneva indictment chamber next Tuesday or Thursday.

A helicopter carrying seven US citizens crashed in Vietnam. All people on board died. According to the Reuters news agency, Pentagon spokesman Terry Sutherland said that the disaster occurred today in central Vietnam, 450 km south of Hanoi. There were also Vietnamese citizens on board the helicopter. According to data coming from Vietnam, at the time of the disaster there were 20 people on board the helicopter; they all died. The Pentagon reports a crew of 16 people.

American police have arrested a man who tried to destroy the Liberty Bell hanging near the building where US independence was declared in Philadelphia in 1776. The bell, according to first data, was almost undamaged as a result of the attack. "This man entered the pavilion where the bell hangs, said something about God and hit the bell 5 times with a hammer. The attacker was dressed in some kind of military clothing, he had a guitar and a bamboo stick.

As it became known today, for the first time in the last 5 years, the world professional kickboxing championship will be held at the Olimpiysky sports complex. It will take place on May 12, and the program includes 10 fights, and in three of them athletes will fight for world champion titles according to the largest kickboxing association - ISKA.

The first subbotnik this year will be held today in Moscow. Utility workers will clean the streets, mark the roadway, clean the facades of houses and plant greenery. The city authorities hope that ordinary citizens will also take part in the improvement of the capital. The Moscow City Hall reports that on April 21 there will be a citywide cleanup day in which everyone will be able to take part.

Police in the Stavropol Territory arrested four people who, according to authorities, were involved in the terrorist attacks carried out on March 24 in Essentuki, Mineralnye Vody and Karachay-Cherkessia. A RIA Novosti correspondent reports that the suspects were arrested on Friday when they were leaving the Stavropol Territory.

Sean Connery said on Friday in Washington that Scotland will sooner or later become independent from Great Britain. “Our wonderful country will one day be separated from Great Britain and I even expect to be alive by then,” said Connery, who was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II but is still fighting for Scottish independence.

Australian doctor Philip Nitzschke has announced that he is going to create a special floating clinic to practice euthanasia, “merciful killing.” The hospital ship, Nitzschke said, would sail in international waters under the Dutch flag if the Dutch parliament finally approves a law allowing doctors to kill terminally ill people who request it. "I would like to launch the project and see how it will work.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said on Saturday that "in Germany there is no place for lazy people and quitters" and therefore unemployed people who do not want to work may stop paying benefits. "Those unemployed people who reject all offers of employment should not hope that the state will treat them well. They must, like everyone else, bear specific obligations to Germany," Schröder said.

The head of Gazprom-Media, Alfred Koch, who was elected chairman of the NTV Board of Directors at a shareholders' meeting at Gazprom, expressed his readiness for dialogue with the television company's staff. As Ekho Moskvy reports with reference to Interfax, this is stated in Alfred Koch’s appeal to NTV employees distributed today. “They want a dialogue with you. We are all painfully thinking about how you can get out of this situation while saving face,” the document says.

The owner of the server, that is, the computer on which this page is physically located, ordered to stop the network campaign in defense of NTV on the website http://ntv.21.ru/list/ . The demand was made to the author of the project tonight. At the same time, the server owner explained his actions by saying that he did not want to touch politics.

A 42-year-old Muscovite, as the capital's police department reported on Friday, killed her 6-year-old son, and soon after that she hanged herself. On Friday afternoon, residents of one of the entrances of house number 8 on Prokhodchikov Street contacted the police. They said that there was an unpleasant smell coming from one apartment, and no one answered the doorbell. In the presence of arriving police officers, the door to the apartment was opened.

Authorities at the Brooklyn Pretrial Prison did not allow Pavel Borodin to meet with his lawyers on Friday. Deputy head of the prison Linda Thomas, in response to a request from an ITAR-TASS correspondent to say whether or not the Secretary of State of the Union of Russia and Belarus was under her protection, refused to confirm or deny this fact. This could mean one thing: Borodin will soon be sent to Switzerland, if he is not already on his way to Geneva.

On Friday evening, three children drowned near Arkhangelsk while playing on the ice on the Onega River. Divers are now searching for their bodies. All the children were residents of the small village of Severonezhsk: one of them drowned when the ice on which he was playing cracked, and two more when they tried to help a friend get out of the water, ITAR-TASS reports. The children were 7 years old.