The decision of the Belgian Council of Ministers to temporarily suspend the issuance of entry visas to Russian citizens is not directed against the Russian authorities, Belgian Foreign Ministry spokesman Michel Malherbe said today in Brussels, RIA Novosti reports. According to Malherbe, the decision of the Belgian Council of Ministers was forced, it was caused by a large influx of Russian citizens into the country demanding asylum and was made on the basis of an objective analysis of data.

Today, in the very center of Moscow on Pushkin Square, a nationalist rally sanctioned by the capital authorities took place. Supporters of Limonov, Barkashov and the newly emerged organization “Russian Project of Great Russia” gathered under common banners, NTV reports. The organizers of the rally explained that their main goal was to protect the Russian press from the arbitrariness of the media financed from abroad. All this is timed to coincide with the former Soviet holiday - Press Day.

The French supersonic passenger plane Concorde returned to Paris on Saturday after test flights at the French Air Force base in Istere in the south of the country, RIA Novosti reported. The aircraft underwent flight and ground tests in Isterre, which has the longest runway in France. It was built for possible landings of American space shuttles and transferred to the national air force.

Two global football giants Manchester United and Juventus are on full alert following Lilian Thuram's announcement that he wants to leave Parma at the end of this season. Sir Alex Fergusson has long had his eye on the winner of the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European Championship and is now ready to act. If Parma fails to keep the Frenchman with an extremely tempting offer, then Thuram will cost the winner of the race £23 million, which is his transfer fee.

21 people have been charged with preparing and carrying out terrorist attacks in the Stavropol region and Karachay-Cherkessia. This was announced by Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Sergei Fridinsky after a meeting in Essentuki, at which issues of combating terrorism in the south of Russia were discussed, RIA Novosti reports. Three people were detained as suspects in this case, 11 were put on the federal wanted list.

Today, the sailing ship "Dafkin" - an exact copy of the ship on which the first European sailors arrived on the mainland almost 4 centuries ago - set off from the shores of Australia for a circumnavigation of the world. A team of sailors from Australia and Holland will make the longest voyage in history on a restored sailing ship. Brave travelers will have to travel a total of about 18 thousand nautical miles in 12 months.

One of the oldest representatives of the clergy of the republic, Mullah Nasruddin, was killed in Chechnya. According to the BBC, he was killed by supporters of the field commander Shamil Basayev, who came to the village of Novye Atagi to recruit young people into armed forces. Mulla tried to urge local youth not to obey Basayev's orders. In response, he was killed at the mosque.

The Sicilian mafia is reviving a sinister tradition of sending horse heads to those it wants to intimidate, The Times reports. Once upon a time, a horse's head was the most terrible sign in the language of the mafia. Such messages were used especially often in the 50-60s, and they are known to everyone from the legendary film “The Godfather”. Then this custom gradually died out, as mafia bosses found more acceptable forms of maintaining discipline.

On Friday in Portland, Oregon, the mother of a first-grade student at one of the schools filed a $2 million federal lawsuit against the city school system, Reuters reports. A woman accuses educational institutions of failing to protect her daughter from sexual assault by second-grade students at the same school.

A US judge has rejected an appeal to reduce the $3.4 billion fine imposed on the world's largest oil company, Exxon Mobil, for deliberately underpaying the state of Alabama for developing natural gas resources. “Exxon committed a blatant, deliberate fraud designed to defraud Alabama of hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps more than a billion,” an Alabama District Court judge said in his ruling Thursday.

Until the end of the week, unique lots will be available for auction at the California Aeronautics Museum. For example, the descent module of the Soyuz spacecraft, on which cosmonauts Solovyov and Vinogradov went to the Mir station in 1997. The auction organizers hope to earn more than two million dollars for this device. For comparison, launching a Soyuz rocket costs a little over 10 million.

Here the final preparations are being made for the arrival of the Roman High Priest. During the trip, the Pope will meet with the head of the Antiochian Orthodox Church , Patriarch Ignatius IV , as well as Syrian President Assad. In Damascus, John Paul II will have to give a sermon at a 40,000-seat stadium, after which he will go to the city destroyed by Israeli troops: Al-Quneitra, where he will call on Israelis and Arabs for reconciliation.

By the end of the year there will be a million people infected with AIDS in Russia. Such a disappointing forecast is given by experts from the Federal Center for the Prevention and Control of this Disease, Interfax reports. Doctors noted that today patients are registered in all regions of the federation. These are mainly men aged 20 to 30 years. The main risk factor for HIV infection in our country remains intravenous drug use.

The United States is ready to protect Russia from ballistic missiles. As NTV reports, such a sensational statement was made by US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. He travels to Europe next week for consultations with NATO countries and Russia on missile defense. Speaking about the negotiations in Moscow, Wolfowets said that they will be the most acute and difficult, since the two nuclear powers still do not trust each other.

The Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena movement in New Delhi is demanding the closure of all McDonald's restaurants in India. More than 50 Shiv Sena activists staged a picket outside the company's office, Ananova.com reports. The protest was organized following reports the day before that McDonald's was adding beef flavoring to its French fries (the cow is a sacred animal for Hindus). In the US, an Indian-origin lawyer has already filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the company for deception.