The State Duma allowed the disabled, at their request, once every two years to use the passage on domestic and international air, railway, river and road transport for free. The chamber made such a decision on Friday, unanimously voting to make an appropriate amendment to the current law "On the social protection of disabled people in the Russian Federation." 409 deputies voted for the adoption of the bill, Interfax reports.

The Board of Directors AOL Time Warner voted to expand the powers of the current executive director Dick Parsons. It is he who will become the new president of the company, when in the spring the current head of AOL Steve Keis will resign . The new leader was named by the Board of Directors less than a week after Steve Case's sudden announcement of resignation from this post.

The Court of Appeal of the Donetsk region sentenced 42-year-old Nikolai Tsivashov to life imprisonment. The criminal was accused of brutal murder of a child and cannibalism. In April 2002, Tsivashov in his own apartment in the city of Belozersk Donetsk region killed a nine -year -old girl and dismembered her corpse. He used some parts of the body for cooking, and threw the rest into a garbage container.

A powerful explosion thundered in one of the provincial hotels in Central China. According to official figures, as a result, five people died, 11 were injured. The number of victims may increase: eyewitnesses are afraid that people who have not yet been found are buried under the ruins. The incident occurred on Wednesday evening, but officials reported it only a day later.

In the German city of Ruppold, a women's sprint race for 7.5 kilometers was held as part of the fifth stage of the Biathlon World Cup. Her winner was the Russian woman Galina Kuklev, who showed the time 23: 57.2 minutes and did not allow a single miss on two firing lines. Now Kuklev was the first to go to the start of the Sunday Race of Pursuit. Her colleague for the national team Olga Pyleva took third place, 6 tenths of a second losing to Martin of the Vlags from Germany.

The “serious and causing concern” was called by the press secretary of the White House Ari Fleisher the fact that Iraq has chemical warheads that they were not announced. ” He stated this on Friday to reporters in Washington. According to him, the administration of George Bush is very concerned both to the discovery of these warheads and the fact that "chemical warheads were not included in the weapons list represented by Iraq," RIA Novosti reports.

President Hugo Chavez insists on including Russia in the list of groups of countries created to assist in resolving a crisis in Venezuela. Chavez said about this on Thursday at a press conference in New York after a meeting with the Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan. "We believe that Russia should be part of the group, because it declared its desire to do this," said Hugo Chavez.

In the Moscow region, the murder of a 9-year-old boy is revealed. The corpse of a child with stab wounds was discovered on January 9 in one of the apartments of the house in Naro-Fominsk near Moscow. As reported on Friday , MK-News in the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the Moscow Region, a 32-year-old previously convicted local resident was detained for the crime.

The Russian government delegation at the World Economic Forum in Davos will be headed by the Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation, German Gref. Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation Alexei Kudrin, who represented Russia in recent years, will not go to Davos this year.

The meeting of the Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Construction of Israel, Nathan Scharansky, was held on Friday in Moscow. This was reported in the Embassy of Israel in the Russian Federation. The meeting was followed by closed doors, reports Interfax. According to diplomatic sources, the parties discussed the issues of bilateral cooperation, the situation in the Middle East, as well as around Iraq.

Microsoft increased the profit of 12% by the results of the second financial quarter and will pay dividends for the first time in its history. Investors can celebrate victory: Microsoft has liquid assets of $ 43 billion, but still has not wanted to share them. This is a unique case for large American corporations, Bloomberg notes. The announcement of the payment of dividends was a complete surprise for investors. Until recently, the management announced that it would invest all the profits.

In Cuba, the 2nd regional drug combat conference was opened. Representatives of 15 Caribbean states take part in her work, and delegations from Russia, the USA, Canada, Great Britain and Italy are present as invited. Speaking at the conference, the representative of the UN Aldo Lale Demos said that annually drug trafficking, operating countries of the Caribbean, are profitable for $ 3.3 billion, ITAR-TASS reports.

Unknown criminals robbed one of the capital's boutiques - the Ption of the Baranov on Kirovograd Street. Mink fur coats became the prey of thieves. The total damage amounted to 1 million rubles. According to the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the capital, the theft occurred the day before late in the evening. The kidnappers entered the store, breaking the wall with improvised means.

The Assembly of Islamic Youth, with the assistance of the Islamic Association of China, conducts an extensive program in a number of Chinese regions to popularize the Muslim religion. According to Islam.ru with reference to the Iina news agency, it, in particular, includes lectures in Hong Kong, which should tell about the views of Islam on urgent problems of our time.

In the Ural capital, a cruel fight took place the day before - as it turned out, students of two leading universities of Yekaterinburg participated in it. On the site at the Sports Palace at 22:00, a group of fifth -year students of the Ural Mining Academy, consisting of about 40 people, beat two students of the Ural State University. According to the victims, at least 40 people participated in the beating. Passers -by caused the police.