This was announced on Thursday at a press conference at the club of sports journalists of the Olympic Committee of Russia by Igor Kazikov, deputy head of the Athena-2004 working group. According to him, a lot of work is underway to create a new equipment, and leading designers of Russia are involved.

The British police evacuated people in the building of the King-Cross London railway station in the evening. The adjacent station of the same name metropolitan and the station of the city ring road of the same name are also closed, ITAR-TASS reports. According to the official representative of the police, a suspicious car was parked near the station. "The evacuation was carried out for precautions. Experts inspect the car. Cordons are exhibited around the station," the policeman said.

A small American government aircraft crashed on Thursday in the jungle in the southern district of Colombia, controlled by Marxist rebels, Reuters reports. There were 5 people on board - four Americans and one Colombian. Representatives of the US Embassy in Columbia cannot yet confirm whether the Americans were on board the aircraft. The plane crashed, trying to make an emergency landing due to problems in his only engine, representatives of the embassy said.

The Chertanovsky court of Moscow was sentenced today by Vyacheslav Mavrodi (younger brother Sergei Mavrodi, the creator of the MMM pyramid) by five years and three months in prison with property confiscation. Mavrodi will serve the punishment in a general regime colony. The verdict can be appealed for 10 days in the Moscow City Court.

Aslan Maskhadov is located in Chechnya, but he does not control all groups of militants operating in the republic, said Salambek Maigov, who calls himself his representative in the Russian Federation. "I do not think that in Chechnya there is forces that control everything and everything.

Five people escaped on Thursday at 6:40 am from the receiver-distributor of the Internal Affairs Directorate of Irkutsk. One of the officers of the special institution received severe stab wounds. According to the Internal Affairs Directorate, the duty officer distributed food for the detainees. At that moment, one of them, Gypsies by nationality, rushed at the officer and hit several times with a knife. After that, the attacker and four more cellmates disappeared.

The president and founder of Benefon, Yorm Nyeminen, on Tuesday said that his company could stop operations in the next few days. If the Finnish producer of cell phones fails to agree to receive financing in the amount of 20 million euros by the end of the week, his fate can be considered resolved, the Vedomosti reports.

The singer is remembered in Ufa and Kazan The panichid on the famous Russian opera singer Fedor Ivanovich Chaliapin in the Holy Sergius Cathedral began on Thursday in Ufa, dedicated to the 130th anniversary of the birth of the great singer. The solemn meeting continued at the Ufa Institute of Arts, bearing his name. Here were the flowers to the monument to Chaliapin, the notes of musical works in his performance sounded.

The price of March futures for WTI brand oil on the New York Model Exchange (NYMEX) on Wednesday increased to the maximum over the past 28 months and amounted to $ 35.77 per barrel, Interfax reports with reference to the Bloomberg agency. Experts believe that the price can reach $ 40 per barrel. The price of March Brent oil contracts on NYMEX on February 12 increased by $ 0.17, to 32.52 dollars per barrel.

The Argentina teams, the quarterfinal match with which, as part of the Davis Cup draw, will be held on April 4-6 in Buenos Aires, "very strong, it seems to have two and a half composition." Today, the captain of the Russian national tennis, Shamil Tarpishchev, drew attention to the press conference in ITAR-TASS. In this regard, Tarpishchev called for great hopes for Marat Safin, who is able to beat any Argentine tennis player on the ground.

It is expected that up to 10 million people on all five continents will be released this Saturday to demonstrate a protest against the outbreak of war in Iraq. This will be the largest march for all times, today writes The Guardian (translation on the website inopressa.ru ). Confirmation that rallies, marches and round -the -clock demonstrations of the protest will take place from approximately 400 cities and 60 countries, from the Antarctic to the islands of the Pacific Ocean.

In the Shakhovsky district of the Moscow Region, a world record was set in parachute jumping. On one parachute or, as professionals say, on one dome three athletes jumped at once. The task was complicated by the fact that paratroopers were jumping from an airplane, but from a balloon, which was very difficult to control due to frost and wind. This method is invented for training beginners - the instructor fastens the student to himself and controls him with a dome.

In the Zesky gorge of North Ossetia, there are searches for two missing Moscow climbers. Having registered in the rescue service of the Republican Ministry of Emergencies, on February 10 they went to the route, but for the third day they did not get in touch, ITAR-TASS reports. On February 11, by alarm, rescuers of the Ministry of Emergencies of North Ossetia were raised, but the search for climbers has not yet given any results.

In the center of Moscow this year, it is planned to defeat 4 thousand square meters. m flower beds with roses. About this press service of the prefecture of the central administrative district of the capital. The prefecture of the district approved the program "My Yard, my entrance" for 2003. As part of the program, 850 yards will be landscaped and 1 thousand 744 entrances will be repaired.

Preparations for the casting of the largest bell for the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg will take place today at the Baltic Plant in the Northern capital. This was reported to the Interfax agency by Rostislav Gusev, Deputy General Director of Machine -Building Proceedings. "The weight of the bell, the manufacture of which is entrusted with the most experienced worker of the plant, will be 4.4 tons, height - 2.25 meters," the representative of the plant said.