Ten representatives of the Trade Union of Entrepreneurs League of Liberty and supporters of the “Union of Right Forces” held a picket on Wednesday in the morning at the Moscow City Duma building, protesting against the closure of street fast foods.

The armed detachments of the Kurds were approaching today close to the city of Kirkuk in Northern Iraq. This happened after intense bombing, which the forces of the Western coalition exposed the leading lines of the defense of Iraqi troops around the "oil capital" of the region. Kurdish militants "Peshmerga" took possession of the strategic plateau of Sekaman 10 km from Kirkuk. From these heights there is a view of the city and the adjacent oil fields, ITAR-TASS reports.

One person died and another was injured as a result of an explosion in a residential building on a large postal street in the center of Moscow, in the area of ​​the Baumanskaya metro station. According to the sources in the Civil Protection and Enterprise of the capital, the incident occurred at about 22:50 Moscow time on the stairwell of the upper floor of the 4-storey residential building number 18/20 building 9 on Bolshaya Pochtovaya Street. As a result of the explosion, one person died.

The meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin with France President Jacques Shirak and German Chancellor Gerhard Schreder will be held in St. Petersburg on Friday and Saturday. And since the official representatives of Schroeder and Shirak intensely tried to deny this fact, it is obvious that they want to conduct a summit as an alternative that they completed George Bush and Tony Blair yesterday in Northern Ireland.

The police detained several participants in the anti -war manifestation from the US Embassy in Moscow, who tried to throw a diplomatic mission with "certain objects." The incident occurred during the passage of one of the columns of the manifestants past a temporary fence near the embassy building. Several young people tried to throw objects similar to plastic toys in his direction, but were immediately detained by police officers.

US President George Bush and US Vice-President Richard Cheney note the success of the coalition troops, but warns the Americans that the war in Iraq has not yet ended. The White House spokeswoman Ari Fleisher said on Wednesday to journalists in Washington that Bush was “glad to promote a military campaign” in Iraq, but what is happening in the Iraqi capital is only “only one Baghdad district”. “There are still a lot of dangerous places for our armed forces in Baghdad,” Fleisher emphasized.

A shootout is heard near the University of Baghdad. This was reported live by the correspondent of the American television channel CNN . According to the CNN correspondent, the American marine infantrymen entered the territory of the student town, where a fierce shootout ensued. Other details of the incident are not yet known.

In Iraq, a new television show will begin to operate in a few days and a new daily newspaper will be published. According to the Saudi newspaper Ash Shark Al-Ausat on Wednesday, for this purpose in the city of Suleimania in the north of Iraq, two groups have been formed from among opposition Kurdish journalists that will work in the new media. The newspaper notes that the location of television and editorial office of the new newspaper has not yet been determined, ITAR-TASS reports.

Six Portuguese journalists were beaten in Baghdad on Wednesday. The incident occurred a few kilometers from the Palestine Hotel, where about 200 foreign correspondents are located. The journalist of Portuguese radio and television reported in a report from Baghdad that he and his comrades were beaten by butt and fists from the armed Iraqi militias. Iraqis took money and equipment from the Portuguese, Interfax reports.

Witnesses of a huge number of victims among the civilian population, including women and children, were representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Iraq. This was reported by Canadian journalists by phone from Baghdad Swiss Roland Khugenin, one of the six employees of this organization who visited the city of El Hill, located 160 km south of the Iraq capital. "In the area of ​​El Hill there was an unimaginable number of victims with very, very severe wounds," Hugenin said.

15 children were wounded on Wednesday as a result of the explosion that occurred at the Palestinian school in the village of Jaba near Jenin on the western bank of the Jordan River, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports. Toe of the wounded teenagers received severe injuries. All the wounded are hospitalized in the hospitals of Jennin and Nablus. According to AFP, as a result of an explosion, 29 people were injured, 4 victims are in serious condition.

Colonel Yuri Budanov, accused of the murder of a Chechen girl, Elsa Kungaeva, in writing notified the court that he began a hunger strike in protest against the delay of the process. This was reported to reporters by the lawyer of the accused Alexei Dulimov.

The chief of the Moscow Bureau Al-Jazeera Akram Khazam denied the report that the TV channel recalled his journalists from Iraq. According to him, we are talking only about two correspondents who were in the city of Basra. "Now there is a real chaos, and therefore it makes no sense to keep them in the city. But all our other journalists continue to work in Iraq as usual," Khazam told the Interfax in an interview. He said that 6 Al-Jazeera journalists remain in Iraq.

In Primorye, during the customs inspection of the Chinese bus following in the PRC, 26 paws of the Himalayan bear were found and seized. According to the press center of the Pacific Regional Administration, a trial has begun on this fact. A fruit box in which smuggled goods was found in a bus tool box with a joint outfit of border guards and customs officers at the checkpoint of the Poltavka border, Interfax reports.

Baghdad radio on Wednesday resumed the broadcast of its programs. Although the signal is quite unstable, patriotic songs were again sounded on the air. Iraqi television and radio Baghdad stopped broadcasting after the Aviation of the US-British coalition inflicted bombing on Iraq communications on Tuesday, ITAR-TASS reports. Before this, the traditional daily military digest was not transmitted on the air, only patriotic songs and old speeches of Saddam were broadcast.