The Pentagon made an unusual choice, determining the contractor for the construction of a small cellular network in Iraq. The American company selected for this is called MCI, but is better known as WorldCom - a defendant in a grandiose financial scandal and a not particularly famous player in the wireless market. The Pentagon is especially outraged by competitors.

In the village of Ust-Izhma, the Izhemsky district of Komi, the school burned down. According to the Committee on Civil Defense and Emergencies of the Republic, on the night of May 21, the school building completely burned down. In the fire no one was injured, reports Kominform . According to the preliminary version, the cause of the fire was entering the Ball Lightning building during a thunderstorm. The damage is estimated at 350 thousand rubles.

On Thursday, in the press conference, the head of the expedition, the instructor-vodolaz instructor of the Moscow diving club Igor Galaida said that on Wednesday he and Prokhorov were immersed to a depth of 150 meters in the high-mountain lower blue lake located in the Cherek district.

The deputy commander of OMON at the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Tyumen region, Yuri Firsov, died in Grozny, a source in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Chechen Republic said, Interfax reports. This happened on Wednesday in the village of Chernorechye on the western outskirts of Grozny. At that moment, when Firsov at the head of the unit returned after a planned operation carried out on Guryev Street, a powerful explosion thundered on the side of the road.

In the largest city in Turkey, Istanbul, on Thursday, an explosion occurred at the Odzhakbashi restaurant. Two people were killed and eight were injured, reports Reuters. 4 of them are in serious condition, Interfax clarifies. It is possible that people can still be under the wreckage. According to eyewitnesses, the explosion was so powerful that several walls collapsed in the restaurant’s premises, glass was knocked out in nearby buildings.

In the capital, the employees of the Simon inter-district prosecutor's office revealed the brutal murders of the homeless, committed in April this year in the 3rd Paveletsky passage. As it turned out, two people killed a local janitor at once. Information about the first murdered, middle -aged man, found at one of the garages, entered on April 20. Having examined it, the experts concluded that the tramp died of a stroke on the head with a hard stupid object.

Two American Mars of the Robot Mars-Robot are ready to go on an expedition to Mars in June, NASA reported. The purpose of the expedition will be to verify the previously appeared reports that huge ice deposits were discovered on Mars. The first rover starts on June 5 from the Cosmodrome on Cape Canveral in Florida on board the Delta -2 missiles, and the second on June 25 aboard the same carrier. Both devices should reach Mars in January 2004.

On Thursday, information came that the first case of atypical pneumonia was registered in the Czech Republic. A 25-year-old citizen is placed in the infectious department of one of the largest Prague hospitals, ITAR-TASS reports. He recently arrived from Southeast Asia after he visited Thailand and Cambodia. Analyzes have confirmed the disease, Prague Radio reported today.

The 20 -year -old hockey player of the Russian national team Igor Grigorenko today was made by tracheostomy - the opening of the throat and the introduction of a special response tube - after which there was a tendency to improve the condition of the patient, the official website of KhK Lada reports. Thanks to the operation, which lasted only 15 minutes, it was possible to clean the respiratory tract and significantly reduce the edema formed before.

After the official visit of the Secretary of State of the Vatican, Cardinal Angelo, in Kazakhstan in Karagand, was completed, the first meeting of the newly created conference of the Catholic bishops of the country, whose charter was approved by Pope John Pavel II , the Blagoverst-info reports. During the first meeting of the conference, in which the Apostolic Nunius took part in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, Archbishop Yuzef Vesolovsky, organizational issues were discussed.

The United States began an anti -terrorist operation in Sudan. For the first time in 10 years, the US Air Force military transport aircraft Hercules landed in the Sudanese capital of Hartum, the UN regional news channel reports. The plane delivered military personnel and equipment for deploying the base of the American United Family response forces in the African horns in Sudan. Previously, a similar base was created in Eritrea, ITAR-TASS reports.

666 people died from atypical pneumonia in the world, and 7956 cases of a serious acute respiratory syndrome were registered in the world in total. These data were distributed on Thursday by the World Health Organization. According to WHO, in China, where the disease was found for the first time, 7387 cases of disease were registered.

This summer, the first alcoholic ice cream will go on sale in Perm. As expected, the first batch of new ice cream will appear in kiosks since the beginning of July. Perm ice drifters released a trial batch of elite ice cream, the taste and composition of which was developed throughout the year. It consists of sealing with a high content of proteins and fats, covered with a chocolate drop with an alcoholic filler and nut. Cognac was used as a filler.

In China, 4 more patients atypical pneumonia died. In addition, 26 new cases of SARS diseases are registered. As Reuters notes on Thursday, they have been infected in the last 24 hours. According to the Chinese Ministry of Health, the world leader in the spread of atypical pneumonia - four fatal cases and 15 new cases of infection SARS are in. Two patients died in the Beijing Hospital.

On Wednesday night from the investigative insulator in the suburbs of Yakutsk, the village of Marche was committed by a group escape of prisoners. According to the head of the regional department of execution of the sentence of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation Sergey Yana, three young criminals sawed out the grille in the insulator chamber, and tried to hide. Only one of them was detained almost immediately, and the other two are still on the run.