14 Europeans-hostages, captured hostage by Algerian fighters in the Sahara desert more than five months ago, returned to Germany on Wednesday. The German Air Force plane delivered former hostages from the capital of Mali Bamako to Berlin. Nine Germans, four Swiss and one Dutchman were among 29 hostages captured in Algeria. Earlier, the Algerian special services managed to free the first group of 17 people. One hostage died in a desert from a thermal blow.

Rosoboronexport has already earned $ 3.3 billion from the total amount of 2003 export supplies in the amount of $ 3.8 billion, said the general director of the enterprise Andrei Bellyaninov.

Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloster and Aunt of the British Queen Elizabeth II broke the record of longevity in the British royal family. At the age of 101 and 238 days, she blocked the previous record set by the Kingean-Mater Elizabeth, who died in March 2002 . Princess Alice is the widow of the Duke of the Gloster Henry, the third son of King George V and the uncle of the now reigning Queen Elizabeth II.

At the Summer Olympic Games, which will be held in 2004 in Athens, both Korea will perform a single team. Such a fundamental agreement was reached at TEGU today, where the Universiade 2003, the meeting of the Vice-President of the International Olympic Committee Kim Una (South Korea) and the MOC member from the DPRK Chang, begins on Thursday.

As a result of the collision of cars on the 406th km of the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway, three people were killed. As the traffic police reported on Wednesday in the Novgorod Directorate, a frontal clash of cars occurred on a highway at the village of Yazhelbitsa in the Valdai district of the Novgorod region.

The American film academy forced the filmmakers of the fantastic trilogy of the Vachovski brothers "Matrix" to suffer, determining which of the films will participate in the struggle for Oscar. The fact is that academicians banned the second and third part of the militant - the films "Matrix: rebooting" and "Matrix: Revolution" - together to compete with other premits. The Miramax film Studio with two parts of the Quentin Tarantino “Kill Bill” (“Kill Bill”) fell into the same situation.

In London, the first stone of the new memorial is laid in memory of Princess Diana. The construction of the memorial, which will be located near Lake Serpentine in the center of Hyde Park, will be completed by July next year, when its official opening will take place, RIA Novosti reports. Construction work in the Hyde Park has been going on since June of this year.

Serious riots occurred on Wednesday in the Israeli prison Megido, where Palestinian prisoners rebelled. Palestinians, in the bulk, arrested on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities, categorically refuse to move them to a military prison of Kzot. They require the Israeli authorities recognition of their prisoners of war and the spread of all rights defined by the Geneva Convention to them.

As the chairman of the Committee of Culture , Cinema and Tourism of the Novgorod Region Yuri Shubin, experts of the Russian Ministry of Culture, adopted the act on the end of the restoration and renewal work in the Novgorod Church of the Out of the Mother of God on the Volotov Field. According to Shubin, experts gave a very high assessment of the work of Novgorod restorers.

The Moscow Basmanny Court on Wednesday extended until October 29 the term of detention to an employee of the MUR - Deputy Head of the 7th Department of Igor Ostrovsky, who was held in the case of corruption in the ranks of the Moscow police, reports Interfax. According to his lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov, the court granted the request of the Prosecutor General to extend the term of arrest.

In the UK, the first child was born, whose mother was fertilized with a sperm purchased on the Internet. The couple who wanted to have children paid 1200 pounds (about 1800 US dollars) for fresh sperm ordered on the first such site in this country - MannotincLuded.com . Although the site is focused on the needs of lesbians and single women, the first couple, which successfully used the new service, was heterosexual, notes The Independent .

The Club of the first Anji division made an offer to move to Makhachkala a record holder in the number of matches played for the Russian national team defender Viktor Onopko. For onopko, this is the second such offer over the summer. In July, he was called to the Krasnodar Kuban, a competitor to Anji in the second largest Russian league. By the way, in the Kuban now plays his former teammate in Spartak Vladimir Besvyny.

Specialists of the UBS bank conducted a study of prices and wages in 70 cities of the world in order to compare these indicators, to allocate the most expensive and cheap megalopolises. As it turned out, the most expensive life is Oslo in the capital of Norway. Its residents have to work more than others, while buying money on earned by honest labor, they can less.

The Independent publishes today the first excerpts from the personal diary of the adviser to the Prime Minister of Great Britain Alistair Campbell, who, according to estimates, can bring him 1 million pounds after he leaves Dauning Street. Campbell unexpectedly provided his diary for the commission of Lord Hatton, and several excerpts were read yesterday, when he testified, notes the British edition in an article, the translation of which is published by Inopressa.ru .

The Olympic champion in ski racing, Yulia Chepalova, decided to apply to the court to protect her name by Adidas without appropriate contractual relations, the official website of the Russian athlete reports. Without a contractual relationship with the athlete, the company issued a whole advertising set - posters, cards, posted a mention of Julia in connection with its products on the site.