Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced his readiness to run for the highest post in the state in the elections that were scheduled to be held in June of this year. As Karzai emphasized today in an interview with foreign journalists, he firmly intends to organize elections on the time specified by Loya Jirga, despite warnings from the UN on the possibility of a breakdown in an environment of instability, now reigning in the country.

The Palestinian leadership discussed the possibility of a unilateral announcement of the creation of an independent Palestinian state in response to violent actions by Israel, the continuation of "spot liquidations" and military operations in the Palestinian territories, as well as the construction of a dividing wall on the western coast of Jordan.

A few kilometers from the village of Tangi, Urus-Martan District, Chechnya, during a clash, the base of the militants was eliminated. “On the basis of the militants, a bandit group of up to 15 people was discovered. The army unit began a battle with the bandits,” the representative of the Urus -Martan Department of the Interior told Interfax. According to the interlocutor of the agency, the clash lasted about an hour and a half. Among the militants there are losses - killed and wounded.

As a result of the explosion of grenades in the apartment of a residential building, two people were injured. This was reported to the Interfax correspondent by sources in the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the capital. January 10 at 03:37 from the service "02" received a message about the explosion in the apartment of house N 47 on Avia Motornaya Street. Several outfits of the Lefortovo internal affairs department and the ambulance doctors immediately left for the scene.

In the Volgograd region, as a result of a break in the power line for the third time in the last three days, the Dubovsky district has been de -energized. According to an interfax agency, a source in Volgogradenergo OJSC, emergency brigades take emergency measures to restore power supply in the district plunged into the darkness.

Scientists from Switzerland, together with Russian experts, continue research in the area of ​​the Kolka glacier in North Ossetia. The head of the North Ossetian hydrometeorological center Lyudmila Valieva informed Interfax on Saturday that two meteorological stations of Finnish production purchased at the expense that allocated the Swiss government will be installed in the area of ​​the glacier.

One of the leaders of the ATP Irina Khakamad did not receive any offers from the Kremlin in connection with her nomination for the presidential election. She stated this live on the air of the Echo of Moscow . She emphasized that "she did not meet with the Kremlin, did not see anyone, and no one called." Khakamada said that the starting procedure for collecting votes "technologically very difficult".

Russian volleyball players received an Olympic ticket by winning a qualifying tournament in Leipzig. In a decisive match, they defeated the Holland team - 25:19, 25 17, 25:16. According to the results of the tournament in five matches, they did not yield to the rivals a single set. Before the tournament in Leipzig, the wards of Gennady Shipulin held four friendly meetings with the Netherlands team and won all.

Two French journalists were sentenced to six -month imprisonment in Pakistan. The employees of the Express weekly Mark Epstein and Jean-Paul Zhiloto, according to ITAR-TASS, admitted that they violated the Pakistani visa regime, visited the city of Kvetta-the administrative center of the Belujan Province without the appropriate permission of the authorities. The reporter and photographer, detained by the police in Belujistan on December 16, were released on bail before the start of the trial.

The American Black Hawk helicopter, who suffered a catastrophe on Thursday near the Iraqi city of El Falluj (60 km west of Baghdad), was shot down by a rocket launched from the ground. This was reported by Sky News. According to the American military who conducted a preliminary investigation, the helicopter was shot down by partisans from the ground.

The US Tennis team has become a three -time Hopman Cup. This tournament was held in the Australian Perty and its prize fund amounted to one million dollars. In the final of the 16th traditional tournament, the United States team consisting of Lindsay Davenport and James Blake outplayed the Slovakian national team, whose honor was defended by Daniel Khantukov and Karol Kucher.

The evidence in the bankruptcy case of the Italian food concern Parmalat was looking for a financial guard on Friday at the Bank of America Milan branch, ITAR-TASS reports. This financial institution controlled a significant part of Parmalat’s credit operations and is suspected of complicity in concealing funds worth up to 10 billion euros. The Italian police began a real hunt for Parmalat without a trace that disappeared.

The presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan today visited the Astana -Baiterek monument today. It is located in the middle of the new administrative center of Astana now, ITAR-TASS reports. The monument is one of the existing objects in the new center of the city. Its height is 97 meters and this is not by chance. It was in 1997 that the transfer of the capital in Astana, surrounded by endless steppes, where poplars grow, in Kazakh - byiterek took place.

As it became known to the Echo of Moscow radio stations, a working group will be created to resolve the issue of reprofiling the Ivanovo boarding school at the Suvorov School. The Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Galina Karelova said this at a press conference on the situation around the boarding school.

The unofficial delegation from the United States, which visited the DPRK, visited the nuclear center in Yonben during the visit. This was announced at the airport of Beijing a member of the delegation, professor at the University of Stanford John Lewis. Four representatives of American socio-political and scientific circles are here on the way from Pyongyang, where they were at the invitation of the DPRK Foreign Ministry.