The lawyer Stanislav Markelov , who represented the interests of the family of the Chechen girl Elsa Kungaeva in the process in the case of Colonel Yuri Budanov, was beaten and robbed in the Moscow metro. The incident occurred on April 16, but it was known about it only now from an open letter of a lawyer in the Moscow Central Internal Affairs Directorate and the Moscow metro prosecutor who received Newsru.com.

In the central office of the Yukos oil company in Moscow, large -scale searches were carried out today. According to Interfax with reference to the company's employees, several dozen employees of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for tax crimes arrived at the office at the address of the Dubininskaya street, the house of 17 arrived.

The American company Research Triangle International ( RTI ) reported on Thursday about the release of one of the two of the Israeli citizens of Arabic origin . RTI Vice President Sally Johnson told Reuters that Nabil George Yakub Razzak, a Palestinian with an Israeli identification card, was released on Thursday. “He is alive and well,” Johnson said. Johnson did not specify any details of the release of the rack.

The Hubble space telescope was launched on April 24, 1990. By the 14th anniversary of the launch, HubbleSite published a new unique picture taken by the telescope: a collision of two galaxies. The picture shows how the ring of the brightest blue stars similar to a diamond bracelet is surrounded by what was once a normal spiral galaxy. A sparkling blue ring has a diameter of over 150 thousand light years - this is more than the diameter of our native galaxy - the Milky Way.

In Chelyabinsk, one of the three especially dangerous criminals who fled on Wednesday from a psychiatric hospital was detained. This was reported by RIA Novosti by telephone by a representative of the press service of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the Chelyabinsk Region. "Divron Kutdusov was detained at about 11:00 local time in the village of Lokomotive (Sovetsky district of Chelyabinsk).

President Leonid Kuchma said on Thursday that the Ukrainian military contingent intends to act as part of a multinational coalition to support peace and stability in Iraq until the end of the mission. "Ukraine came to Iraq with a peacekeeping mission. We are not conquerors, not invaders. We are going to fulfill our duty to the end. We will not run away," said Leonid Kuchma. He also noted that at the current stage there is no question of increasing the number of peacekeepers contingent.

Russia blocked the adoption of a Cyprus resolution in the UN Security Council, which, according to Moscow, would put pressure on the population of Cyprus during the referendums planned for Saturday about the reunification of the country. Expressing a deep regret on how work was built on a British-American draft document with a declaration of support for the plan for unification of the Greek and Turkish communities of the island, Russia applied the “technical” veto.

On Thursday, the Presnensky court of Moscow will consider the lawsuit of Inga Gizoeva, who died as a result of a terrorist attack in the center of the capital near the National Hotel in December last year, to the founders of the newspaper Versia.

In Yekaterinburg, in the presence of the command, the deputy commander of the 34th motorized rifle division for weapons, Colonel Andrei Stakal, shot himself. The incident occurred on Wednesday at about 20:00 on the territory of the military unit during the exercises. A service weapon officer shot himself in his temple. He was taken to the hospital, where he died from the injury.

The Duma Security Committee recommended the State Duma to adopt in the first reading amendments to the Law "On Police", which will change the procedure for learning for intoxication, RIA Novosti reports.

Sanitary services at the checkpoints across the Russian border with Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China by order of the chief state sanitary doctor of the Russian Federation Gennady Onishchenko are transferred to a special regime to eliminate the possibility of importing the plague infection to the territory of the Russian Federation. This is stated in the report of the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Population.

The head coach of the Portuguese football club Porto, Jose Mourinho, may replace the coach of London's Chelsea, Claudio Ranieri, this summer. "I will move to London this summer," Mourinho told the British newspaper Mirror. The Porto boss canceled talks scheduled for last Monday with Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and the club's chief executive Peter Kenyon, but is confident that they will take place on May 4 after the second leg of the Champions League semi-final against Spanish Deportivo.

The head of Adjara Aslan Abashidze said that the central leadership of Georgia is preparing a special operation against him for the purpose of its physical elimination. "The central leadership of Georgia is preparing a special operation against me and preparing appropriate forces for this. We know about it and try to avoid a terrorist attack," Abashidze said in an interview with Adjara's television.

The previously unknown terrorist group threatens to conduct a series of terrorist attacks against the USSR countries. According to reports from Seoul, a letter with a similar threat was received by the South Korean embassy in Thailand.

The Russian team next week will hold a second friendly match from the series of preparatory for the European Championship. Recall that the game will be held in Oslo on April 28, but on Thursday the main composition of the Russian team became known on Thursday.