A few days before Christmas , a scientific interpretation of one of the most exciting episodes of the Gospel appeared. The Bethlehem star really existed. It was a rare astronomical phenomenon - the meeting of Jupiter and Saturn. Today it is known that this event occurred only once in history - in 7 BC, i.e. In an era, coinciding with the birth of the Savior.

In the North Caucasus District Military Court in the case of a group of special forces under the command of Captain Edward Ulman, on Tuesday, the interrogation of witnesses of the prosecution continued - three more people were interrogated. All witnesses at the time of the crime were senior officers, among them the direct commander of the Ulman group gave evidence.

A man who was wanted in the UK for the murder of a police officer disappeared from the country, putting on a female Arabic outfit. Mustaf Jama passed out for his sister, wearing a hijab and using her passport, and thus escaped the obligatory identification of the person at the Heathrow airport. The 26-year-old criminal is accused of the UK of 21 crime. He is considered the killer of Constable Sharon Beshenivskaya in November 2005 during a robbery in Bradford.

On December 19, the Krasnogvardeisky District Court of St. Petersburg chose a preventive measure in the form of detention to the senior officer of the military commissariat of the Krasnogvardeisky district of the city. On Wednesday, December 20, the press service of the city prosecutor's office reports. The preliminary investigation is carried out by the investigation group of the prosecutor's office of the Krasnogvardeisky district, reports St.

On Wednesday, a three -day working visit to Moscow, President of Syria, Bashar al -Assad. Russia continues to use US failures in the Middle East to activate its own role in this region. Moscow refers to the fact that the problems there cannot be solved without the countries, which were considered by Washington for the notorious "axis of evil" - the same Iran and Syria.

The next attempt by representatives of the six countries - five regular members of the Security Council of the UN and Germany - to coordinate the draft draft resolution on international sanctions against Iran - endlessly ended. “We still have to solve difficult problems,” Vitaly Churkin, a regular representative of Russia at the UN, told reporters.

The Austrian court granted the lawsuit of the British historian David Irving, accused of denying the Holocaust, and changed the current sentence to the conditional, RIA Novosti reports with reference to AP. British historian David Irving was sentenced on February 20, 2006 by the Austrian court to three years in prison and has already served in prison for 13 months. According to the published decision, the rest of the term will be considered sentenced to conventionally.

The Mosoblsud on Wednesday dismissed the jury college in the case of an attack on the head of the RAO UES of Russia Anatoly Chubais. Thus, the request of the prosecutor’s office was satisfied, ITAR-TASS reports. The state prosecutor asked to dissolve the jury in connection with the information that appeared in the media, revealing the course of the closed trial.

All these rumors about Litvinenko are complete nonsense, said the director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey Lebedev. “I can say bluntly: neither he has nothing to do with the SVR, nor we have nothing to do with him. Therefore, all these rumors were sent to the west or, conversely, sent him to the other world,“ complete nonsense, ”Lebedev emphasized in an interview published on Wednesday in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda .

Priest John Okhlobystin, a former film director, screenwriter and actor, admitted that he loves Alla Pugacheva’s songs and believes that the Orthodox could also succeed in show business. “You just do not need pornography and dirt. Show business is the same normal thing as much more,” Interfax quoted his statement from an interview that the business Petersburg newspaper publishes today. According to John Okhlobystin, show business involves bringing joy to people.

More than 70 employees of the UN Humanitarian Mission left the Western Sudanese Province of Darfur. The evacuation was carried out after the attack of unknown to the Humanitarian Mission camp, RIA Novosti reports with reference to the Arab media. According to eyewitnesses, on the night of December 18-19, a group of 20 people attacked several residential tents in the Mission camp located in the city of Hereida in the south of Darfur.

At a meeting of the military-industrial commission on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Sergey Ivanov proposed to oblige all graduates of Russian universities who studied on a budgetary basis, work five years at state-owned enterprises. The return of "distribution", so popular in Soviet times, has some positive points. However, most experts are convinced of the illegality of such an initiative, “New Izvestia” write.

The newspaper "Province" of the city of Tikhoretsk, Krasnodar Territory, is subjected to pressure due to an article that the police did not like. Journalists said on the pages of the publication that a 24-year-old man died in the walls of the local Central Internal Affairs Directorate. On the eve of the editorial office, the tax authorities suddenly visited, they intend to check all the activities of the newspaper. The editor -in -chief admits that he is afraid for his life.

The world's most expensive plot of land was sold in Hong Kong for residential development from a government auction. According to the South China Morning Post , a plot of 7353 square meters. The meters, located in the most prestigious area of ​​the island at the peak of Victoria, left the hammer for a record 231 million US dollars.

The Federal Customs Service (FCS) tightens control over the export flows of oil and gas, the Independent Gazeta reports. On Tuesday, December 19, it became known that Yevgeny Rybakov, the head of the Central Energy Customs (CET), lost his position. This is a unit that the greatest income brings customs, most likely the deputy Rybakov will be headed. Along with this, the rules of fuel and energy export are tightened.