The British buy books written by famous television characters, Americans are obsessed with self -improvement, the preferences of the French are more intelligent, the Germans love books about travel, and the Japanese distinguish eclectic tastes. Amazon.com, finding out the literary preferences of the inhabitants of these countries, came to the conclusion that four of them are united by the unquenchable love for bestseller Joan Rowling Harry Potter and the Gifts of Death, writes The Times .

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov initiated amendments to the Land Code of the Russian Federation, greatly simplifying the procedure for landing for housing construction in the city with any owner. Capital officials intend to use a scheme prescribed as an exception in the law on Olympic construction adopted at the end of 2007, the Kommersant newspaper writes. The essence of the bill is reduced to the expansion of the list of cases allowing the authorities to remove land from the owner.

The famous French composer Michelle Legrand will give the only concert in St. Petersburg. With songs of various decades and new works, Legrand will perform in the Great Concert Hall "Oktyabrsky", who already accepted the composer, ITAR-TASS reports. Even one music for the film "Sherburg Umbrellas" would have been enough for Michel Legrand to remain in world musical history. However, this is only one of more than two hundred films where the matestro melodies sound.

Ratings in Russia for a week from February 18 to February 24 As we predicted in the last review of the telecommunications of the domestic viewer, with the departure of the saga of the Saga about the Bromovi family, the leader of the Channel One "Circus Princess" (rating - 10.1%, share - 26%).

The Guardian. A Jewish Free School (JFS) in north London has refused to give a place to an 11-year-old child. The spiritual leaders of the educational institution determined that the boy’s mother was not a born Jew and did not belong to the branches of Judaism recognized by the office of the Chief Rabbi. Orthodox Judaism involves maternal inheritance of religion. In this case, we are talking about the fact that the boy’s father is a recognized Jew, and his mother is a born Catholic.

The chairman of the largest opposition party of Moldova, our Moldova Alliance, Serafim Urekan, claims that President Vladimir Voronin is conducting secret negotiations regarding the territorial integrity of the republic, Interfax reports.

The Kharya County of Estonia sentenced Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday, which is a member of the riots that broke out in Tallinn on April 27 last year on the occasion of the transfer of a "bronze soldier". The complete namesake of the new Russian president was accused of breaking a barrier before the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Boulevard Redaval in Tallinn, Delfi reports.

The simultaneous clash of the Ocean Fenics tanker and two dry cargo loads occurred on Wednesday in the afternoon in the narrow Strait of Akashi near the Japanese seaport of Kobe, ITAR-TASS reports. As a result of the incident, the Japanese security department at sea, the Golden Leader cargo ship with a displacement of 1466 tons under the flag of Belize sank.

Yandex begins the traffic jam 2.0 program - building an operational loading map of city streets based on automatically obtained and processed user data, the company’s press release reported. Traffic jams 2.0 are fundamentally decentralized. Information is supplied by users themselves. More precisely, not even by them, but their mobile devices - of course, if the owners decided that they want to take part in the program.

Volkswagen has increased its share in the capital of the Swedish manufacturer of trucks and buses Scania from 38% to 69% of shares. Thus, by paying 3 billion euros, the Germans became the largest shareholder of Scania and the owners of a controlling stake in the Swedish brand.

Deputies of the Communist Party faction stood up to protect the interests of drivers who serve parliamentarians, and demanded that they create normal working conditions for them. As Aparin said on Wednesday at a plenary session, the drivers of deputies have very difficult working conditions, while they very often get sick and delay the salary, the new region reports. "The famous poet said:" Is it easy to love all of humanity? We are more difficult to love a neighbor.

The Moscow City Court refused to return the criminal case to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation against the largest shareholder of Yukos Leonid Nevzlin, accused of organizing a number of murders. According to Anna Usacheva, a press secretary of the Moscow City Court, the court, on the merits of the case, told Interfax . "The court provided the protection of non -Zaporin to familiarize himself with the case file for two weeks.

The first service pack (SP1) for Windows Vista Ultimate will be released later than the updates for Vista Home and Vista Business. The Register reports this. Vista SP1 packages are expected to be released in March, but the exact date is not yet known. Users of all versions of Vista except Ultimate will receive the packages simultaneously. The update delay for the premium version of the system is due to the need to translate into 36 languages.

This week in Kyrgyzstan, a new bill may appear on the transfer of the state Kyrgyz language from Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet, the newspaper New Izvestia writes. The discussion of this initiative promises to be stormy: there are many supporters and opponents of such changes in the country. The situation is complicated by the fact that the knowledge of their language, for example, among the inhabitants of the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek is at a very low level.

Icelandic singer Bjork provoked a scandal in China, shouting: "Tibet! Tibet" during a concert in Shanghai. The incident occurred after the singer performed her sensational hit Declare Independence, BBC reports. Talks about the independence of Tibet are considered in China, which controls this territory since 1951, a forbidden topic. Although some fans of the singer did not hear any calls at all, the rest expressed extreme indignation.