Yuri Zhigalkin, New York: on Thursday, the period of the contract on restriction of missile defense systems officially ends -exactly 6 months are fulfilled from the day from the day President George Bush informed Moscow that the United States intends to denunciate it. The end of the contract will be marked by two events.

In Grozny, Russian units are conducting a large -scale operation to search for Chechen fighters today. According to the Radio Liberty correspondent, the central market and neighboring quarters are completely blocked. There is a general verification of documents. There are no accurate data about the detainees. According to various messages, there are about a hundred of them.

In Penza, the city administration refused to help the primary organization of the All -Russian Society of the Blind to pay off the debt to utilities in the amount of 18 thousand rubles. Now 700 visually impaired people are forced to come with their problems not in a separate room, but in a seventeen -meter room that does not comply with the technical safety standards provided for blind people. In the Samara region, 220 students will make a free cruise on the Volga in June.

US Secretary of Defense Donald Ramsfeld will discuss today in Islamabad with Pakistan President Mosharraf the way of resolving the Indo-Pakistani conflict. Ramsfeld arrived yesterday in Islamabad from Delhi, where he met with Prime Minister Atala Vajpai. Among the issues they discussed are the possibility of participating in international peacekeeping forces in resolving the Kashmire conflict.

The Ministers of Justice and Internal Affairs of the EU countries have discussed today in Brussels issues of combating illegal immigration. The Minister of Internal Affairs of Great Britain David Blankette supported the initiative of the European Commission - to create a single border service of the EU to control the external boundaries of the European Union.

A curious book was published in Russia: "Myths about Russia and the spirit of the nation" Alexander Goryanin. This book has not yet reached our places yet, but you can already judge it by some materials, and I want to talk without hesitation. Firstly, we have something like the autoannation of the book, and secondly, a large interview with the author in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda appeared, in three numbers in a row: the case, they say, is unprecedented.

The Israeli army is conducting operations today in the Gaza Strip and in the city of Tubas on the western coast of Jordan. In Tubas, at least 4 Palestinians and two Israeli military personnel were injured as a result of shootings. 15 Palestinians were arrested on suspicion of terrorism. In the camp of Palestinian refugees, the Rafach in the Gaza Strip detained five Palestinians. One of them was involved in a recent attack on a nearby Jewish settlement.

Today, the term of the missile defense agreement concluded by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1972 has expired. In December last year, US President George Bush announced that Washington intends to get out of the PRO agreement, as he was going to create a new missile defense system. According to the American president, at the end of the Cold War, the agreement lost its significance.

In Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, two suspects of the murder of General Border Service Vitaly Gamov today were charged. Both were detained in Kaliningrad last week. Another suspect was put on the federal wanted list. On May 21, unknown people set fire to the general’s apartment in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. A week later, Gamov died from the burns received in the clinic of the Japanese city of Sapporo.

On Thursday, June 13, the State Museum of Fine Arts named after Pushkin was 90 years old. The first director of the museum was a well -known researcher of antiquity, philologist, historian, archaeologist, professor at Moscow University Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, father of Marina Tsvetaeva. The current director Irina Antonova defines the tasks of the museum as "the ability to hear his time and respond to his requests." President Vladimir Putin sent a congratulatory telegram to the museum team.

Lev Roitman: A dispute between Russia and the European Union about the future transit rights of Kaliningraders remains unresolved. Preparing to enter the European Union, Lithuania and Poland in early June, that is, after the sharp protests of Vladimir Putin at the European Union-Russia summit, nevertheless announced that from July 1 of next year, residents of the Kaliningrad region for travel through these countries will have to receive visas.

Sergei Sleptsov, Rostov-on-Don: in the military court of the North Caucasus district, the Kungaev family lawyers made a new charge against Colonel of the Russian army Yuri Budanov. Today, the chairperson at the meeting, Colonel of Justice, Viktor Kostin, made a warning to lawyer Abdulle Khamzaev, representing the interests of the victims. The lawyer was warned about the inadmissibility of a political statement in the court.

The European Commission will provide additional humanitarian assistance to the victims of the war in Chechnya. The European Commission released today states that food, medicines and other essentials for the amount of 4 and a half million euros are intended for displaced persons returning to their homes to refugees, children and other in need both in Chechnya itself and in the republics neighboring with it.

In Dallas (Texas) is a meeting of the highest hierarchs of the American Catholic Church, which discusses the issue of the need for reforms. Recently, the Catholic Church in the United States has ended up at the epicenter of scandals caused by accusations of clergy of pedophilia. Opening the meeting, Bishop Belville (Illinois) Wilton Gregory admitted that the church is in a state of deep crisis, perhaps the most dangerous in the history of its existence in the United States.

The head of the temporary Afghan administration Hamid Karzai, apparently, will become the leader of the country that will head the transition government. According to television in Kabul, two -thirds of the delegates of Loya -Jirgi, the All -Afghan Assembly of Elders, spoke out in favor of the candidacy of Karzai. Among those who supported the Karzai are a number of influential Pashtun field commanders, ex -Korol Mohammad Zahir Shah and representatives of the Northern Alliance.