The last quarter -finalist of the World Cup was the national team of South Korea, which, yesterday, seconded the Italian team during the match, won 2: 1 in extra time. The next rival of South Korea is the Spanish national team. Nearest matches will be held on Friday. There are England - Brazil and Germany - the USA. The famous British bookmaker William Hill believes that the world national team will be the Brazilian team. Brazilians' victories at the championship are accepted as 12 to 5.

The American space shuttle "Eandeor" will today make another attempt to land at the Cosmodrome in Florida. Bad weather has not allowed a landing for two days now. It is expected that today meteoro -leafer conditions will improve. Cosmic shuttle has enough food and resources to stay in near -Earth orbit until tomorrow. On board Endvore are American astronauts Karl Walz and Daniel Bersch, as well as Russian astronaut Yuri Onufrienko. They stayed at the International Space Station 195 days.

The maximum term of alternative civil service will be 3 and a half years. The corresponding amendment to the bill "On Alternative Civil Service" was adopted today by the State Duma of Russia. The lower house of the parliament rejected the proposal of the right factions to reduce the term of the alternative service and allow the draftees to choose where to take it - at a civil or military facility.

Six Chechen fighters were killed over the past day during the operations of Russian troops in Gudermes, Nozha-Yurt and Shalinsky districts of Chechnya. In the Oktyabrsky district of Grozny on Tuesday, a group of military personnel was attacked, one of whom was injured. One of the attackers is killed. In Shali from a grenade launcher, the house of the deputy military commandant of the city was fired. No one was injured.

Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Medessi admitted that in the late 70s he worked in a counterintelligence expert in the field of international finance. The data on this was published the other day by the Conservative newspaper Magyar Nemzet. Medyssy said that he was ready to resign if members of the ruling coalition consider this necessary. Free Democrats, included in the coalition, have already stated that Medjessi was not against the resignation.

The United States decided to significantly increase financial assistance to Uzbekistan. This year it will amount to about two hundred million dollars. According to the American embassy in Tashkent, this is due to the need to ensure security in the Central Asian region after the events of September 11 last year.

The host of the program "Themes" Peter Vail: the man of the day of Radio Liberty June 19 is poet Alexander Eremenko, who became the laureate of the Boris Pasternak Prize. Alexander Eremenko was born in 1950 in Altai, graduated from a school in the city of Zorinsk, worked as a liths in the district newspaper, then a builder and a stoker. He served in the Pacific Fleet, caught fish in Kamchatka. In 1977, he moved to Moscow.

Dmitry execution, St. Petersburg: officially on the causes of the death of Kursk will be announced on June 29 at the last meeting of the Government Commission for the investigation of the causes of the death of the nuclear crossing. This was announced today in St. Petersburg by the head of the commission Ilya Klebanov.

In the Baryshsky district of the Ulyanovsk region, participants in the protest against electricity shutdowns unlocked the Penza-Ulyanovsk highway-after energy supply was restored in the area. Residents of the village of Old Timoshkino blocked the track on Monday. Yesterday, as a result of an accident, one picketer died and another was injured. The debt of the Baryshsky district to power engineers for this year is more than three and a half million rubles.

In the Moscow District Court, on the trial of the murder of the correspondent of the Moscow Komsomolets newspaper Dmitry Kholodov, the debt of the parties ended today. Since yesterday, the defendants performed with the last word. They completely deny their guilt. Dmitry Kholodov died on October 17, 1994 as a result of an explosion of a home -made bomb. Six people are accused of the murder, including the head of the Airborne Forces intelligence, Colonel Pavel Popovsky.

The State Duma of Russia is considering a bill on an alternative civil service today in the second reading. Representatives of the Duma majority said that they had already agreed on their amendments to the government and are ready to vote for the bill. The constitutional law of Russian citizens to alternative civil service has not yet been confirmed by law.

Maryana Torocheshnikova, Moscow: the trade union of police officers of Moscow today has gathered a press conference on the topic: violations of the rights of police officers. From a philistine point of view, the subject of conversation looked somewhat exotic. Indeed, in the understanding of ordinary citizens, the police and the prosecutor’s office are representatives of one camp - law enforcement agencies, and reproaches, it would seem, have nowhere to come from.

Evgeny Bovkun, Bonn: Social Democrats and former communists in the city Senate of Berlin created an unprecedented precedent: funds allocated in the budget for programs to combat right extremism are used for social needs. The smoldering coals of extremism in Germany with amazing constancy give new outbreaks of hatred of foreigners. Sensitive, strangers in blood or religion are the first victims of national prejudices during periods of weakening social ties in society.

In early autumn, the German pharmaceutical corporation Zentaris will release an extremely strong medicine against one of the most severe tropical diseases - Indian visceral leishmaniasis. This parasitic infection, which is also known as Kala-Azar and the Dum-Dumes fever, affects various internal organs and annually takes away at least sixty thousand lives. The new drug Miltefozin, designed to take orally, completely cures 95 percent of patients and does not cause serious side effects.

Yuri Zhigalkin, New York: American experts presented the results of a study that gave rise to assumptions that Russia may have at its disposal extremely strong strains of the Ospes virus, once created in the Soviet Union for use as biological weapons. The consequences of this story can affect American-Russian relations. The newspaper New York Times has already urged the White House to demand clear explanations from Russia regarding secret work on weapons of mass destruction.