20 thousand US troops will stay in Iraq for at least another three months, said Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld. We are talking about military personnel who have already spent a year in Iraq and were scheduled to return home this month. Coalition forces are now facing the most serious insurgent resistance in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Therefore, according to the command, the withdrawal of even a small part of the troops from Iraq is now impossible.

Conflicts between builders of red-brick houses and owners of private wooden houses are not uncommon in our city. And today, residents of Maly Lane spoke out against yet another developer. Three meters from Marina Shalakina’s house, a high-rise building is being built. Efficient builders tore down the fence and dug up the yard. They probably forgot about the timely resettlement of the inhabitants of the old wooden houses. The house next door has the same problem.

Every fourth Tomsk resident lives below the poverty line. The salaries of teachers, doctors and artists barely exceed the subsistence level. The income gap between rich and poor reaches 16 times. These sad statistics were announced today at the plenum of Tomsk trade unions. May Day is coming soon and the leaders of trade union committees are preparing for the Spring and Labor Day.

The problems and achievements of Tomsk geneticists were discussed today at the Research Institute of Medical Genetics. The speaker of the regional Duma visited there. Before talking about chromosome mutation, the speaker presented the chief Tomsk geneticist with one of the volumes of his collected works. After jokes and friendly handshakes, it’s time to get serious. Boris Maltsev asks questions, Valery Puzyrev reports.

The attempt of the city administration to revive municipal motor transport ended in failure at the first stage. The competition among entrepreneurs, which was recently announced, was declared invalid - only one company was interested in the prospect of transporting Tomsk residents under the control of officials. Without a private investor, municipal transport will die completely. City officials and deputies have no doubt about this for a long time.