“Force diplomacy” yielded nothing Tehran is trying to mitigate the tension that has arisen in the Caspian Sea after an attempt to put forceful pressure on Azerbaijan. This is the general impression from the completed visit to Baku of Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Ahani.

Tomorrow the Russian men's team will play the opening match of the European Basketball Championship. Group D group tournament matches will be held in Antalya, but Stanislav Eremin’s team is far from resort mood. This time there was no hint of the previously encountered financial inconsistencies, but the personnel issue turned out to be very painful. It’s hard to remember something like this - a day before leaving for Turkey, the coaches did not have the required twelve players at their disposal.

The era of the national aviation industry is ending Yesterday morning, a Spanish passenger plane CN-235 made an emergency landing near Malaga airport. Three passengers died at the scene of the disaster - two Spaniards and one Frenchman. The seriously wounded ship commander, 55-year-old Mariano Ruano, died in hospital. The number of wounded reached 27 people.

The Northern Alliance is hampered by the US and the UN “The war in Afghanistan will continue for a long time,” Colonel Jalil, 42, tells me. I met this Afghan Tajik in the middle of the Panjshir Gorge, when the driver of my UAZ stopped to buy gasoline in the nearest Dukan. In the 1980s, Jalil was in Minsk and returned to Panjshir as Soviet troops prepared to leave Afghanistan.

The winning film of the Moscow Film Festival is banned in Volgograd The Volgograd city administration banned the screening of the film “Fanatic” in the Pobeda cinema. The reason for the ban, according to the Carmen film company, which distributed the film in Russia, was the fascist symbols present on advertising posters.

RAO UES of Russia is developing a project to develop the commercial use of data transmission through the energy holding's networks, Viktor Reshetov, general director of the company's Central Dispatch Directorate, said yesterday. According to him, the initiator of the development of the Internet in RAO was Anatoly Chubais, who saw similar things in Poland and Finland.

But there was no agreement in it The meeting of the ruling coalition “Democratic Opposition of Serbia” (DOS) continued for seven hours on Wednesday night in Belgrade, but it did not relieve the intensity of political passions. “I will not lie to the citizens of Serbia that the crisis has been resolved,” Deputy Prime Minister Zarko Korac frankly stated.

Inkombank creditors prepared for the resignation of the manager The conflict that flared up between the committee of creditors of Inkombank and the bankruptcy trustee Vladimir Alekseev is entering a decisive stage. As the Vremya Novostey newspaper learned, on Monday, at an extraordinary meeting of the committee, the findings of the commission to investigate 14 dubious transactions made by Mr. Alekseev during his work at the bank will most likely be approved.

Tbilisi will take revenge on Batumi for its dislike of NATO Russian military personnel stationed in Adjara have created panic among holidaymakers. The holiday was ruined by rumors that the extremely suspicious Ajarian leader Aslan Abashidze had brought in the Russian military to protect him from Tbilisi's machinations. In the Kobuleti region of the autonomy, near its administrative border, soldiers and heavy equipment of the Russian 12th base suddenly appeared.

Primorsky Krai will now be represented in the Federation Council by Colonel General Valery Manilov. His candidacy, at the proposal of the regional governor Sergei Darkin, was approved yesterday by deputies of the Primorye Duma, and his official presentation took place on the same day. Valery Manilov, a native of the city of Tulchin in the Vinnitsa region, turned 62 years old this year. He was awarded the rank of Colonel General in 1995.

The Beit Jala raid gave Arafat pause. “Israel will not allow anyone to shell Jerusalem, which was our capital three thousand years ago,” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told Russian journalists yesterday, commenting on the unprecedented action to capture the Palestinian city of Beit Jala. It was undertaken the day before, and had an unexpected continuation yesterday.

On Thursday, the Russian government will take up extraterrestrial affairs. Although the topic of the speech by Rosaviakosmos Director Yuri Koptev to members of the Cabinet of Ministers sounds quite prosaic - “On the allocation of funds to the agency from the government’s reserve fund” - we are, in fact, talking about a new ambitious space program.

Expenses for Lensk do not change the weather The Cabinet of Ministers will sum up today the results of the execution of the federal budget for the first half of the year. “The government is exceeding its plan,” a senior White House official told the Vremya Novostei newspaper.

A Knight's Tale pleases audiences and angers critics Oh, those costume films from the distant past, in which Shakespeare's heroes sport thieves' tattoos, gladiators use techniques from the arsenal of modern wrestling, and something guitar-dynamic is sure to sound behind the scenes - the genre is slippery and dangerous.

After the first day of the Goodwill Games competition, which takes place in the Australian city of Brisbane, Russia is out of competition. The team has seven medals: three gold, the same number of silver and one bronze. Four medals separate the Russian team from its closest pursuer, the Romanian team. Bulgaria is still in third position, with only one gold medal. Of the three highest awards, two were brought by gymnast Elena Zamolodchikova. She was the best on vault and floor exercise.