The American President apologized for the sadism of his soldiers Washington is forced to apologize for the actions of its soldiers in Iraq. Yesterday, US President George W. Bush himself carried out an unprecedented PR campaign. In order not to lose the votes of American Muslims in the upcoming presidential election in the fall, outraged by the brutal treatment of Iraqi prisoners by the American military, he gave two ten-minute interviews to the Arab television channels Al-Hurra and Al-Arabiya.

The Greek intelligence services were shown their inconsistency Yesterday morning, exactly 100 days before the start of the Summer Olympics in Athens, in the Greek capital, in the Kallithea area, where the hotels for the Games participants are located, three small bombs exploded next to the police station. This exemplary terrorist attack was carried out, so to speak, in a mocking manner.

Watch from May 6 in Moscow cinemas "Van Helsing" (USA, 2004, Stephen Sommers). The most ambitious Hollywood project of recent times (the budget, according to some sources, has exceeded 200 million) pits several legendary movie monsters in one arena - Count Dracula, the creation of Frankenstein and the Wolf Man (simply a werewolf).

Russian shareholders want to speed up the deal with BP The Russian shareholders of TNK-BP, or more precisely, large entrepreneurs Viktor Vekselberg, Mikhail Fridman and their American partner Leonard Blavatnik, seem to be catastrophically short of funds.

On May 12, the ultimatum put forward by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to the leader of Adjara Aslan Abashidze expires. The head of the autonomy must disarm his supporters and return to the constitutional field of Georgia. But Batumi is in no hurry to fulfill these demands.

Cheap cigarettes may disappear As part of the government tax package, immediately after the May holidays, the State Duma intends to increase excise taxes on all excisable goods, including vodka, gasoline and tobacco. The annual and generally ordinary procedure for indexing excise taxes, carried out by the government for many years in a row, this time became the arena of a clash between tobacco lobbyists.

Yesterday marked the 1060th day of Silvio Berlusconi's work at the head of the center-right cabinet in Italy. Thus, the prime minister broke the record for being in power set by the socialist government of Bettino Craxi 18 years ago. In total, after the Second World War, the country changed 59 prime ministers.

Alexander Zhukov was appointed chief controller of expenditures of ministries and departments Yesterday, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov formed a government commission to improve the effectiveness of budget expenditures. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov was appointed its chairman. From now on, he will ensure that budget money is spent by ministries and departments as efficiently as possible.

In the Russian Championship among men's teams, three of the four participants in the semi-final series have been determined - Kazan UNICS, Ural Great (Perm) and the capital's Dynamo. In another pair of the first round of the playoffs, the winner will most likely be known today or, at the very least, tomorrow. It is unlikely that Lokomotiv from Rostov-on-Don, which previously lost twice to CSKA away, will be able to resist the army team at home.

Grozny "Terek" wants to play in the UEFA Cup While the country is sluggishly resting for the May holidays, life is in full swing in Russian football. Some hire coaches, some negotiate record-breaking transfers, and some dream of winning the Russian Cup in the intervals between tours. There are four contenders for the trophy, which gives the right to compete in the UEFA Cup.

The Lithuanian Seimas finishes off the former president Last night, the Lithuanian Seimas voted that a president who violates the oath and constitution will henceforth be deprived of the right to run for office and be elected to this office for five years. These amendments to the election law finally knocked 47-year-old Rolandas Paksas out of the saddle, depriving him of the opportunity to participate in the early presidential elections on June 13.

Life like in Europe means, first of all, high prices Latvia greeted its entry into the European Union on May 1 with the largest-scale demonstration in defense of the Russian-speaking population. Riga that day was divided into two parts. On the right bank of the capital, in the historical part of the city, festivities took place on the occasion of EU enlargement. On the left bank, at the monument to the liberators of Riga from the fascist invaders, a protest took place.

Before you get behind the wheel of a moped, you will have to pass an exam The capital's authorities will force moped owners to obtain licenses and pass exams on their knowledge of traffic rules. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov signed a corresponding order yesterday.

Israeli Prime Minister discusses future coalition with Peres Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stubbornly continues to defend his plan for a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and subsequent separation from the Palestinian Authority. And this despite the fact that on May 2, Sharon’s Likud party failed the plan. This coming Sunday, the prime minister intends to submit his controversial program for discussion by the government.

Windows users require a patch A new Internet worm, discovered on April 30 and dubbed Sasser, is rapidly infecting computers connected to the World Wide Web. The worm is especially dangerous because it spreads not through email channels, but directly from computer to computer, using a vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows operating system. That is, in order to become infected with the virus, the user does not need to do anything.