US Secretary of State accused the CIA of disinformation Strange things are happening in the US leadership. They can be interpreted in different ways: either as a split, or, conversely, as an attempt to unite efforts and shift the blame for the unsuccessful military operation in Iraq from the political leadership to the intelligence services. Most likely the latest version. On the eve of the autumn presidential elections in America, such an attempt is quite understandable.

Israelis are digging a deep ditch for Palestinians Yesterday, Israel cut off the southern part of the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian village of Rafah is located, from the rest of the strip. Currently, units of the elite Givati ​​brigade are in Gaza, supported by tanks and aircraft. Palestinian homes here continue to be destroyed, prompting outrage from the European Union, which yesterday called for an end to the destruction.

Ukraine allowed Oleg Deripaska not to build a plant The State Property Fund of Ukraine, having shown its teeth to one Russian oligarch, unexpectedly lost to another in a long-term dispute.

Anarchy continues in Sodbiznesbank According to the Bank of Russia, Sodbiznesbank (SBB), deprived of its license on May 13, attracted more than 2.27 billion rubles. private deposits. Analysts doubt the reality of these figures, saying that most of the deposits were created through tax optimization schemes.

Dachas may become more expensive, and underground parking may become cheaper Becoming a full-fledged owner of land will soon become much easier. True, this applies to owners of six hundred square meters and members of condominiums. For these categories of citizens, as Viktor Pleskachevsky, head of the Duma Property Committee, said yesterday at parliamentary hearings on the land issue, a package of amendments to land legislation will significantly simplify the registration of land ownership.

All power plants have been stopped in the Ulyanovsk region The last operating power plant in the Ulyanovsk region will be shut down today. The reason is debts to gas workers. It is expected that the Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant and a number of other enterprises that were supplied with steam from the thermal power plant will be stopped. Thus, for the first time in Russia there will be a region in which there are power plants (there are three of them), but none of them are working.

An evening in memory of Galina Ulanova was held at the Bolshoi Theater Last Sunday, the Galina Ulanova Foundation staged a concert at the Bolshoi Theater dedicated to a special date: 60 years ago the famous Giselle-Marie-Juliet moved from the Mariinsky to the Bolshoi Theater. The foundation is headed by Vladimir Vasiliev, who was also the director of the evening.

In Austria, in the ninety-first year of her life, the actress, dancer and singer Marika Reck, who in the 30s was the personification of German mass culture and, as Mikhail Romm called her in “Ordinary Fascism,” “the main star of Hitler’s cinema,” died of a heart attack. Marika Rekk (real name Ilona Kerr) was born in Cairo.

Italian widow mistaken for ghost of communism The victory in the parliamentary elections of the Indian National Congress (INC(I)), led by 56-year-old Sonia Gandhi, yesterday resulted in serious problems in the financial market. The Bombay Stock Exchange saw trading interrupted twice and the composite index fell 16.5%, the biggest daily drop in the index in the 129-year history of Asia's oldest stock exchange.

Everyday life at the Cannes Film Festival Both old-timers and newcomers feel that this year in Cannes there is an unusual atmosphere. The combination of festivity and anxiety, revelry and danger hangs in the air, they don’t talk about it, but you can feel it. The crowds of onlookers who occupied the Croisette and enthusiastically put on advertising green ears from the cartoon “Shrek 2” are interspersed with characters of a completely different kind - defiant and aggressive.

A district court judge in Tel Aviv yesterday postponed until May 30 the consideration of the petition for the marriage of 35-year-old Yigal Amir, who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995, and 35-year-old Larisa Trimbobler, a native of the USSR, Ph.D. On May 12, a majority of Knesset members voted against a bill banning marriage for convicted murderers.

Oil prices continue to rise The actions of terrorists in the Middle East play into the hands of oil speculators and provide constant support to prices. Yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange there was another jump in prices, as a result they set a new record - $41.85 per barrel of raw materials. The reason was news from Iraq, where power is slipping from the hands of the Americans.

Gref asks Putin to sharply increase funding for Chechnya Acting Minister of Economic Development German Gref, reporting to the President yesterday on the results of his Saturday trip to Grozny, proposed several times increasing funding for the federal program for the restoration of Chechnya starting next year. Argue with the acting Vladimir Putin did not become a minister, but the proposal apparently did not cause him much enthusiasm.

Employees of the State Duma apparatus who were laid off are ready to sue During this working week, the leadership of the State Duma apparatus plans to complete a plan for reforming the work of the technical staff of the chamber. The plan includes a large reduction in the staff of the Duma apparatus - 335 people out of 1800. For the duration of the reform, all employees have been removed from the staff.

Famous Ukrainian heavyweight boxers Vitaly and Vladimir Klitschko arrived in Moscow. The purpose of the visit, according to the brothers, is to see friends, communicate with journalists and Russian sports fans who sincerely worry about Klitschko’s success. At yesterday's meeting with media representatives, Vitaly happily showed off the World Boxing Council (WBC) championship belt, but Vladimir, a former world champion according to another, less prestigious WBO organization, was not so cheerful.