The accused in the “Sychev case” made his final speech The Chelyabinsk Garrison Military Court yesterday scheduled the announcement of the verdict in the scandalous criminal case of the crippled soldier Andrei Sychev for September 26. The court announced this date after the arguments between the parties ended at the last meeting.

Americans criticize the court at the Olympic Stadium On Friday, the semi-finals of the Davis Cup, where the national teams of Russia and the USA will meet, start at the capital's Olimpiyskiy sports complex. Yesterday the first press conference took place with the participation of tennis players from both teams.

Yemen's President Faces Serious Rival This Wednesday has been declared a gun-free day in Yemen. In honor of today's direct presidential elections and the local elections being held simultaneously with them, citizens are prohibited from appearing with weapons on the streets, much less at polling stations.

There are about five thousand Russians in Thailand Yesterday, a military coup took place in one of the most popular countries in Southeast Asia among our tourists - Thailand. The army took power, and the government of Thaksin Shinawatra, who was at the UN General Assembly session in New York during these events, was overthrown. At night, rebels captured Bangkok, blockading government offices and national television.

Bush and Ahmadinejad share a lunch break Yesterday, US President George W. Bush and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke from the rostrum of the 61st session of the UN General Assembly that opened in New York. But this happened at meetings separated by a lunch break. There was no personal meeting between the presidents. They did not get closer in politics either.

Andrey VOROBYEV, director of the Hematological Research Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. - Why are we still forced to send oncohematological patients for operations abroad - due to the lack of a donor bank or lack of places in clinics? - We have excellent conditions for bone marrow transplantation; such conditions are not available everywhere abroad.

Anatoly Chubais could not persuade Alexey Miller to allocate additional volumes of gas to power plants The head of RAO UES of Russia, Anatoly Chubais, arrived at Gazprom yesterday to solve with Alexey Miller the problems of gas supply to Russian power plants in the winter. The main one is the increase in electricity consumption, which over the 8 months of this year has already amounted to a national average of 4.6% compared to the same period last year, requiring additional volumes of gas.

The future prime minister will rewrite history and strengthen the army Today, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan will elect its new leader, who will replace Junichiro Koizumi not only in this post, but also as the country's prime minister. No one now doubts that the 21st post-war head of government will be the current Secretary-General of the Cabinet of Ministers, 52-year-old Shinzo Abe (pictured) .

Russia sends positive air signals to France and Germany The “cross” participation of Russia and the European Union in the capital of aircraft manufacturing holdings - the newly created United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) and EADS - promises to become one of the most pressing issues at the meeting of Vladimir Putin with the heads of France and Germany, scheduled for September 22-23 in Paris.

The budget does not keep pace with the achievements of oncohematologists Even major breakthroughs in medicine in Russia can result in new problems. Having given patients hope for healing, officials sometimes make economic miscalculations that can cast doubt on the results of many years of work by doctors. This was once again proven by the International Forum on the Treatment of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia, which took place at the end of last week in St. Petersburg.

American comedians will be delighted Yesterday in Astana it was officially announced about the upcoming visit of the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev to the United States on September 26-29. The very fact of this visit, without exaggeration, can be considered a serious victory for Kazakh diplomacy. It was not easy to obtain Washington's consent to receive Nazarbayev by President Bush; only the other day the American administration confirmed the invitation to the Kazakh leader.

The unification match for the world title starts in Elista In the chess world, the protracted dual power is coming to an end. Today in Elista the opening ceremony of the unification match for the world championship between Bulgarian Veselin Topalov and Russian Vladimir Kramnik will take place. The confrontation will last until October 12.

Alexey MASCHAN, head of the oncohematology department of the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital. -- How urgent is the problem of treating blood cancer in children? -- For children, speaking purely arithmetically, this problem is not very acute: according to our data, in Russia there are only 150-200 sick children and every year another 30-40 fall ill.

Chronicle of sporting events There are two WTA tournaments taking place in Asia this week, bringing together many of the world's top female tennis players. Former individual classification leader Martina Hingis, who returned to the sport in January this year after a three-year break, came to India for the first time. The prize fund of the competition in Calcutta is $175 thousand.

Theater Ad Spectatores at “New Drama 2006” An independent theater from Wroclaw came to the festival with Russian plays: Alexander Vartanov’s verbatim “Big Zhrachka” (the Moscow premiere took place three and a half years ago at Teatr.doc) and Ivan Vyrypaev’s miniature “Dreams” (written in 1999 in Irkutsk, about the productions I don’t know anything).