It will be easier for Russians to get to Israel Citizens living in the territory of the former USSR, including Russia, will be able to travel to Israel under simpler visa rules than before. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has already made a decision on this, but, as Vremya Novostei learned, it will take two more days for the orders to reach the Israeli consulates in Russia and the CIS countries. Immediately after this, the new rules will come into force.

Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrived on a three-day visit to China. Today the guest will meet with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Trade Minister Bo Xilai, and a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao is planned for tomorrow. The main topics of the negotiations are the Middle East settlement and the Iranian nuclear program. Olmert wants to persuade Beijing, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, to support the expansion of international sanctions against Tehran.

The Hamburg Supreme Court sentenced 32-year-old Moroccan Mounir al-Motassadeq to the highest penalty in Germany - 15 years in prison. The former student (his wife, by the way, is Russian from St. Petersburg) was found guilty of complicity in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, the preparation of which he knew but did not report.

Why is the US President shuffling his team? Today at nine o'clock in the evening Washington time (in Moscow it will already be five o'clock on Thursday morning) US President George W. Bush will announce a change in policy in Iraq in a televised address to his compatriots. Most likely, he will promise to send another 20 thousand soldiers to the country in addition to the more than 140 thousand already there.

Reserve captain sentenced in Azerbaijan Former officer of the National Army of Azerbaijan Pyotr Vladimirovich Modzhalov , accused of collaborating with Russian intelligence, was sentenced yesterday “for treason to the Motherland” to 12 years in prison. The trial was held behind closed doors, and journalists were not allowed into the courtroom. The country's Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Homeland Security vetoed the dissemination of information about this case.

Europe has plenty of oil, but is outraged by the supply cutoff Yesterday in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso had difficulty finding words to express their attitude towards stopping oil supplies from Russia. The German government and European Commissioners met to discuss plans for the German EU presidency, which began on January 1.

The execution of Saddam Hussein did not reduce the level of violence in Iraq: casualties among US troops after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 exceeded the landmark mark of three thousand, and the Sunni armed underground declared that it would not allow the “heroic death” of the former Iraqi president to go unavenged. Yesterday there was fierce fighting in the center of Baghdad, and Iraqi authorities announced that about fifty rebels had been killed. No US casualties were reported.

The US has reintroduced sanctions against Russian arms exporters The US administration, a few days after the new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was sworn in , dealt an economic blow to 24 “targets”. The State Department, which regulates the use of economic “weapons,” decided to impose sanctions against 24 legal entities and individuals from ten countries (China, Iran, Iraq, Mexico, Malaysia, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea, Sudan and Russia).

From yesterday, anyone in the UK can receive regular information on the level of the terrorist threat by email directly from the British security service MI5. To regularly use this type of service, you must register on the MI5 website www.mi5.gov.uk. Subscription is free. A Vremya Novostei correspondent looked at the counterintelligence website.

The Ukrainian parliament has banned the sale of farmland Yesterday, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine overcame President Viktor Yushchenko's veto on a moratorium on the sale of agricultural land until 2008. There were 367 votes to override the veto, with 300 required. The price of the issue is $60 billion (300 billion hryvnia); experts estimate this amount to be 33 million hectares of arable land in the Ukrainian land fund.

Today the name of the new Prime Minister of Kazakhstan will be known. He will be named during a joint meeting of both houses of parliament, at which President Nursultan Nazarbayev will propose his candidacy for the post of prime minister. Since the Kazakh parliament is completely under the control of the president, there is little doubt that Mr. Nazarbayev's chosen candidate will become the seventh head of government in post-Soviet Kazakhstan.

Against "Sharia courts" in Somalia The United States, which is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, has also begun military operations in Somalia, which is torn apart by civil conflict. Yesterday, Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, supported by the West, approved the actions of the United States, which carried out an airstrike the day before against his opponents - Islamists from the Union of Sharia Courts.