#13
NTV news summary
The following is a transcript of the main news broadcast at 1900 on the Segodnya Program.
The Presenter is Tatyana Mitkova

News of a tragedy in the Komy republic first. We have got the details on it today. There has been a fire blazing at Vorkutinskaya mine for more than 24 hours now due to a methane explosion the previous day. The exact number of injured and dead is not reported yet. Now the first coverage from the site of the tragedy that we have just received

----------------

An unprecedented court trial was to start today. Senior militia officials are being charged with gross negligence causing the death of Russian service men. The court hearing has been postponed because one of the accused, a major by rank, has failed to appear in court. The tragedy happened 2 years ago when 22 men of the Militia Special Forces contingency from the town of Sergiyev Posad were killed in the Staropromyslovsky district of Grozny. According to the evidence obtained by the investigators it appears they were mistakenly attacked and shot by friendly fire from their own troops.

----------------

We have just got some news marked "urgent." In his letter to the Press and Information Ministry TV6 executive director Paul Korchagin has announced he no longer requires a license to broadcast on TV6 even though the license hasn't yet expired. The Press and Information Ministry lawyers are working into the process of closing down TV6. It has been announced today that the Moscow Independent TV Company's license that TV6 now has will be annulled immediately after the Liquidation committee is formed. That's quite a precedent for Russia. Moscow has responded to a series of statements made by official Washington on the situation around the TV 6 channel. Earlier the American Administration spokesmen described the decision to close down TV6 as a Kremlin attack on the freedom of speech. The Russia Foreign Ministry declared that by making such statements the State Department "manifests its double standards in tackling the problems of mass media freedom in Russia". According to Interfax, the Foreign Ministry regards this as "an actual call to influence the court authority which is against the law." The Foreign Ministry points out that "the TV6 case is an exclusively juridical matter."

-----------------

Four State Duma deputies - Victor Pokhmelkin, Sergey Yushenkov, Vladimir Golovlyov and Yuly Ryubakov - have announced today they are leaving "The Union of the Rightist Forces" without any official explanations given. But in his interview to Interfax Sergey Yushenkov pointed out his colleagues and he considered it impossible to keep membership in the faction that " supported the policy of introducing a police regime conducted by the country leadership." Deputies Yushenkov and Pokhmelkin are already participating in the work of "Liberal Russia", a new political movement that is being built up by Boris Berezovsky.

--------------------

The results of the presidential election in Adygeya are a political sensation. Aslan Dzharimov, who has headed the republic for the last 13 years, has quite unexpectedly lost the election campaign. Dzharimov, aged 62, headed the Adygeya regional party committee in the Soviet era, supported the pro-Gorbachov "center" and dropped out of the party in perestroika years. He later vowed his strong support for reforms and made the combining of two posts (that of President and Head of State) possible. The man has a reputation of being a dictator. Dzharimov will be succeeded in his post by Khazreth Sovmen, a gold- mining co-operative owner.

--------------------

Yakutia has elected a new leader from the diamond-mining industry. The Alrosa company head Vyacheslav Shtyrov beat his main rival in the second round of the presidential election campaign. The latter reportedly is not going to give in, though.

-------------------

Today we have got some promising news from the Krasnodar region, where local authorities are fighting against the most powerful flood. Having burst its banks earlier the height of the Kuban River is gradually receding after several days of demolition works to clear the ice jams away. Thousands of local residents won't be able to return to their normal way of life for quite a time yet, though.

---------------------

A passenger plane TU-204 belonging to "The Siberia" aerocompany has made an emergency landing in Omsk with 143 people on board. It had been carried almost half a kilometer away from the runway by cross winds. The liner was heading for Novosibirsk from Frankfurt. Due to bad weather the crew had to ask for an unplanned landing in Omsk. During the descent the pilots realized that heavy cross wind could make the liner miss the runway, but the crew still didn't risk the second try to land because they were running out of fuel. According to the specialists, the plane put out chassis too late on the runway so there was actually no time for proper braking. As a result the liner got stuck deep in the snowdrifts and is still to be extracted from there. All the passengers have already taken another flight to Novosibirsk.

-------------------------

The European Council Parliamentary Assembly officials are on another visit in Chechnya. They expressed their worries over the fate of the Chechen refugees due to severe winter conditions and over the human rights situation in the region.

---------------------------

There's a new sensation in the sports world. For the first time in history a 4-year old boy has scored an impressive victory in the national US chess championship. Erick Leao played his first game of chess when he was 3. It was his mother who taught the boy how to play chess. His patience is quite impressive. Unlike other children his age the boy can sit at chess table for several hours. The youngest US champion is sharing his professional plans for the future with the public. According to Erick, next year when he is 5 he is sure to beat his coach at chess. Meanwhile the wonder-boy is predicted the fate of Bobby Fisher who won his first championship at the age of 10.

-----------------------

President Bush's habit of taking his meals while sitting in front of a TV set has led to unpleasant aftermaths, world press agencies report. The American President was reportedly sitting comfortably on a sofa eating salted pretzels and watching a football match. Suddenly everything went black before his eyes. The next thing the President saw when he regained consciousness was the carpet covering the floor in his living room. It turned out that a piece of pretzel nearly choked him. According to Mr. Bush, he didn't even realize what had happened until he saw his reflection in the mirror. The incident resulted in several scratches and a small bruise. Mr. Bush is said to have made a promise to himself from now on to follow his mother's advice and to chew food properly.