Americans offer $100 million for Mir space station

The InfoTelesis Inc., based in California, asks the Russian government to sell the Mir space station for 100 million dollars to convert it into a link in a new satellite communication system. The company's Internet site says that InfoTelesis Inc. promises a new global space-based telecommunications system and new-millennium Internet which is 2,000 times more efficient. Authors of this project say that the Russian government has delayed destruction of the Mir orbiter slated for March 6 specially at the InfoTelesis Inc. request. Its public relations spokesman John Kim, whom the RIA Novosti correspondent asked for explanations, reported that negotiations with Russia have been under way for almost six months now. The required sum, which the company does not have, is suggested to be raised by selling the company's shares at an Internet auction. The Internet site cites a letter from Russia's State Duma chairman Gennadi Seleznev to Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, in which he asks for allocating 70 million dollars to the American firm. As follows from the Internet-published letter, the choice was made by InfoTelesis boss Jansen, who is sure Norway can give such help. At the Gennadi Seleznev staff the RIA Novosti correspondent was told that the Duma chairman had indeed written to the Norwegian premier a letter on bankrolling the American company on Mir, RIA Novosti reports. Meanwhile, Mir is still expected to be scuttled in the ocean at between 03:00 and 10:00, Moscow time, on March 22, reports the Russian Mission Control Center.