The worldwide leader in software development Microsoft plans to open its new electronic information center on Central Asia, former Soviet republics and the Middle East region in Baku, Minister of Communications and Information Technologies Ali Abbasov says.

"The center will play the role of the company's global representation in the region. It will include Microsoft's research and exploration center," he said.

The project will be implemented in the next two to three years and will allow Azerbaijan to receive tremendous revenues from e-commerce in the future.

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Azerbaijan plans to improve the education system up to 2012. The President of the republic signed a decree to take measures to integrate the higher schools of Azerbaijan to the European education system.

"Our initiatives concerning the education and the introduction of information and communication technology are planned for the future. We should look 10,20 and 50 years into the future and see how Azerbaijan will exist after 50 years and what the intellectual level of the country will be like," President Ilham Aliyev said in Baku.

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Rescuers have located the Azerbaijani fighter jet which crashed into the Caspian Sea on 29 January killing the two on board, Turan news agency reported.

The MiG-29 jet was found under the sea some 100 metres of the Caspian shore in the northeastern Xizi District on 3 February, Turan said, citing unnamed military sources.

However, the fate of the pilots is not known yet, the report said.

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