Fano direct products as rationally connected fibrations

Combining the connectedness principle of Shokurov and Kollár, we develop a new technique of studying birational maps of natural Fano fiber spaces. We prove that the only structures of a rationally connected fibration on direct products of typical Fano varieties are projections onto the factors. In particular, the groups of biregular and birational self-maps of Fano direct products coincide.