Russian President Dmitry Medvedev invited Europe to reform the collective security system and conduct a special OSCE summit on this topic next year. The OSCE put this bold idea to the vote and failed her dry-55 voices out of 56.

The whole country should have shed tears when Dasha Varfolomeeva from the Buryat village of Tugnui asked “Uncle Volodya” Putin to “be a good wizard for the New Year” and give her and her sister, who were living on their grandmother’s pension, new dresses. The good prime minister responded by inviting Dasha, her sister and grandmother to Moscow for the New Year. Buryat officials, of course, hastened to promise that they would pay for the flight for both girls and their entire family.

The international reserves of the Bank of Russia - not only the symbol, but also the main source of the relative stability of the ruble - continue to compress. Having reached the maximum ($ 598.1 billion) on August 8, on the day of Georgian attack on South Ossetia, by the beginning of September they fell by $ 15.9 billion, in September 25.4, for October 72.2, for November 28.9, in the first five days of December $ 18.7 billion.

The other day we learned the biggest military secret of our state. Namely, where, according to the authorities, the main threat comes from, and who the potential military enemy is. It must be said that this is exactly the information that various analysts sought from the Ministry of Defense after the impending large-scale reduction of the Armed Forces was announced. The Ministry of Defense remained silent, like Malchish-Kibalchish during interrogation, and did not reveal military secrets.

Iraqi TV correspondent in Egypt Muntadar al-Zaidi did a great “favor” to the entire adequate journalistic corps by throwing a size 10 shoe at President Bush during his joint Baghdad press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki. Actually, there would be nothing particularly reprehensible in this story if the shoe thrower was not a journalist, but one of the representatives of the extreme right or extreme left wing of some political party.

Members of the Duma faction “United Russia” presented an open letter on December 16, criticizing the policy of the Ministry of Finance in the crisis. According to the authors of the letter, the funds of the Stabilization Fund should be distributed to “ordinary buyers,” that is, “people in stores, car dealerships, and real estate offices,” who “will distribute them perfectly themselves,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta cites fragments of the letter.