Three questions about iPad It is believed that computer buyers primarily look at operating speed, memory capacity and other technical characteristics - megahertz, megabytes, megapixels... However, in January I watched Steve Jobs talk about the iPad, the new tablet computer from Apple, and I thought that the easiest way understand whether a new gadget is useful if you don’t focus on its characteristics, but ask just three questions. Here they are.

How women build long-term relationships with clients In the office of Nadezhda Filippova, deputy general director of the Svyazinvest company, there are paintings by the Buryat artist Zorikto Dordzhiev. Hobbies, according to Filippova, are very helpful in establishing friendly relations with business partners. One day, for example, her client was distracted from negotiations and began to talk about his favorite artist Pavel Bludnov.

The Soviet model of education is poorly adapted to the post-industrial world The creation of a modern education model is one of the priorities for Russia’s development today and in the foreseeable future. The task is not limited to finding additional financial resources to maintain the existing system. We are talking about developing a new model of education, about the formation of its new institutional conditions.

Marina Melia, general director of the consulting company MM-Class, about office romances. The gender component of business communications in the office is a natural aspect of working relationships in a mixed team. Light flirting, office romance or marital relationships can be both beneficial and detrimental to the main purpose for which people gather in the office. This depends on the nature of the relationship in the couple and the personal maturity of the leader.

Alumni clubs from prestigious universities are a popular networking model. Marina Zinovieva, head of a law firm, heads one of them. Marina Zinovieva, a Muskie graduate, received her law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School. Worked in leading law firms in Chicago and Milan. After returning to Russia, Zinovieva worked in the Moscow office of the law firm White & Case and defended her Ph.D. thesis. And in 2000 she created the legal company LegaLife. "Hello? Are you “Maski”?

Alexey Navalny on how to bring to justice officials who were bribed by Daimler On Friday, Daimler admitted to paying bribes to officials in 22 countries, including Russia, and agreed to pay a $185 million fine to the US Department of Justice. According to this agency, the automaker paid a total of $56 million to receive large government orders for the supply of cars.

Rosneft denied information that it had received an offer to acquire shares of Venezuelan PDVSA in German refineries. The company, however, confirmed that it is in negotiations with the Venezuelan company on a number of issues. Industry sources told Reuters that Rosneft wants to buy from PDVSA a 50% stake in Ruhr Oil, a joint venture between the Venezuelan group and BP, which owns stakes in four refineries in Germany. The deal could be the Russian oil giant's first major foreign acquisition.

The Russian mortgage market in 2009 shrank 4.3 times compared to 2008, said Natalya Karaseva, director of retail lending at Sberbank. At the same time, the portfolio of the largest Russian bank showed an increase of 1%, and its share in the total number of mortgage loans issued in the country amounted to 77%. “In 2009, out of 130 thousand mortgage loans, 100 thousand were issued by Sberbank. VTB issued 10 thousand mortgage loans.

new customer service model Sberbank’s involves a gradual abandonment of the use of savings books, but this transition will be soft, and the savings book will continue to be issued to clients who have expressed a desire to receive it, RIA Novosti reports, citing a representative of the largest Russian bank. The number of clients of the credit institution today exceeds 70 million people.

The Russian division of the German auto giant Daimler AG, CJSC Mercedes Benz RUS, following the parent company , admitted the bribery charges brought by the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Markets Commission (SEC) against the concern, RIA Novosti cites data from a press release automaker. Daimler AG, we recall, will pay $185 million to the American government, including $93.6 million as a fine and $91.4 million as the return of illegally obtained profits.

MINSK (Reuters) - Belarus has invited the French company Areva, the world's largest manufacturer of nuclear reactors, to participate in the construction of the country's first nuclear power plant, for which the Russian company Atomstroyexport has been chosen as the main contractor. First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Vladimir Semashko said this at a meeting with Secretary of State of the French Foreign Ministry Pierre Lelouch.

Why does the vice president of Renaissance Capital Bank need 100 jackets and 1,200 pairs of shoulder straps? “Here’s another interesting thing,” Sergei Korolev picks up a cap with a beige top. It once belonged to General Varennikov. In the Soviet army, Varennikov was responsible for helping third world countries, and the so-called tropical uniform was sewn especially for him. Korolev has many such rarities. There are, for example, cuffs made for the jacket of Marshal Zhukov.

We should start with the laws - they are the causative agent and breeding ground for corruption The main law that determines the life of a Russian entrepreneur is, unfortunately, the Criminal Code. Its vague formulations make it possible to deprive a person of property, rights and freedom. Three years ago I became convinced of this from my own experience. And my experience shows that it is quite possible to fight systemic corruption.

Culinary prose is gaining momentum. Anahit Piruzyan talks about one of the best books in the genre where recipes are illustrations of life stories. In the last column, I wrote about my very first cookbook, the one with which my collection began. And now I want to talk about the last one. Of course, there is some violation of the logic of events in this, since there was a lot of important and interesting things between these two books. But I really liked my recent purchase.

Forbes Annual Banking Review Forbes presents an annual guide to Russian banks. The top one hundred banks by asset size are divided into reliability groups based on the assessments of rating agencies - from the highest (this year it is the BBB level) to the lowest (CCC). If several estimates were available, the more conservative one was selected. Banks that do not have a rating and subsidiaries of foreign banks are presented separately.