Video hosting YouTube plans to start selling subscriptions to some of the channels registered on the resource. Thus, the Google-owned portal will turn into a competitor to cable television and streaming services like Netflix, the Financial Times reports . According to the publication's sources, the YouTube administration has invited several content producers to consider proposals to introduce fees for using their channels.

American non-profit organizations National Democratic Institute and International Republic Institute took the Russians and their families who worked for them abroad, fearing their political persecution in Russia, Kommersant reports . NDI and IRI closed their branches in Russia at the end of 2012. Then the head of IRI, Senator John McCain, explained this decision by the tightening of Russian legislation on NPOs in response to the Magnitsky Act.

Russia has terminated the intergovernmental Agreement with the United States on cooperation in law enforcement and drug control. The corresponding order was signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs initiated the termination of the agreement. An intergovernmental agreement was signed in 2002.

Rosneft President Igor Sechin and Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller addressed Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev with a letter asking the government to maintain the monopoly of state-owned companies on the shelf. Leaders of state monopolies also call for private companies not to be allowed to conduct multi-client pre-licensing seismic work.

The governor of the Kirov region, Nikita Belykh, after interrogation, remained in the status of a witness in the case of fraud with shares of the Urzhum distillery. “The status of a witness has been preserved,” RIA Novosti cites Belykh’s statement to reporters on Wednesday. According to the Kirov governor, the investigators did not ask any unexpected questions. In his opinion, this was a traditional procedure.

Two Rosavtodor employees were fired for the gigantic traffic jam that formed as a result of snowfall on the M-10 Rossiya highway in November-December 2012.

Russia refuses to comply with the Geneva agreements to resolve the conflict in Syria. This statement was made by outgoing US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton on American National Public Radio . “Last summer in Geneva, I worked out agreements during intensive negotiations with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. I thought it was quite obvious what our next steps should be. And from my point of view, it's clear that the Russians didn't want to move forward," Clinton said.

A criminal case has been closed regarding the misuse of 2 billion rubles, which were allocated from the budget by order of Vladimir Putin for the transportation of passengers of the bankrupt airline alliance AiRUnion, but ended up in the accounts of Gazprombank, VTB, Bank of Moscow and “subsidiaries” of Vnukovo Airport.

Canadian smartphone company Research in Motion (RIM) announced Wednesday it is changing its name to be known as its flagship product, BlackBerry. Also presented at the presentation in New York was a line of new BlackBerry smartphones running the BlackBerry 10 operating system, reports . Reuters According to RIM CEO Thorsten Heyns, changing the name to BlackBerry will make the brand easier to perceive. It should be noted that the company has been called RIM since 1985.

photo by Artem Holoshchapov for Forbes The founder of the Russian online store designer Ecwid, which managed to defeat its American counterpart, talks about the hidden possibilities of e-commerce Ecwid, a simple “designer” that allows anyone to create their own online store based on a Facebook page, a blog, or just any page on the Internet, overtook in December 2012, and a few days ago absorbed its main competitor, the American Payvment.

photo ITAR-TASS The fall in oil prices will inevitably raise the question of Russia's transformation from an empire into a Russian national state In the article “How to cure Russians of xenophobia,” Sergei Guriev touched on a number of problems relating to interethnic relations in modern Russia. We can only thank the author for this publication. There has been a long-standing need for an open and honest discussion about this sensitive issue.

As a result of an explosion at the Krasnoarmeysky Research Institute of Mechanization in the Moscow region, one person died. This is stated in a message published on the website of the Main Investigative Committee of the RF Investigative Committee for the Moscow Region. The investigation authorities received a report of an explosion at the research institute at about 4 p.m.

The road to the elite recreation center “Zhitnoye”, owned by the son-in-law of ex-Minister of Defense Anatoly Serdyukov, was partially destroyed. This was reported by the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper , whose correspondents visited the boarding house. Investigators believe that the road was illegally built at government expense. Local residents believe that by destroying the road, military officials may want to “cover their tracks” of a corruption crime.

The Ukrainian budget does not have the necessary funds to comply with the court decision and pay Russia $390 million in debt to the Unified Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) corporation by the end of the year. This was stated on Wednesday by the head of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, Alexander Lavrynovych. According to him, today the full amount in the state budget of Ukraine is not enough to pay for this decision.

A Catholic priest from Colombia was detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport with 13 containers of cocaine in his stomach and five more in his luggage. A man dressed as a clergyman aroused suspicion among drug control officers with his sickly appearance and nervous behavior. He was detained and taken to the hospital. Thirteen containers of cocaine were found in the Colombian's gastrointestinal tract. and five more in luggage.