The Russian diamond monopolist ALROSA may sign a memorandum of cooperation with the famous auction house Sotheby's in April-May, which will allow it to sell premium diamonds produced by its subsidiary Diamonds ALROSA. reported this on Thursday Kommersant , citing a source familiar with the progress of the negotiations. “We are talking about an additional platform for the sale of large and unique diamonds, the cutting of which is carried out by the ALROSA branch.

Canadian business smartphone maker BlackBerry (formerly Research In Motion, RIM) received a record order for 1 million new BlackBerry 10 devices introduced at the end of January, Bloomberg reported on Thursday . “The 1 million device order is a significant vote of confidence in BlackBerry 10,” said BlackBerry executive vice president of global sales Rick Costanzo. “With the active support of partners, together with a reinvented platform, we will have an effective recipe for success,” he noted.

A bottle of Coca-Cola produced in Georgia and found at the residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin was sent for examination to the head of Rospotrebnadzor Gennady Onishchenko, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday. “We sent this bottle to Onishchenko just in case,” Interfax quotes Peskov’s statement. At the same time, the president's press secretary explained to journalists that there is no prejudice against Georgian products in Russia.

The leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs proposed to give employees of private security companies the right to inspect and detain violators of public order, as well as criminals. This was stated on Thursday by First Deputy Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Alexander Gorovoy at a meeting of the Coordination Council under the department for interaction with private security companies and private detectives.

The cause of the methane explosion at the Vorkutinskaya mine in Komi on February 11, which killed 19 people, was violations committed by the mine personnel, RIA Novosti reported on Thursday, citing a report from Rostechnadzor.

Igor Popov Forbes Editorial Board Rating of passenger cars over $100,000 Last year, car manufacturers and sellers earned $71 billion in Russia, 21% more than in 2011. In quantitative terms, however, the growth is not so significant - only 10%. The Autostat agency notes that the automobile market as a whole has returned to the pre-crisis level of 2008, but sales of cars of premium brands have already doubled this level.

Russians Konstantin Baglay and Alexander Karachinsky, arrested together with businessman Sergei Polonsky in Cambodia on December 31 last year, were temporarily released on bail, RIA Novosti reported on Thursday, citing one of the Russians’ lawyers. “Two of Polonsky’s comrades, Baglay and Karachinsky, were temporarily released by a Sihanoukville court decision on bail. Sergei Polonsky remains in the Sihanoukville prison; he has not yet been released,” the lawyer said.

Elvira Nabiullina, whose candidacy was proposed by President Vladimir Putin for the post of head of the Central Bank, will serve as assistant to the head of state on economic issues over the next two-plus months. Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov told reporters about this on Thursday. “For now, Elvira Nabiullina is the economic assistant, and she will continue to work for more than two months,” Interfax quotes Peskov .

Russian President Vladimir Putin supported the idea of ​​​​creating a textbook on Russian military history for high schools. Members of the All-Russian public organization “Russian Military Historical Society” approached him with a proposal to create a military history textbook. “This is very important, let’s do it,” RIA Novosti quotes Putin’s statement. According to the head of state, such a book will be useful for both young people and adults.

JSC RusHydro for 2012 reduced its net profit under RAS by 2.1 times - to 14.7 billion rubles, according to materials published on the company’s website on Thursday. RusHydro's net profit in 2011 amounted to 30.6 billion rubles. The company's revenue in 2012 increased by 2% - to 94.2 billion rubles from 92.5 billion rubles a year earlier. Gross profit fell by 21% to 38.2 billion rubles from 48.5 billion rubles in 2011.

Egyptian authorities have proposed banning the sale of alcohol in duty-free shops at the country's airports on the grounds that this is contrary to Islamist traditions, the Izvestia newspaper wrote on Thursday . Along with the ban on the sale of alcohol in duty-free shops, the country's Minister of Civil Aviation Wael al-Maadawi raised at a meeting of the parliament's transport committee the problem of using glass bottles of alcohol purchased at duty-free to make Molotov cocktails.

The body of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will most likely not be embalmed. This was announced on Thursday by acting President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro, speaking on local television. “Invited specialists from Russia and Germany reported that embalming would be extremely difficult, since this process had to be started earlier,” Maduro was quoted as saying by Reuters . According to him, "the body was not properly prepared" because the decision to embalm was made too late.

Senator Vitaly Malkin does not have Israeli citizenship, a representative of the parliamentarian told Forbes. According to him, a member of the Federation Council from Buryatia refused a passport from a Middle Eastern state back in 2007. For this purpose, Malkin made a special trip to Israel, says Forbes’ interlocutor. The federal law on the status of senators and deputies of the State Duma directly prohibits parliamentarians from having citizenship of foreign countries.

Evgeniy Trifonov Author The new Samsung flagship, which will be presented on the night from Thursday to Friday, must master eye tracking technology. What else will phones of the near future be able to do?

Created by the son of the former governor of the Perm region, Anton Chirkunov, the service allows you to call a black Mercedes with a driver with one touch on the smartphone screen. Will it be able to compete with Yandex.Taxi and GetTaxi? “I know how to drive, but I don’t want to, I don’t even have a license,” says Anton Chirkunov, the son of the former governor of the Perm Territory, about what prompted him to come up with the Wheely service.