The American concern General Motors agrees to sell its European division of Opel to the Canadian company Magna, provided that the consortium of buyers does not include Sberbank of Russia. This is reported by the German weekly Spiegel, citing its own unnamed source. According to the interlocutor of the publication, the proposal was sent to the German negotiating partners, but they refused.

The Spanish "Barcelona" won the UEFA Super Cup, beating Donetsk "Shakhtar" with a score of 1:0, Championship.ru reports. The match took place in Monaco on the night from Friday to Saturday. The main time of the match ended in a draw. The only goal was scored by midfielder Pedro Rodriguez in the 115th minute of the game. Rodriguez entered the field, replacing Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Barcelona have won the European Super Cup for the third time. In 2008, the Super Cup went to the St.

Russian journalist Yevgeny Novozhilov received refugee status in Poland, Radio Liberty reports. Novozhilov, a resident of the Krasnodar Territory, applied to the Polish authorities with a request for refugee status last year. Novozhilov is the author of a number of articles about human rights violations in Chechnya, for which in 2001 he was placed in a psychiatric hospital for seven months.

The Il-76 government airliner that crashed into a lighting tower at Gdansk airport on Friday is not the plane of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. According to RIA Novosti, this was announced on Saturday by the press secretary of the head of government, Dmitry Peskov.

Two trucks exploded in Iraq: near a police station in the village of Hamad, north of Baghdad, and also near the city of Mosul in northern Iraq, in Kurdistan, reports the Associated Press. The first explosion killed at least 12 people, including six policemen, and injured 15 others. With machine gun fire, the police managed to change the terrorist's initial trajectory - before the explosion, his truck crashed into a concrete barrier near the market.

One person died, two went missing, eleven families lost their homes in the village of Karamken, Magadan Region, after a dam broke on the Tumannaya River, RIA Novosti reports. According to the press secretary of the Far Eastern Regional Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Ekaterina Potvorova, the emergency occurred in the village of Karamken, Khasynsky district, at 14.30 local time (06.30 Moscow time).

Pridnestrovian President Igor Smirnov appointed Lyudmila Rogozhkina as head of his administration, RIA Novosti reports with reference to the press service of the Pridnestrovian leader. Prior to her appointment, Rogozhkina headed the financial department of the administration.

One of the departments of Sberbank. Photo from the site sbrf.ru In the criminal case of the first deputy general director of the Ratep defense company and the chairman of the Justice Public Organization, Dmitry Baranovsky, who is suspected of extorting money from the Minister of Commerce Peter Katzv, a new episode has appeared. According to Kommersant, Baranovsky is also suspected of extorting shares worth $ 10 million from a former top manager of Sberbank.

Moscow, August 24, 2009. Actions near the prefecture of the Northern Administrative District dedicated to the elections to the Moscow City Duma and the closing of the Soul and Body gay club. Shooting by Dmitry Zykov for Grani-TV. Details

During a special operation in Chechnya, law enforcement officers killed two members of gangs, whose identity is currently being established, Interfax reports with reference to the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic. A special operation was carried out on the northwestern outskirts of the city of Argun, on the territory of the Moskovsky state farm.

A Boeing 737-200 aircraft of the Kyrgyz airline Itek Air, en route from Bishkek to Moscow, made an emergency landing in the Kazakh city of Uralsk due to problems with oil pressure in one of the engines, Fergana.Ru reports. There were 118 passengers on board the plane. None of the passengers or crew members were injured during the landing.

The funeral of the poet Sergei Mikhalkov, who died last Thursday at the age of 97, took place at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. The author of the texts of the Soviet and Russian hymns, children's poet and satirist is buried in the central alley of the cemetery next to the ballerina Galina Ulanova and the singer Lyudmila Zykina, RIA Novosti reports. The farewell ceremony with Mikhalkov took place the day before in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

Michael Jackson's death has been officially ruled a homicide. According to the BBC, the coroner of Los Angeles - an official investigating the cause of death - concluded that the singer's death was the result of acute intoxication with anesthetics. Propofol and lorazepam were named as the main factors that led to death. In the body of the deceased singer, traces of the use of painkillers and sedatives were also found: midazolam, diazepam, lidocaine and ephedrine.

The International Monetary Fund has allocated 1.309 billion SDRs (Special Drawing Rights Receipts) to Ukraine, or about $2 billion, as part of the allocation of 161.2 billion SDRs, the IMF said in a statement. 1.017 billion SDRs were allocated the day before, and Ukraine will receive 292 million SDRs on September 9th. 161.2 billion SDRs, equivalent to $250 billion, are distributed among 186 IMF member countries.

A Mitsubishi minibus with Armenian tourists returning from the Georgian resort town of Kobuleti collided with a bus on the Ashtarak-Yerevan highway on Friday, RIA Novosti reports with reference to the local police. The minibus, driven by a 37-year-old driver, collided with a PAZ bus parked on the side of the road.