There is a general election in New Zealand today. According to preliminary voting results, the ruling National Party of Prime Minister John Key is leading the election. The prime minister's party could win almost half of the seats in parliament. However, to form a government, the National Party will need to create a coalition with smaller parties supporting it. In second place is the opposition Labor Party. She was supported by 27 percent of voters.

Dmitry Medvedev threatened mass dismissal of employees of the Ministry of Defense and defense enterprises if they again delay the formation of the state defense order in 2012. The head of state made this statement at a meeting with media representatives of the Central District of Moscow.

The prosecutor's office checks the staff of the SSAU The prosecutor's office is checking why the entire staff of the Vavilov SSAU library took absentee ballots for voting in the State Duma elections on December 4. The other day, library workers gave explanations to investigators about this. After talking with SSAU employees, we managed to find out that this was done at the request of the university management. Similar directives are sent to all departments of the university.

25 military personnel were killed as a result of a NATO helicopter raid on a border checkpoint in Pakistan. Alliance representatives refuse to comment on the incident. According to the Pakistani side, helicopters invaded the country's airspace and fired at the checkpoint today at 02:00 local time (01:00 Moscow time). The attacked Salalah checkpoint is located 2.5 km from the border with Afghanistan in the “tribal zone” - in the Mohmand region.

The DIA transferred materials on Potential Bank to the Insurance Company The state corporation “Deposit Insurance Agency”, after three years of reorganization of the Zhiguli bank “Potential”, transferred its materials to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. This summer, the agency admitted that it was overly optimistic in its assessment of the troubled asset. A criminal case has not yet been initiated, but there may be talk of bringing the ex-management of Potential to justice.

Losing to Janko Tipsarevic at the final ATP tournament of the season Tennis Novak Djokovic, who had lost only four times in 73 meetings throughout the entire season before the start of the final tournament, has already lost twice in less than a week spent in London. The Serb's next offender was his compatriot Janko Tipsarevich. This meant that Djokovic’s access or failure to reach the semi-finals of the most prestigious tournament no longer depended on him.

The flow of pilgrims to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior does not dry out. Over the past 24 hours, over 120 thousand believers came to the relic. The total number of people who paid tribute to the shrine since the beginning of its stay in the capital amounted to more than 670 thousand. By Friday night, the line, according to eyewitnesses, reached Luzhnetskaya embankment. “The queue starts from St.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta published a resolution of the Federation Council calling presidential elections on March 4, 2012, which officially launched the election campaign. Elections of the head of state are scheduled no earlier than 100 days and no later than 90 days before voting day.

But soon Dmitry Rogozin will take on both domestic defense and the defense industry Russia's permanent representative to NATO and special presidential representative on missile defense issues Dmitry Rogozin yesterday received the status of an authorized representative of United Russia in the State Duma elections. As Mr. Rogozin told Kommersant, this will allow him to officially support Dmitry Medvedev during the election campaign.

Officials' salaries are twice the national average The salary of federal officials is twice the average salary in the economy and amounts to 53.6 thousand rubles, as follows from Rosstat data published yesterday for January-September 2011.

An attack by NATO helicopters on a Pakistani army checkpoint killed 25 people and injured 14 others. According to Pakistani television channels, several NATO attack helicopters entered Pakistani airspace from Afghanistan on Friday and carried out an air strike on a checkpoint in the Mohmand tribal region in the north-west of the country. There have been no comments from the North Atlantic Alliance on this message yet.

The international rating agency Fitch Ratings announced a downgrade of the credit rating of eight Italian banks, explaining that “Italy is most likely in recession.” The ratings were downgraded by Banca Popolare di Milano, Banca Popolare dell'Emilia Romagna, Banca Popolare di Sondrio, Credito Emiliano, Credito Valtellinese, Veneto Banca, Banca Popolare di Vicenza and Banca Popolare dell'Etruria e del Lazio. The ratings of all these credit institutions were given a negative outlook.

The A Just Russia party gathers its supporters on Bolotnaya Square. The "Democratic Choice" movement gathers people for a rally under the slogan "For Fair Elections" on the Taras Shevchenko embankment. Several thousand people gathered at the rallies. Activists call on protest participants to be sure to come to the elections on December 4 and vote for any party other than United Russia.

At least three people were killed and 17 were injured after a bridge collapsed in Indonesia's East Kalimantan province. The 700-metre long bridge carrying several cars, buses and motorcycles collapsed into the river on Saturday. The cause of the collapse of the bridge, built 10 years ago, is still unknown. A search for missing people is currently underway at the site of the bridge collapse. Based on materials from the BBC

The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine claims that it has irrefutable evidence of the involvement of companies owned by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the murder of businessman and Verkhovna Rada deputy Yevgeny Shcherban. As First Deputy Head of the Prosecutor General's Office Renat Kuzmin said in an interview with Inter TV channel, the killers' work was paid for by companies that Yulia Tymoshenko owned together with another ex-Prime Minister Pavel Lazarenko.