23.08.2007, 22:42:29 version Print | PDA/PDA Palace of Justice in Lausanne. NTV frame, archive The Swiss court refused to help Russia in the Yukos case On the evening of August 23, the Swiss Federal Court issued a decision banning the provision of legal assistance to Russian law enforcement agencies in the investigation of the Yukos case, Thomson Financial reports.

On Wednesday, August 22, Russian banks borrowed 127.5 billion rubles from the Central Bank to increase their liquidity, Vedomosti reported . This is the largest volume of lending recorded in the history of the Russian banking system. The previous record was set in November 2006, when the Central Bank issued loans for 114.5 billion rubles. The Central Bank held two repo auctions, at which banks take out loans secured by highly reliable bonds.

The Moscow City Court returned to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation the case of illegal wiretapping of telephone conversations involving employees of the central apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Department of Internal Affairs of the Southern Administrative District of Moscow, RIA Novosti reports .

The draw for the US Open tennis championship, the last Grand Slam tournament of the season, took place in New York. Last year's winner, Russian Maria Sharapova, will begin her title defense with a match against Italian Roberta Vinci, and 2004 US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova will play against Czech Clara Zakopalova. In general, the draw for Russian tennis players at the US Open turned out to be successful.

Giuseppe Tornatore, an Italian director, was brutally beaten and robbed on a Roman street in the Aventine Hill area. He was hospitalized at the Fatebenefratelli clinic. The newspaper Il Messagero reports, citing the filmmaker's sister, that he is feeling well and that his relatives are going to take him home in the near future.

Over the next three years, Russia's largest helicopter carrier, UTair airline, intends to buy from 10 to 15 Boeing-737 aircraft, reports a Lenta.Ru correspondent from the international aerospace salon MAKS-2007. As the head of the airline Andrei Martirosov stated, in 2007 UTair will purchase one aircraft, and in 2008 - four more. The remaining Boeings will be purchased in 2009. All of them will be second-hand, Martirosov noted.

The most anticipated book about the new President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, will go on sale on August 24, 2007. It was written by Yasmina Reza, the author of several famous plays and the most important playwright of modern France. The first edition of the work, entitled "L'Aube, le Soir ou la Nuit" ("Dawn, evening or night"), as The Times reports, will amount to one hundred thousand copies, which is a lot by European standards.

Somali pirates have freed five Danish sailors captured in early June, Reuters reports. Let us remind you that the sailors are crew members of the Danish cargo ship Danica White. The ship, transporting construction materials, followed the route Dubai (UAE) - Mombasa (Kenya). In the territorial waters of Somalia, the ship was intercepted by pirates. For a long time nothing was known about the fate of the sailors. In total, they spent 83 days in captivity.

The central defender of the Italian national team and Inter Milan, Marco Materazzi, was seriously injured during the national team's friendly match with the Hungarian national team, which ended in a defeat for the world champions with a score of 1:3. Materazzi suffered a ruptured vein in his thigh and will now return to action only by the New Year, according to the official UEFA website.

Konami was unable to demonstrate a trailer for its new game Metal Gear Solid 4 at the Games Convention in Leipzig, according to the 1up website. The creator of the Metal Gear series, Hideo Kojima, was present at the press conference. He recalled that this year the series turns 20 (the original Metal Gear game appeared in 1987 on MSX2 computers and NES consoles). In addition, Kojima confirmed the information that the fourth part will be the final one in the Metal Gear Solid line.

A monument to the local water supply system was unveiled in Pokrovsky Park in Rostov-on-Don, RIA Novosti reports . At this place, as noted by the Don-TR TV channel , the city's first water pump was installed 142 years ago. The bronze sculptural composition depicts a woman filling a bucket with water from a tap. The height of the monument is about two meters. Rostov-on-Don, according to the agency, was one of the first in Russia to acquire a water supply system.

At the Games Convention in Leipzig, Sierra Entertainment announced a new shooter called Wet, according to the Eurogamer website. The main character of the game is a girl named Ruby. She is fluent in both firearms (two pistols) and a sword. Ruby works as a mercenary soldier, performing almost any task for pay. Judging by the trailer, Ruby's skills include running on walls, shooting enemies in slow motion, and aiming each of her two pistols independently of the other.

For the first time in the last four years, the number of Russians who believe that peaceful life is being established in Chechnya is almost equal to the number of those who believe that there is a war going on in the republic. Such data are presented in the results of a sociological survey by the Yuri Levada analytical center. The study was conducted from August 10 to 13, 2007, and 1,600 Russians took part in it.

In the Zaporozhye region of Ukraine, police officers collected more than 900 kilograms from a local resident’s drug plantation. ProUA was informed about this by the Public Relations Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in the Zaporozhye region. Hemp was grown on a personal plot in the village of Prishib by a 42-year-old resident of the Mikhailovsky district. In order to remove all the hemp he had grown, the police had to use a truck.

Midfielder of the Dutch national team Arjen Robben moved from London's Chelsea to Real Madrid for 24.3 million pounds sterling ($48.2 million). An agreement between the two clubs was reached on the night of August 23. The Dutchman will have to undergo a medical examination at Real Madrid and sign a four-year contract, writes The Independent.