Rex Tillerson, a candidate for the post of US Secretary of State, former head of the oil company Exxon Mobil, owns a small stake in Yandex NV (owns Russia's Yandex LLC), which are traded on the NASDAQ exchange. This is reported by NBC News, citing financial statements published by Tillerson in light of the nomination to a government position. The value of Tillerson's Yandex shares ranges from $1,000 to $15,000.

The Nakhimovsky Court of Sevastopol sentenced local resident Vitaly Slavikovsky to two years probation for inciting hatred and enmity, including against Spartak fans. It is reported by "Open Russia" with reference to representatives of the court. According to the file of the Nakhimov court, the verdict was handed down on August 31, 2016 and came into force two weeks later. At that time, the media did not report on the sentencing. The case against Vitaly Slavikovsky became known in July 2016.

On January 10, a group of US senators submitted a bill to expand sanctions against the Russian Federation in connection with cyber attacks and the situation in Ukraine. The initiator of the expansion of sanctions was Ben Cardin, the author of the Magnitsky Act. The proposed sanctions target "individuals" who the US believes are responsible for the cyberattacks. The measures will concern, in particular, "opportunities for export" and the use of the American banking system.

Rosneftegaz, through which the state owns half of Rosneft, will not publish financial statements. According to Dozhd, citing unnamed sources, the Russian government made such a decision in December 2016. The board of directors of Rosneftegaz is headed by the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin. According to Dozhd, more than 600 billion rubles may be in the accounts of Rosneftegaz.

St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko confirmed reports that St. Isaac's Cathedral will be transferred to the use of the Russian Orthodox Church. “By agreement between Patriarch [Kirill] and me, the cathedral will retain its museum and educational function,” TASS quoted him as saying. The governor added that the temple would be maintained at the expense of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Photo: Valery Sharifulin / TASS / Scanpix / Leta At the end of 2016, the writer and journalist Sergei Parkhomenko was excluded from the Russian Pen-Center. According to the organization’s statement, Parkhomenko was excluded “for provocative activities incompatible with its goals and objectives”. After that, the Pen-Center left Lev Rubinstein, Boris Akunin and Alexander Ilichevsky. "Medusa" talks about the conflict between the leadership of the Pen-Center and Sergey Parkhomenko.

Singapore-based QHG Shares Pte Ltd will control the votes for 19.5 percent of Rosneft's shares, the said in a statement Russian company . The corresponding block of shares in December was sold to a consortium, which includes the Glencore trader and the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar. Interfax writes that the founders of QHG Shares Pte Ltd are Glencore and the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar (they are not mentioned in the Rosneft report).

On Monday, January 9, snow fell in Athens. So that the children do not fall on slippery sidewalks, schools were closed in the city. And to avoid transport collapse, they blocked part of the roads. But the weather unusual for Athens has a positive side: Acropolis (and especially Parthenon) looks fabulous in the snow.

Captain of the Russian army Marat Akhmetshin died in Syria. It is reported by RBC with reference to the military commissariat of the Novo-Savinovsky and Aviastroitelny districts of Kazan. Akhmetshin was killed back in June 2016, but so far this has not been reported. Akhmetshin served in the artillery. His funeral took place in August 2016. The captain was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Russia, and a school in Kazan was named after him.

Photo: Alexey Milovanov / "New Kaliningrad" The publication "New Kaliningrad" published a report on the trip and. O. Governor Anton Alikhanov in the region.

The Reserve Fund of Russia in December 2016 was halved. According to the data on January 1, 2017, its volume amounted to 972.13 billion rubles (16.03 billion dollars). On December 1, 2016, 2.032 trillion rubles were accumulated in the reserve fund. Foreign funds in foreign currency for 966.9 billion rubles were sold in December to cover the budget deficit for 2016, the Ministry of Finance said.

Photo: Ekaterina Eremenko / "Kommersant" On Tuesday, January 10, it became known that former policeman Mikhail Popkov, convicted in 2015 for the murder of 22 women (this happened back in the 1990s), admitted another 59 similar crimes. Popkov, known as the Angarsk Maniac, killed and raped young women since 1992, while until 1998 he worked in the police. The investigation several times came to a dead end due to the negligence of investigators, as a result of Popkov was detained only in 2012.

The Tverskoy Court of Moscow arrested until March 6 Omar Omarov and Islam Murtazaliev, suspected of shooting from a machine gun in Moscow on New Year's holidays. They are on trial for hooliganism, initiated after the publication of a video of the incident on the Internet. At the meeting, Omar Omarov stated that he did not consider himself a criminal and was not going to hide from the investigation.

Photo: Fernando Llano / AP / Scanpix / Leta Venezuelan deputies applaud after a decision that Nicholas Maduro "left his post." Karakas, January 9, 2017 On January 9, the Venezuela parliament announced the president of the country Nicholas Maduro dictator, and this is one of the grounds for the removal of the head of state from the authorities under the local constitution.

In 2016, according to Rosstat, the price of butter rose the most in Russia. Over the year, the price of this product in the Russian Federation increased by more than 20 percent. In second place in terms of price growth were milk and dairy products. In December 2016, they rose in price by almost 10 percent compared to the same period a year earlier. Prices for fish and seafood in 2016 increased by an average of 8.6 percent, according to Rosstat.