The names of the rivals of Russians in the male and female single discharges at the Australian tennis opening championship , which starts on January 17 in Melbourne, became known. According to the results of the draw on Friday, Mikhail Yuzhnoy went into the rivals French tennis player Jerome Enel, and Igor Andreev - German Lars Burgsmuller. Marat Safin and Nikolai Davidenko will meet with tennis players who will enter the main grid of the tournament through qualifications.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit Japan in the first half of March. Lavrov himself announced this at a press conference after negotiations with the Foreign Minister of Japan, Nobatika Matimura. "I accepted the invitation of Mr. Matimura to visit Japan in the first half of March this year," Lavrov said. “We hope that there will be complete clarity with the summit (Russian -Japanese) to the visit and we will be able to prepare documents for it,” Lavrov noted.

In Orenburg, unknown criminals robbed the cashier of one of the city departments of education. According to law enforcement agencies, on the eve of two unknown armed criminals in the form of collectors entered the premises of the office of the Department of the Administration of the Southern District of the city. Threatening the accountant and cashier, the raiders stole 4 million 100 thousand rubles intended for payments of salaries, and disappeared.

The Supreme Court of Ukraine will proceed on January 17 to consider the complaint of presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych with the activities of the Central Election Commission, as well as the decision of the CEC on the results of the presidential election. According to the press service of the Supreme Court, the meeting will begin on Monday at 10:00 local time (11:00 in Moscow), Interfax reports. As reported, on Friday, the Yanukovych team filed a complaint with the Supreme Court.

Ukraine will celebrate the old New Year in a new way - without Snow Maiden. Viktor Yushchenko, elected by the President of Ukraine, is known as an ardent opponent of the Snow Maiden. This manifested itself five years ago, when he was the prime minister, the Izvestia newspaper reports. When Yushchenko Prime Minister came to the Christmas tree in the main Kiev Palace of Ukraine, grandfathers frosts with bags and Snow Maiden rushed towards him with flowers.

The most terrifying catastrophe in Asia began with the fact that after the first wave the water went away and a huge amount of fish remained on the beaches. “The waves began to roll ashore. The first wave threw a lot of fish on land, and the children ran to collect it. Since then I have not seen them alive,” the 15 -year -old daughter of the resident of the Malay Island City Feiruz told the Pingo Gibalo newspaper. The surviving inhabitants of the city of Galle on Sri Lanka also speak about fish.

The agreement concluded in 1997 on the recognition of the succession of the Russian Federation on tsarist debts to individuals and legal entities of France was called into question a group of Russian citizens.

Doctors return the smiles to the faces of children affected by severe injuries, with the help of a fundamentally new implant that will change their appearance. About 50 children and adolescents, including a 12-year-old girl, who used to eat even before, now thanks to a fateful operation they can smile.

The US Federal Trade Commission checks the transaction for the transfer of the IBM computer business of the Chinese Lenovo Group for $ 1.25 billion. Officials want to make sure that this agreement contradicts American law. According to Interfax, the verification is carried out without the adoption of any actions that impede the process of processing the transaction, as a result of which the Chinese Lenovo can be the third largest manufacturer of computers in the world.

In Ulyanovsk, on Friday, the ceremony of taking office of the Governor of the Ulyanovsk Region Sergey Morozov took place. Immediately after the inauguration at the press conference, the new head of the region expressed his readiness to resign if necessary to resign ahead of schedule. "I intend to discuss with the envoy Sergei Kiriyenko today the feasibility of raising the issue of trust in me before the president," Morozov told reporters immediately at the end of the ceremony.

President of Macedonia Branko Tsrvenkovsky proposed a compromise solution to Greece on what Macedonia should be called in the international arena. According to the Greek Macedonian News Agency, Tsrvenkovsky announced this on Friday to Skopier. “We offer a double name for our country,” said Tsrvenkovsky.

By 2020, China and India will compete with the United States for economic superiority in the world, the leading analysts of America believe, and al-Qaeda will exhale, but it will replace it with a smaller scale, but no less deadly terrorist group.

Cold weather will come to the metropolitan region on the next Sunday, Interfax reported on Friday in the Hydrometer of Moscow and the Moscow Region. On Saturday in Moscow and the region, cloudy weather is expected to clear up, small wet snow will pass. During the day in Moscow it will be from minus 1 to plus 1, in the region - from minus 2 to plus 2.

The question of the acquisition of Russian missiles "will not be the topic of the coming negotiations of the presidents of the two countries in Moscow." This was stated by the President of the Syrian Arab Republic of Bashar Assad, reports ITAR-TASS. "The Minister of Defense of Russia the day before stated that such a transaction does not exist, and this gave a clear answer," said the Syrian leader.

In the Moscow Patriarchate, they are concerned that replacing benefits for cash payments may prevent believers from visiting temples. “Those elderly people who live far from the church, especially in the outback, can now survive a real personal tragedy,” the deputy chairman of the department of external church relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, told the Interfax agency.