At yesterday's meeting of the parliament, deputy Jandi Bagaturia made a statement in connection with an unpleasant incident on the Georgian-Turkish border on the Sarpi checkpoint. According to the parliamentarian, Georgian clergy and Orthodox parishioners were sent to the Holy Mount Athos to Greece through the territory of Turkey.

Former player of the Ukrainian national football team Andrei Gusin testified in the criminal case of the poisoning of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko. In addition, investigators invited two more famous football players to the Prosecutor General - Andrei Shevchenko and Kahu Kaladze.

The new “voice recognition” service of the fashionable iPhone communicator of the American company Apple experienced an unexpected failure in the UK, RIA Novosti reports with reference to The Daily Telegraph . The free voice recognition app became available for download in the UK earlier this week. According to the developers of the new feature, in response to a voice request, the Google search engine should automatically offer a list of websites related to the named word.

In Moscow, the results of the "popular vote" of the largest domestic literary prize "Big Book" were summed up. Readers chose the most interesting, in their opinion, books of 2008. The first place was taken by Rustam Rakhmatullin (a collection of essays "Two Moscow, or metaphysics of the capital"). This was reported to ITAR-TASS by the Director General of the Prize Georgy Urushadze. In second place was Vladimir Kostin, who wrote a collection of stories and stories "Annual Rings".

On Wednesday night in Ingushetia, unknown people fired from grenade launchers the house of the head of the police department in the Malgobek district of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ingushetia, no one was injured, RIA Novosti reports with reference to the representative of the Republican Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The Federation Council is preparing a bill that is designed to legalize migrants working not for large companies, but for individuals. Russians who hire foreigners for homework are invited to purchase a patent for them, replacing work permit. Experts are convinced that it will not be possible to force the Russians for cheap labor, Kommersant writes on Wednesday.

Careless schoolchildren have changed their favorite excuses: if previously they blamed the family dog ​​for unfinished homework, now they blame everything on the computer and the Internet. A survey conducted among a thousand British teachers shows that teachers hear an average of 6.5 million explanations every day for why homework is not done, of which 1.3 million (almost 30%) are related to computers, InoPressa.ru reports, citing The Times . The study was conducted by Pixmania.com .

By 2010, Russian experts intend to raise to the surface the Frau Maria Schun, the treasures purchased by Catherine II to replenish the collection of the Winter Palace, sunken off the coast of Finland. Specialists of the Russian Navy and their colleagues from Finland participate in the development of the concept of saving values.

The financial crisis led to a significant increase in overdue wages in Russia in October 2008 by 33.4% after an increase of 2.1% in September. As the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said on Wednesday, salary arrears in October increased by more than 1 billion and reached 4.024 billion rubles, Interfax reports. Expensible wage arrears due to the lack of own funds from organizations on November 1, 2008 amounted to 3.808 billion rubles, or 94.6% of the total amount of overdue debt.

Two fifth (41%) Russians at least once in their life had to look for work immediately after the device for the previous one, this is the result of a survey of 1800 Russians over 18 years old, conducted on November 17-18 by the research center of the Superjob.ru portal in 7 administrative districts of the Russian Federation.

As a new scientific study of British psychologists showed, not too terrible scars on the face really decorate men, making them more attractive by 6 percent, Inopressa reports with reference to The Guardian Moreover, interestingly, the scars on the face seem to be more attractive women looking for a short relationship, although this does not add points to them as potential spouses. The same study was revealed by other points that women consider attractive.

The Government of the Austrian Salzburg expressed the willingness to adopt the 2014 Olympics in the event that Sochi cannot finish the construction of sports facilities within time, the Sports TV channel reports. “Our main advantage is that everything is ready for us,” said one of the city halls in an interview with the newspaper WirtScahftsblatt.

The leadership of the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant (MMK) intends to sue the journalist Pavel Verstov for the publication of rumors about mass suicides due to the crisis and that the working plant, supposedly, worsen the criminal situation in the city. According to the HR and Social Programs of the MMK Ivan Senichev, Lelustov at the plant is considered the author and distributor of a number of rumors defaming the MMK and destabilizing the socio-economic situation in the city.

The Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov announced a shortage of effectiveness in party work. “The task of the Communist Party is to implement a socialist alternative in Russia. We are already not enough for the reputation of the Party of Social Protection. This is important, in society a request is ripening for a party of action, a party of social offensive.

According to the results of October, most banks partially ceased to comply with the requirements of the Bank of Russia to work with citizens' deposits, the Association of Russian Banks admitted. In the future, according to ARB forecasts, the situation will only worsen. Fearing the mass exclusion of banks from the deposit insurance system, the ARB asks to abandon special requirements for banks that attract citizens' funds, Kommersant writes on Wednesday.