The price of Urals oil has fallen during today's trading to $ 36.53 per barrel. This, the Finmarket reports with reference to the Bloomberg agency, is the minimum level since January 2005. The day before, the price of spotal contracts for Russian oil Urals amounted to $ 39.68 per barrel, which is 2.62 dollars below the price on the previous day.

In October-November 2008, the demand for the rental of suburban houses near Moscow for New Year's celebrations decreased by 25% compared to the same period last year, the website cottage.ru reports. "In 2008, the first rental of country houses for New Year's celebrations were recorded in the second half of September. However, unlike last year, the demand for this type of lease began to decline with the advent of October.

Nizhny Novgorod schoolchildren began to study the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on comics. At the same time, the main character of instructive criminal stories in the pictures was the notorious vovochka from jokes, says the newspaper "Trud" . True, he turned into a positive character from a bully and a lover of obscene expressions and does not commit any offenses. "Vovochka was rehabilitated", the police who worked on the publication joke.

Foreign media viciously discuss the last steps of the Russian authorities and everywhere they notice the "iron arm" of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The supply of gas to Europe is under threat of a breakdown , Iran will receive rockets , and in Russia a law has been adopted on the extension of the presidential powers - all these surprises are even more aggravated by Russia's relations with the West, inopressa.ru notes, citing publication in the foreign press.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev instructed the Ministry of Emergencies and the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Egypt to provide all the necessary assistance to the Russians who suffered in an accident of the bus in this country, the press secretary of the head of state Natalya Timakova said.

President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko sharply criticized the draft budget of Ukraine for 2009 prepared by the Yulia Tymoshenko government and called it a tragedy. “This is not a real budget, but a tragedy. This is the most irresponsible document and a political adventure,” he said on Tuesday during a meeting with the heads of local administrations.

Human rights activists, priests and residents of the Stavropol Territory are concerned about the appearance in the village of Temnoleskaya and the village of Klyuchevsky sect, worshiping the "goddess Anastasia." The sectarians have already bought up more than 250 hectares of land, and registered their community as a peasant farm "Currant". This was announced on Tuesday by the head of the Public Organization "North Caucasian Human Rights Acts" Anton Skrynnikov.

The elected US President Barack Obama, after a number of world leaders, appeared in photographs with a naked torso. Resting in Hawaii with his wife and daughters, he appeared in shorts alone, demonstrated a toned figure and thereby proved his commitment to a healthy lifestyle. The 47-year-old Obama is actively engaged in physical education. Every morning, the politician spends 45 minutes on exercises.

The winner of the Eurovision Dima Bilan decided to take his 13-year-old sister Anya on stage, who also dreams of becoming a singer. Dima has two native sisters: the eldest, 28-year-old Elena, works as a designer-model, and the youngest is fond of music, sings perfectly and plays several musical instruments, the newspaper "Trud" writes. Dima himself believes that his sister has a great future, but his producer Yana Rudkovskaya belongs to this idea skeptical.

One of the founders of the Bakhyt-Computer group, the poet Constanten Grigoryev died the day before from a heart attack at the 41st year of his life in Moscow. “Constantan died yesterday. He went to work, and his heart stopped,” the musician and friend of the poet Vadim Stepantsov told RIA Novosti . He also added that during the day it will become known about the place of the singer’s funeral. The musician found it difficult to answer the question of the reasons for the sudden cardiac arrest.

China completes on Tuesday the procedure for Taiwan’s transferred two giant pandas as a symbol of the world, friendship and unity. Early in the morning, animals were delivered to the administrative center of the South -Western province of Sichuan - the city of Chendu.

The American poetess Elizabeth Aleksander received an invitation from the chosen President of the United States Barack Obama to act on his inauguration. The 46-year-old teacher will read the poem specially composed for the sake of such an event for such an event, the AFP agency reports. “This is a great honor for me,” Alexander wrote on her website .

One of the answers of Russia to the deployment of objects of the American strategic missile defense system (PRO) in Europe could be the placement of Topol missile systems in Belarus, a source in the Russian military department said in an interview with Interfax .

The West provokes Russia with its actions, awakening in it heavy memories of the invasions of the armies of Napoleon and Germany. This opinion was expressed by the leader of the Libyan Revolution, Muammar Gaddafi, who recently visited Moscow on an official visit. Attempts to intimidate Russia again put the world on the brink of nuclear war, he believes. According to Gaddafi, the embryo of the current threat was the expansion of NATO to the East, to the very borders of Russia.

Russia intends to resume negotiations on the import of livestock products from the United States in the last decade of January 2009, as well as send an expert group to the USA to certify agricultural enterprises interested in exporting their products to Russia, Interfax reports.