Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated on Friday that the verdict of the ex-head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the former head of the MEL MENATEP Platon Lebedev was issued by an independent Russian court, the decisions of which should not influence the criticism of this sentence, Interfax reports. “Opinions expressed there should not and cannot in any way affect the decisions of the judicial authorities of the Russian Federation.

Aeroflot decided to allocate for compensation to passengers whose flights were detained or canceled due to the critical situation in the Moscow airborne in the last days of December, the amount of $ 20 million, the company's head of the press service Andrei Sogrin told Interfax . He added that passengers who are forced to wait for their flights will be paid the cost of a one -way ticket - regardless of whether they used the services of Aeroflot or not.

The court of the self -proclaimed state Somaliland freed six Russian pilots, Interfax reports with reference to the Russia24 television channel. Recall, on the eve, they were found guilty of the supply of military equipment by the neighboring self -proclaimed country Puntland, with which Somaliland is in a state of war, as well as in violation of the airspace of Somaliland. At first they were sentenced to a year of imprisonment, but then the verdict was replaced with conditional.

The pace of construction of new housing in Russia this year for the first time began to exceed the dynamics of the aging housing stock, while, according to the latest data, by the end of the year it was possible to resettle more than 5% of emergency housing, said the head of the Ministry of Regional Development Viktor Basargin on Thursday in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV channel. .

The United States of America on Thursday spread a sharp warning to the Ukrainian leadership, expressing concern that a series of arrests and investigations, "on selective" who amazed opposition politicians, has "political motivation," writes The Financial Times . The application was made against the backdrop of interrogations by the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office of the opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and the arrest of a number of her political allies.

The Russian Ministry of Defense on Friday completes the autumn draft campaign in the Russian army. The department assures that the call passed without serious violations and the draft plan was fully fulfilled, about 280 thousand recruits are called up to the troops. Last fall, more than 305 thousand draftees were sent to the Armed Forces. In recent years, the system of calling citizens for military service in the framework of the reform of the armed forces has undergone serious changes.

The body of the musician of the famous group Boney M Bobby Farrell, who died in St. Petersburg on Thursday night, will be sent to the Netherlands, whose citizen he is, after observing all the necessary formalities, RIA Novosti reports with reference to the acting Consul General of the Netherlands in the northern capital of Klaas Huysman. "At the moment, the body is in the morgue. Today an autopsy will be carried out.

The number of victims of the cholera epidemic raging in Haiti since October amounted to 3333 people, RIA Novosti reports on Friday. Such data were brought by the Haiti Ministry of Health. The previous report of the local Ministry of Health spoke about 2707 dead. According to the agency, on Haiti as of December 31, more than 150 thousand cases of cholera are registered.

Significant forces of the police and internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia were pulled into the center of Moscow on Friday in Friday, preparing for two opposition shares - permitted and prohibited. The authorized rally on the Triumphal Square in defense of the 31st articles of the Constitution of the Russian Federation is carried out by human rights activists. It began without problems at 18:00.

The United States ensured the export of a party of highly enriched uranium from the territory of Ukraine, which would be enough for the production of two atomic bombs. As a result of this operation, which took place in a secrecy atmosphere, the material was taken to Russia, the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail writes, citing the Associated Press agency.

The Khimkinsky City Court issued a sanction on Friday to arrest the municipal official Andrei Chernyshev , accused of organizing an attack on one of the defenders of the Khimki forest, Ecologist Konstantin Fetisov, leader of the local branch of the right -hand business. The term of the arrest of Chernyshev was set until February 5, 2011. Before the same date, the investigation in the criminal case is extended.

The Spanish police arrested a woman who staged its own abduction. The attacker extorted 20 thousand euros from her chosen one to visit New Year's sales, and at the same time check the feelings of the spouse. As the police explained, shortly before the Christmas holidays, a shocking photograph came to the mobile phone of the missing woman: the picture was in the picture, his wife, tied hand and foot.

The family of the ex-head of the Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whom the court on Thursday sentenced to 14 years in a colony of general regime, was morally ready for the sentence, said the son of Khodorkovsky Pavel, who lives in the United States. “Both father and the whole family, including grandparents, were ready for this sentence. Dad was not expected, the process was too predictable. Although for me it was still a shock,” said Pavel Khodorkovsky.

Aeroflot canceled more than 40 New Year flights. On the information board in the terminal D of the Sheremetyevo airport, in particular, about the abolition of 16 international and 25 domestic flights, Interfax reports. So, flights were canceled into a number of German cities: Dusseldorf, Gannover, Berlin and two flights to Frankfurt. And also the flights to Oslo, New York, Los Angeles, Helsinki, Paris, Rome, Munich, Ulan-Bator, Cairo, London, Copenhagen were canceled.

The defense of the ex-head of the Yukos NK Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the former head of the MEL MENATEP Platon Lebedev appealed the verdict of the Khamovniki court of Moscow in the second criminal case. “We can say that the complaint is preliminary, because we still do not have the text of the sentence, there are no copies of the protocols,” said Karina Moskalenko ’s lawyer on Friday.