The Mastercard International Payment System has agreed with VTB 24 on the mass issue of its cards, although the bank has still focused on cooperation with VISA, Kommersant reported with reference to sources in the banking market. “The signing of the agreements took place at the end of last year,” the interlocutor of the publication said. The source said that the share of MasterCard in the VTB 24 portfolio has not yet been set.

In the USA, the largest lottery jackpot in the history of the country has been played, the size of which was a little less than $ 1.6 billion, ABC News reports. It is known at least about three tickets winning - in California, Tennessee and Florida. According to The Los Angeles Times , the chances of guessing a winning combination were 1 to 292 million. Powerball lottery tickets are sold in 44 states and six territories of the United States.

At least 25 people became victims of pork flu in Ukraine since the beginning of the incidence season, Reuters reports. This was announced by the head of the State Center for Combating the influenza Tatyana Dryanovskaya. She did not indicate when the flu season began. According to Vestfm , out of 25 officially confirmed cases of death as a result of pork flu 15, 15 falls on Odessa and Odessa region .

The criminal case against the majority shareholder and the chairman of the board of directors of the AFC System Vladimir Yevtushenkov on the acquisition of shares of Bashkir TEK enterprises was terminated due to the lack of corpus delicti, the company said . A year ago, investigators who were leading the Bashneft case returned the things and documents seized from him during a search, including a passport. The Investigative Committee removed all the restrictions on movement.

Sales of cars from the German concern Volkswagen in Russia fell by almost 37% in 2015, TASS reports, citing a statement from the company’s press service. “If during the period January-December 2014, 275,800 cars were sold in Russia, then in 2015 there were already 174,300 cars. The decrease in sales was 36.8%,” the report says. In total, Volkswagen delivered 9.93 million vehicles to customers worldwide in 2015.

A patrol officer of the patrol service Danil Maksudov, who participated in the operation to save people from snow captivity on the Orenburg-Orsk highway in early January and frostbite his hands , asks not to send him money. He thanks people who turn to him from different regions of the country, for responsiveness, but assures that he does not need financial assistance. “People, you don’t need to collect any means for my treatment or for any other needs! Your moral support is enough, thank you!

The authorities of the Xinjiang-Uygursky Autonomous Region (SUAR) of the PRC in 2016 will begin work on the creation of the first arrangement of the Code of Rules aimed at counteracting religious extremism in the region. The newspaper China Daily wrote about this the day before.

The cost of the most expensive secondary apartment in the Moscow region is 696 times higher than the price of the cheapest, the metropolitan realtors calculated. According to them, the most expensive housing of the entire region can be considered a five -room apartment with an area of ​​262 square meters. m on Prechistenka (Moscow district of Khamovniki), located in the house after a complete reconstruction and with underground parking. Its cost is almost 696 million rubles.

The expectations of Russians regarding the ruble exchange rate at the end of 2015 worsened, follows from a survey conducted by the All -Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM). If in November last year respondents predicted that the average cost of the dollar in three months will be 69 rubles, then in December they predicted that they would give 76 rubles for the dollar.

Progress on compiling a list of opposition for negotiations with Damascus at a tripartite meeting in Geneva could not be achieved, said the deputy head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Gennady Gatilov. Without this list, it is difficult to talk about the beginning of the political process of settlement, he emphasized.

The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation understands the situation with the burning of books published by the Soros Foundation in the series "Updating humanitarian education in Russia." “I asked for materials now, we understand, find out what happened,” the head of the department Vladimir Medinsky promised.

The current economic situation is not similar to the period of the 1998 crisis. On Thursday in Moscow at the Gaidar Forum , organized by the RANEPA and the Gaidar Institute, said Tatyana Golikova, head of the Accounts Chamber. "We are in a fundamentally different economic situation that has nothing to do with 1998," said Golikova, the words of which are quoted by TASS.

The State Duma Committee on Housing and Public Utilities recommended a bill to rejection, which exempts from paying contributions for overhaul of citizens over 70 years old, on Thursday RIA Novosti reports. The initiators of the bill were deputies from the Communist Party faction, headed by the party leader Gennady Zyuganov.

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) was not tough enough with respect to a number of countries, including Russia. This is stated in the second part of the report of the Independent Commission of the World Anti -Doping Agency (WADA), presented on Thursday. "IAAF was not tough enough with a number of countries, including Russia," TASS quoted WADA report.

The shares of the Renault SA automotive concern were involved in 20% during trading on Thursday due to reports on the actions of the French authorities as part of the investigation in the case of fraud with harmful engines emissions, Interfax reports with reference to Bloomberg. On Thursday, AFP published material on a search at a number of Renault enterprises in France and the seizure of part of the company's computers.