Former press secretary of the President of Tatarstan, Irek Murtazin, against whom a criminal case of slander was instituted, intended to become a deputy of the republican parliament. According to the Tatar President Shaimiev, Irek Murtazin spread knowingly false information undermining his reputation, as well as information about private life, which constituted personal and family secrets. On September 12, Mr. Murtazin posted a message on his blog that Mintimer Shaimiev suddenly died in Turkey.

In Ingushetia, several former and current high -ranking officials were detained. All of them are suspected of inadequate use of funds allocated to the republic from the federal budget as part of the South Russia program. The damage from their actions, as reported in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, is estimated at 355 million rubles. The South Russia program is aimed at creating a full -fledged infrastructure and a sharp decrease in unemployment in the regions of the Southern Federal District.

On December 26, at the opening of trading at the MICEX , the dollar rate increased to 29 rubles. This is 33 kopecks higher than the level of the official course set by the Central Bank for today. The last time the dollar cost 29 rubles in 2001. The euro also rose - up to 40.77 rubles. This is 59 kopecks above the closing level of the previous day. The main reason for the rise in price of the euro and the dollar is the next expansion of the bivalyut corridor by the Central Bank.

The famous French singer Charles Aznavour became a citizen of Armenia. The corresponding decree was signed by the President of the Republic Serge Sargsyan. Aznavour was born in 1924 in Paris in a family of immigrants from Armenia. He is the author of more than a thousand songs, and became the first French performer to get a platinum disk in Europe. During his career, Aznavour sold more than one hundred million discs.

“Dmitry Medvedev set the task to develop a phased plan for the transfer of all budgetary institutions - both federal and regional state authorities - for the introduction of free software,” said Maksut Shadaev, assistant to the head of the Russian Presidential Administration at the Institute of Modern Development.

**December 29, Monday** The main events: Prime Minister V. Putin will hold the last meeting of the Russian government in 2008, at which the results of the work of the Cabinet of Ministers in the outgoing year will be summed up. A meeting of the Federation Council will take place.

On December 16, 2008, the laureates of the Maik “Science/ Interiperodika” were named for 2007. Under the terms of the premium competition, the authors of the most original works in the magazines of the Maik for 2007 were awarded or for the work cycle for 2005-2007, as well as the authors of the most original works of scientific, scientific, textbooks and textbooks for 2005-2007.

MTS and the Auchan hypermarket network created the A-Mobail virtual operator, Writes Vedomosti. His contracts will be sold in Auchan, and their buyers will be able to speak with each other for free for 15 minutes a day. Starting from the sixteenth minute, the calls between the tariff users will be 90 kopecks per minute. Contracts will be sold only in the stores of Auchan Moscow and the region. The first 15 minutes of communication with other tariff subscribers are free.

Andrey Levkin Morning Friday, January 26. RIA-News website, main material. With a picture: hands consider money. Money is pretty and multi -ore, dollars with euros. In total - $ 500 and 125 euros. A little, but in the morning it’s still nice to look at them. The heading of the material: " The dollar and the euro at the MICEX has grown significantly ." Again, positive: “significantly grew” - how not to rejoice, and joy increases the positive epithet “significantly” before the word “grew”.

The authors of the offensive banner against the legendary goalkeeper Leo Yashin were found and were punished. This was announced today by the General Director of the St. Petersburg club Zenit Maxim Mitrofanov, reports Echo of Moscow . According to him, sanctions are applied to the fans - they are deprived of subscriptions for the next season of games and the right to buy tickets.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine again did not approve in the first reading and in general, as the law, the state budget of Ukraine for 2009. The faction of the Communist Party of Ukraine did not vote in full force; one people's deputy voted from the Party of Regions from the Party of Regions. 155 people's deputies voted from the BYUT faction, 43 from the NO-NS faction. The Litvin Bloc faction voted for the draft budget, UNIAN reports.

Participants in the round table "National Security of Information Technologies", held yesterday at the Institute of Contemporary Development, created a working group to prepare an appeal to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, PRIME-TASS reports. This is stated in a statement from the institute.

“The development of domestic information technologies should be based on open source software,” said the First Deputy Director-General Designer of OJSC All-Russian Research Institute for Automation of Management in the Non-Industrial Sphere. V.V. Solomatina ”Igor Zhukov, speaking with a report on the round table“ National Security of Information Technologies ”.

A supporter of conservative views, Michael Baron from American Enterprise Institute published an article where he expresses an extremely skeptical opinion about the prospects of the chosen US President Barack Obama, whose image during the pre -election campaign embodied “hope” on “change”. The Baron believes that by his victory, Democrat Obama is obliged, first of all, the hatred that voters had to nourish the Republican Bush.

A letter of representatives of the creative intelligentsia Dmitry Medvedev with a request to have mercy on ex-legalist Yukos Svetlana Bakhmin was transported to Mordovia. In response to the letter, a "absolutely impersonal answer from some official" was received. This was announced on the air of Radio "Echo of Moscow" by director Vladimir Mirzoev. “His content (answer. -“ Polit.ru ”) mysteriously.