On Thursday, President Obama will sign the closure directive during the year of prison in Guantanomo - this prison today contains 250 people suspected of terrorism, Voice of America reports. The project of the Directive was sent to the ministries on Wednesday, and yesterday the head of the Pentagon Robert Gates ordered to suspend all the trials in Guantanomo, including the hearing of the case of 5 persons accused of organizing attacks on September 11.

A former special services agent, and now a billionaire and co -owner of Novaya Gazeta, Alexander Lebedev bought 75.1% of the shares of the British publication The Evening Standard. This event aroused quite understandable interest among Western newspapers. He was one of the KGB agents in London, owns one of the largest Russian banks, has a share at Aeroflot Airlines and is engaged in the media business in Moscow, writes The New York Times (translation by Inopressa ).

For more than two decades in Russia there have been no obvious obstacles to public creative self-realization: books are published, exhibitions are organized, articles are written, films are made, and television programs are created. This mass of phenomena is often called modern culture, but how does it correspond to this concept?

On January 21, the President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov approved the country's new military doctrine. Speaking at a meeting of the State Security Council, the broadcast of which was conducted on the air of national television, the head of state noted that the new edition of the military doctrine “has been developed and prepared taking into account new realities and fully meets the foreign policy of the foreign policy,” Ferghana.ru reports.

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs wants to ban air passengers to drink alcohol both before and during the flight. This has been due to the recent incidents with drunk braids on board the aisles. It has long been prohibited from carrying alcohol on board the airplane, but any passenger can purchase a drink during a flight.

Russia has a rich “crisis experience”, despite the relatively short period of time that has passed since the beginning of Gorbachev’s Perestroika. While such assessments are somewhat conditional, we note that the current economic crisis is actually the fourth in the period from 1985 (when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power) to 2008. Each of the crises the country experienced had certain common features. However, the differences between them are much more important than the commonality.

On January 19, the heads of Gazprom and Naftogaz of Ukraine, Alexei Miller and Oleg Dubina, in the presence of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian colleagues Yulia Tymoshenko signed two ten-year contracts: for the supply of gas to Ukraine and the transit of gas to Europe. As Yulia Tymoshenko assured, the repetition of the "gas war" should not be expected in the next 10 years.

The command of the Russian space forces yesterday officially reported a mysterious emergency situation on board the Cosmos-1818 military satellite with a nuclear power plant that stopped work 22 years ago, Kommersant writes. None of the experts can yet explain what happened in an orbit about 800 km high, and predict the likely danger of this for the Earth. Only the military themselves assure that it is not.

The new US president is going to come to Moscow in April. And even earlier, in March, a new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may come to Russia on a visit to Russia. She will have something to please Russian interlocutors - the Obama administration has already decided to reduce expenses for the developmental deployment program. Everyone became aware of this by the Kommersant newspaper from a source close to the US State Department.

The Kiev City Council approved the introduction of a fee from transit transport at the entrances to Kiev, UNIAN reports. For "for" 99 out of 118 deputies of the Kyiv Council present in the hall voted. The project was introduced by the deputy chairman, secretary of the City Council Oles Dovgia. According to the secretary of the Kyiv City Council, 245-250 thousand units of cargo and passenger transport passes through Kyiv daily, and all of them use city infrastructure.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that on January 19 and 21, Russia turned to the official Tbilisi with a demand for a visit to the objects of the Armed Forces of Georgia for a verification inspection in accordance with the Vienna document of 1999 (on confidence and consolidation measures). Georgia will fulfill all the obligations emanating from the Vienna document in relation to all states except Russia, -news-group was told in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the republic.

Russian woman Elena Dementyeva went to the third round of the Australian Open Championship in tennis. On the night of Wednesday to Thursday (Moscow time), our compatriot defeated Ieta Benesheva, representing the Czech Republic - 6: 4, 6: 1. “I do not think about my chances of winning Melbourne. I enjoy the game that I demonstrate, - quotes the words of Dementieva "Eurosport". - I want to go as far as possible and enjoy every game.

In his speech on the occasion of the Coateness of Ukraine, President Viktor Yushchenko emphasized in every possible way the unity and collegiality of the Ukrainian people. “Our power - I repeat many times - this is the unity around my native state. This is number one priority, ”he said.

** Themes of the day ** The main topic commented on by the central press is a meeting held by President of the Russian Federation D. Medvedev with plenipotentiary representatives in federal districts . The main topic of the conversation was unemployment. The President said that the state will allocate 43 billion rubles. to support employment in the regions. And the envoy should become responsible for the fight against the consequences of the crisis and unemployment in their districts.

On January 20, the Parliamentary Energy Committee of Bulgaria voted to resume the operation of the 3rd and 4th power units of Kozlodui nuclear power plant in connection with the gas crisis.