Today at the Kyrgyz resort, Cholpon-Ata opens an informal CSTO summit. Moscow plans to turn this organization into a Russian counterpart. Dmitry Medvedev expects to receive the signature of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko under the agreement on the formation of collective forces of the operational response (Quele) of the CSTO, as well as sign documents on the formation of a Qusor military base in Kyrgyzstan.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia (FAS) has terminated the case against the Federal Customs Service on the grounds of violation of paragraph 2 of part 1 of Article 15 of the Law “On Protection of Competition”, not finding a violation of antimonopoly legislation in the actions of the organization, the FAS press service reports. The basis for initiating the case was the appeal of the NPO "Union of Enterprises of the Zoobusiness".

In the Belotserkovsky district of the Kiev region, during the excavations of the remains of the skull, which can belong to the murdered journalist George Gongadze, three more corpses were found, UNIAN reports with reference to the "Left Bank" publication.

Preferential air transportation tariffs for citizens living in the Far East will be extended until October 2010. The corresponding order was signed by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He recalled that such rules apply from May 15 to September 15 annually. Residents of the region under the age of 23 and after 60 received the right to buy tickets to Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sochi for half the price.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rejected the offer of officials to increase excise taxes on alcohol in 2010, which would lead to an increase in vodka prices. On Thursday, a source in the government told reporters that the preliminary version of the budget for 2010 provides for an increase in excise taxes on alcohol by 30%. However, later the Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin said that Putin did not support this measure, reports Reuters .

The Kaspersky Labus offered users of VKontakte and Odnoklassniki social networks using a special online form on the website www.securelist.ru (where you just need to enter your email address), check if their registration data in the hands of attackers were. Earlier it became known that on one of the hacker sites, more than 130 thousand users of the VKontakte social network were published.

A Norwegian cargo ship with Russians and Ukrainians on board sank off the coast of Sweden tonight, Reuters reports. At the time of the crash, there was a strong storm at sea with force 9, the wind speed reached 75-88 kilometers per hour. There were six people on board the vessel. Rescuers who arrived at the scene found wreckage of the ship and life jackets. The sailors have not yet been found.

The CNN television company at the end of July conducted an analysis of seven nationwide polls, which showed that the policy of US President Barack Obama approved 54% of Americans, which is 7% less than a month ago. This is the lowest confidence in all seven months that have passed since Obama entered the office.

Today, Gazprom has begun the construction of the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok gas transportation system, the Siberian News Agency reports.

The police do not let workers into the market in the Sevastopol hotel complex. This was stated on the air of the Echo of Moscow radio station President of the Russian Federation of Russia Muhammad Amin Majumder. “They closed the entire territory. The people who worked there were thrown out into the street, they are behind the fence, sit and wait, ”he said.

Vietnam will take at least 300 years and more than $ 10 billion to completely clean its territory from unexploded air bombs, shells and mines that have remained since the time of war with the United States ended in 1975. Such a statement was made today by the deputy chief of engineering troops Vietnam, Colonel Fan Duk Tuan. According to him, in the post -war period, more than 10.5 thousand were killed in the country and over 12 thousand people were injured in American mines, Vesti reports.

The Union of Cinematographers of Russia (SK), who has made a collection from each pure DVD-disk in the spring, now proposes to tax and household appliances, writes Kommersant . This refers to manufacturers and importers of “material media and equipment designed to reproduce phonograms and audiovisual works for personal purposes”. We are talking about manufacturers and importers of DVD players and other similar equipment.

In Moscow, the general director of Rospostavka CJSC Yevgeny Tutorite, accused of embezzlement with the head of the Konakovskaya GRES Anatoly Bushin, was arrested.

Today, President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko left for Crimea, where he will hold part of the annual vacation with his family. According to UNIAN in the Main Service of the Information Policy of the Secretariat of the President of Ukraine, the head of state will break a vacation to hold a number of working trips and meetings.

According to Rosstat, in June 2009, Russians spent various goods and services of 62.1% of income. In June 2008, this figure was 71.7%. The share of income directed to savings, on the contrary, doubled to - 17.9%. If in the first quarter the population was still spent on products, goods, restaurants and cafes of 76.3% of income, then in the II quarter - already 65%, Vedomosti write. The Russians were equally economical in the II quarter of 1997, the publication notes.