The House of Representatives of the Colombian Congress approved a bill allowing a popular referendum to be held, in which the citizens of the country will determine whether the incumbent head of state, Alvaro Uribe, can run for president for the third time in May 2010, RIA Novosti reported Wednesday, citing local media. Presidential elections in Colombia will be held on May 30, 2010. Under the current constitution, the head of state is elected for four years and can only be re-elected once.

Vladimir Putin has launched an active PR campaign. The crisis is ending, and now the 2012 presidential elections are on the agenda. Newsweek's interlocutors agree that Vladimir Putin's summer PR campaign began with a surprise visit to the Perekrestok supermarket at the end of June. Putin later explained: he wanted to figure out on the spot what was going on with prices, so that his brains would not be “composted” in the White House.

Vladimir Voronin leaves the presidency of Moldova and goes to work in parliament, one of the members of the Central Committee of the Party of Communists of Moldova, who took part in the party's activists held on Wednesday, told RIA Novosti. According to the Constitution of Moldova, the Speaker of the Parliament, Mihai Ghimpu, becomes acting head of state. "Vladimir Voronin is leaving to work in the parliament," the agency's interlocutor said.

The crisis phenomena in the Russian economy were exhausted at the same time This summer, the heads of state banks spent mainly at work: until they start lending to business, they should not think about rest, Vladimir Putin conveyed to them. The bankers were given a plan: to increase the loan portfolio by three months 500 billion rubles. The head of VTB, Andrei Kostin, issued loans worth 84 billion and asked the prime minister for a week of vacation.

The President of Ingushetia confirmed to Orkhan Dzhemal that while he was gone, corruption intensified in the republic, and said that autonomous temporary police departments were not needed in Ingushetia. When you returned, you started with resignations. How effectively was the republic governed while you were ill? Resignations were planned even before my injury. Before the officials, when they were hired, specific tasks were set. Passed the first quarter, passed the second.

The incumbent President Hamid Karzai is confidently leading the presidential elections in Afghanistan with 1,744,428 votes (47.27%). Such data on the results of counting 60.4% of the votes were reported by the Central Election Commission on Wednesday. In second place is Abdullah Abdullah, he has 1 million 201 thousand 838 votes (32.57%).

All Deputy Ministers of Defense of Georgia - Vladimir Chachibaia, Gela Berdzenishvili, Georgy Muchaidze and Otar Berdzenishivili - left their posts, RIA Novosti reports with reference to Novosti-Georgia agency and the public relations department of the country's defense ministry. “This is a standard procedure after the appointment of a new Minister of Defense.