Bloomberg has released its annual Pessimist's Guide , a list of the bleakest forecasts the world can expect next year. This time it's full of natural disasters: a hurricane, floods, drought, widespread famine, Europe saving migrants, rising European nationalists and, of course, Vladimir Putin secretly sending more troops into the Donbass. We briefly retell the most terrible scenarios. Due to El Niño, 2019 is breaking temperature records. This provokes floods, droughts, forest fires.

During the unification council in Kiev, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced the creation of an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church. For the final separation from the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian church needed to receive a tomos of autocephaly from Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

Vladimir Putin promised to look into and discuss with the Ministry of Culture the investments of the owner of the Safmar group, Mikhail Gutseriev, in the creation of a Russian site for the Canadian circus Cirque du Soleil. Edgard Zapashny, general director of the Great Moscow State Circus, complained about this project to the president, who on Saturday held a meeting of the Council for Culture and Art. More.

The United States has been urging other countries for several months to abandon the technology of the Chinese Huawei, which is allegedly used by the Chinese authorities for cyber espionage, write Bloomberg and Reuters . Now the Chinese company is at risk of losing its second largest European market. More.

On Friday, the Central Bank raised the key rate for the second time in a year - to 7.75%, but banks are unlikely to continue raising deposit rates - they have already sufficiently “warmed up” the market during the hot season of hunting for clients, according to experts interviewed by Vedomosti. Read more. The profitability of deposits was actively growing until mid-December, and now banks will hold on to current rates until the last, Frank RG CEO Yuri Gribanov told the publication.

Maria Butina, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States, may testify in another case, reports The Daily Beast, citing a closed petition from prosecutors to the court. More. attention to the mistakenly published document Spencer Xu, a correspondent for the Washington Post, was the first to draw . He said prosecutors on Friday asked a federal judge for permission to smuggle Butina out of jail to testify before a jury, and posted the first page of the document on his Twitter.

The organizers of the Davos Forum have lifted the restrictions previously imposed on Russian businessmen, a government official told The Bell. The same information is available from the RIA Novosti agency. The Bell sent a request to the organizers of the World Economic Forum (WEF), who had previously refused to invite the head of VTB Andrey Kostin and businessmen Oleg Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg, who had been sanctioned, to the forum.

New rates for paid parking have come into force in Moscow. The cost of parking on some streets has almost doubled. More details. The maximum rate has been increased from 200 to 380 rubles on 237 streets in the capital - near Moscow City, Tverskaya, Arbat, Patriarch's Ponds, Petrovka, Neglinnaya and Romanov Lane. On these streets, parking will be paid even on Sundays. Only on holidays will cars be allowed to be parked for free.

The former deputy head of Voentorg Leonid Teifu, who in recent years lived in the city of the role (the capital of North Carolina), was charged with the bribery of an official, planning the murder for hiring, illegal storage of weapons, as well as in the factory of data for obtaining a visa. Together with his wife Tatyana, he is also accused of laundering millions of dollars. Read more .