Senators from both US parties on Wednesday will introduce a new draft of anti-Russian sanctions for meddling in US elections and aggression against Ukraine, according to Reuters, which was able to read the text of the bill. The project involves sanctions against the banking and energy sectors, new issues of government bonds and individuals. The ruble fell again on this news. More. The bill will be introduced by Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Bob Menendez.

In the first ten days of February, the average maximum deposit rate in the top 10 largest banks was 7.5% per annum, follows from the message of the Central Bank. Despite the recent increase in rates by the largest banks, the rate has decreased for the first time since July 2018, writes . Vedomosti The reason for the decline is the cancellation of pre-New Year promotions, when banks tried to offer customers the most favorable conditions.

Cyprus announced the tightening of the rules for issuing “golden passports” at the request of the European Commission. Taking into account changes, the country's citizenship will rise in price by less than 30% Tight toughening the conditions for obtaining Cyprus citizenship for investment, frightening wealthy Russians, turned out to be cosmetic. The investment threshold for obtaining a Cyprus passport was raised by € 500,000, and they added € 150,000 irretrievable contribution to local funds.

The Cypriot government has approved tightening the conditions of the citizenship by investment program, also known as the golden passport program. The investment threshold for obtaining citizenship is raised from €2 million to €2.5 million, and in addition to it, a mandatory donation of €150,000 to Cypriot public funds is introduced. More.

The scandalous bill on penalties for fake news and disrespect for the authorities of senators Andrei Klishas and Lyudmila Bokova has not yet passed the second reading, but deputies are already proposing to tighten it by raising fines several times. More. Amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses provide for an increase in fines several times, and for citizens - more than an order of magnitude, follows from a TASS report .

Johson & Johnson is on the verge of getting regulatory approval for a breakthrough drug for depression, esketamine, which Bloomberg calls the first major breakthrough in the treatment of depression since the introduction of Prozac in 1987. The main risk of using the drug, which is the closest relative of ketamine, is its abuse as a drug. More. The new drug esketamine was developed by the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson.

The FSB is conducting a real special operation in the grain market - the special service came with searches to agricultural holdings in 13 regions of Russia, including such large ones as Cherkizovo and Rusagro. We are talking about tax evasion and illegal VAT refunds. What's happened. Searches in large agricultural holdings are reported by Interfax and the St. Petersburg edition 78.ru (part of the National Media Group).

The Russian authorities allowed the founder of Media Most, the former owner of the NTV channel, Vladimir Gusinsky, to make money from Russian assets even after he lost NTV and left the country in the early 2000s, writes the investigative resource “Project”. According to his numerous sources, the matter is in the “unbreakable agreement with the Russian authorities”, which Gusinsky agreed on in 2002. Read more.

In the Russian "gray" sector of mini-hotels, a mini-catastrophe - since the beginning of the year, the most popular hotel booking service Booking.com began to include VAT in the amount of 20% in the bill for services, RBC . learned This puts small hotels on the brink of survival, keeping prices low by avoiding paying it. What's happened. Since January 2019, Russian VAT 20% from the booking fee has appeared in Booking.com invoices.

Skype's new feature, which reports shared contacts and recommends contacts of other users, could be used for competitive intelligence, said entrepreneur Stever Robbins. Robbins called the feature "a surprisingly serious privacy breach." He gives the following scenario: The user is an M&A consultant. He is negotiating with the MergeMe corporation. The consultant receives a call from another company, such as WeMergeToo. He accepts the offer to add her representative to the contact list.

The first and only president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, who concluded the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with the United States in 1987, assessed the consequences of the almost inevitable rupture of the treaty in 2019 in a column for Vedomosti. We have selected his main points. The INF Treaty was beneficial to the USSR, and later to Russia , even despite the need to destroy the newly created precision missiles.

Miracles of statistics are a temporary phenomenon, says Minister Maxim Oreshkin, the economy will not grow so sharply The unexpected data of Rosstat on the growth of the Russian economy to the record in six years 2.3% in 2018 turned out to be a “one -time history”, it is not worth making global positive conclusions, the Minister of Economics Maxim Oreshkin admitted. This year, the Russian GDP will grow by a maximum of 1.3%, and maybe less, he said in an interview with Vedomosti.

Resources that distribute pornography and provide the opportunity to play gambling have found a loophole that allows them to distribute iOS applications bypass the App Store (pornography and gambling are prohibited in iOS applications). This became known thanks to the investigation of TechCrunch. Read more. The loophole consists in use for the release of a corporate certificate. It allows you to install applications on the phones of company employees, bypassing Apple store.

The unexpected data of Rosstat on the growth of the Russian economy to the record in six years 2.3% in 2018 turned out to be a “one -time history”, it is not worth making global positive conclusions, the Minister of Economics Maxim Oreshkin admitted. This year, the Russian GDP will grow by a maximum of 1.3%, and maybe less, he said in a large interview with Vedomosti. Briefly retell the most important thing.