As Western countries rushed to evacuate their embassies from Kabul last week amid the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Russia was one of the countries that kept their diplomats in place. Even though Moscow and the Taliban are traditional foes, they have been cooperating more and more closely in recent years.

There were no official ceremonies or big public speeches to mark the 30th anniversary last week of the attempted coup by Communist hardliners that was defeated by Russian democrats in the dying days of the Soviet Union. An epoch-defining event that saw tanks on the streets of Moscow, the failed plot now largely evokes indifference among Russians. Official commemorations for the 30th anniversary were muted and President Vladimir Putin did not make an official statement.

Bitcoin again costs more than $ 50,000. Why is it growing and whether it has become a real protective asset? For the first time after the May collapse, Bitcoin overcame the $ 50,000 mark. The rally was not retail investors who moved the cryptocurrency market in 2017, but large institutional investors and non -financial companies that use bitcoin as a new “protective asset”. However, with the advent of large investors, Bitcoin growth continues to be speculative, experts warn.

Just seven months after the death of cosmetics tycoon Andrei Trubnikov, his company Natura Siberica has been engulfed by a shareholder conflict that has led to chaos. Employees last week accused new management of unlawfully seizing control and quit in droves. There are also reports that billionaires — including Oleg Deripaska and Vladimir Yevtushenko — are after a piece of the Trubnikov empire.

Russia received $18 billion from the IMF in the form of special drawing rights (SDR) as part of the anti-crisis distribution of the fund's funds. In total, the IMF distributed funds in the amount of about $650 billion. On August 23, the decision of the IMF to allocate 456 billion SDRs (the so-called special drawing rights - the internal currency of the structure) came into force, which corresponds to about $650 billion.

The Human Rights Council under the President (HRC) did not find violations of the law in the Ministry of Justice's recognition of the Dozhd TV channel as a foreign media agent: according to the head of the structure, Valery Fadeev, the decision was made on two criteria at once. Fadeev told TASS that the HRC had received an "explanation from the Ministry of Justice" on including Dozhd's foreign agents on the list. Valery Fadeev Head of HRC The law is fully respected.

The Dozhd TV channel, which was included in the list of media outlets performing the functions of a foreign agent by the decision of the Ministry of Justice on Friday, was included in this register at the request of Roskomnadzor. He complained that Dozhd was distributing materials created by other foreign agents. This was reported by a member of the HRC Eva Merkacheva on Facebook with reference to the representative of the Ministry of Justice.

American Virgin Orbit, part of British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Group and specializing in launching satellites, has announced that it will go public through a merger with SPAC. As part of the deal, Virgin Orbit is valued at about $3.2 billion. NextGen Acquisition Corp. will act as a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). II. Virgin Orbit expects to raise $483 million on the exchange. The transaction is scheduled to close at the end of this year.

American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has agreed to buy Canadian oncology drug developer Trillium Therapeutics. The deal is valued at $2.26 billion — Trillium shares will cost Pfizer three times its market value. Pfizer will buy all outstanding Trillium papers for $18.50, according to the Financial Times. By the close of trading on Friday, August 22, Trillium shares were worth just over $6 a share. That is, Pfizer will pay three times as much for them.

The volume of dividend payments at the end of 2021 will be $1.39 trillion, according to the Global Dividend Index. This is only 3% below the pre-pandemic peak. The index is calculated by British asset management company Janus Henderson. The main thing from the report leads CNBC. The volume of dividend payments in the second quarter jumped to $471.7 billion (+26% compared to the same period last year), which is 6.8% lower than in the second quarter of 2019.

The Roblox gaming and social platform promises young developers success and real earnings, but in practice, they earn more on their efforts, writes Wired, citing a study by the People Make Games YouTube project. Roblox is a virtual sandbox that offers users thousands of free games to choose from from different developers around the world. The majority of Roblox users are under the age of 18, and about a third are between 9 and 12 years old.

The much-delayed trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes should finally begin before the end of August. Accused of major fraud faces 20 years in prison, and the defense seems ready to try risky options to save Holmes from prison, learned . Bloomberg The court drama will start on August 31 and will last for about three months, the agency writes. The process has been postponed four times since July 2020: three times due to the pandemic, the last time due to Holmes's pregnancy.

RT TV journalist Ilya Vasyunin, who was detained on Saturday during a picket at Lubyanka, was released from the Interior Ministry department for the Meshchansky District, reports OVD-Info . The correspondent spent about two days in the police station.

China coped with a new outbreak of coronavirus in a month - the number of infections inside the country fell to zero. But achieving COVID Zero will again be more difficult and more expensive, warns Bloomberg. In order to go from the outbreak of the delta variant among airport personnel in Nanjing on July 20 to its elimination on August 23, China needed: conduct 100 million coronavirus tests.

The Chinese regulator has suspended 42 initial public offerings (IPOs) in Shanghai and Shenzhen. The reason was an investigation into the investment bank, law firm and other parties involved in the transactions. The suspension of dozens of IPOs is reported by Bloomberg, citing the Chinese press. The China Securities Regulatory Commission launched an investigation into the law firm Tian Yuan and a number of other companies.