At the end of April this year, the Moscow-based Alcomax group, which specializes in distributing consumer electronics, acquired the St. Petersburg chain of Moydodyr stores, Andrei Gutman, the manager of Moydodyr, told Vedomosti yesterday. Alexei Vodovatov, chairman of the board of directors of Moydodyr and the manager of Alcomax, said that by the end of the year, Alcomax will invest $500,000 in the development of Moydodyr, and another $1–1.5 million in 2007.

The first deal of the XXXI International Film Festival in Toronto, which opened on September 7, was the purchase by Metro Goldwin Mayer (MGM) of the North American rights to distribute German director Werner Herzog's film Rescue Dawn. The film is financed 50:50 by the Luxembourg subsidiary of the Russian company Sistema Mass Media, Thema Production, and the American production company Gibraltar Films.

The K Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has closed a large online store that sold listening devices to RuNet users. Irina Zubareva, a representative of the K Department press service, told Vedomosti about this. According to her, the homemade “bugs” were camouflaged as various types of household appliances, such as teapots or coffee makers. An employee of the K Department made a test purchase in this store and bought 10,000 rubles. A listening device disguised as a tee.

“I will not shut up freedom of speech. But I support the Kremlin’s policy.” Owner of the Kommersant publishing house Alisher Usmanov (Gazeta.ru) At a meeting with the publishing house staff, Usmanov promised not to revise the editorial policy. According to Usmanov, a “powerful media holding” will be created on the basis of the publishing house, for which radio stations and TV channels will be purchased. "But around all megalopolises there are unused wastelands.

“Asia is Rising: Patterns of Economic Development and Growth” is the title of a chapter from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook, published recently. The “Asian Tigers” have significantly reduced the gap with developed countries in per capita income and GDP per capita over the past 50 years, and China over the past 25 years. In total, between 1950 and 2005, real per capita income in the region increased sevenfold, and the gap with developed economies narrowed from 5.5 times to less than three.

The Novosibirsk plant of the Mars corporation became the company's second production site in Russia after the Stupino plant, built in the 90s. Investments in the Siberian plant amounted to about 400 million rubles; it produces more than 10,000 tons of dry food per year. Yesterday the company announced the opening of the second stage of the plant – the production of wet food for cats and dogs.

Mezhregiongaz is demanding that the construction company DON-Stroy transfer to it an apartment in an elite building on Mosfilmovskaya Street, sold four years ago to the former head of the Gazprom subsidiary Nikolai Gornovsky. Such a claim by Mezhregiongaz against DON-Stroy is listed in today's schedule of the Moscow Arbitration Court.

"Territory" will open at midnight from October 14 to 15 at the Vorobyovy Gory metro station. The festival will feature theater, cinema, music, dance, poetry and comics, but what is more important are not the individual lines of art, but the places where they intersect, the transfer stations.

Having experienced a fall the day before, market participants were regaining their strength yesterday, says Alfa Bank sales specialist Konstantin Shapsharov. “All last week, investors were gloomy, they thought: the market is falling and will fall, and on Monday too. And on Tuesday, not so much optimism returned, but confidence that there will be a rebound,” says Capital analyst Scott Semet.

The management of Sibur-Neftekhim announced back in 2002 that it was considering a project to build its own power unit – a gas turbine power plant at Caprolactam worth $36 million. In 2003, Sibur even began negotiations with the American Export-Import Bank about providing these funds. At the end of 2005, the company was thinking about acquiring the Igumnovskaya TPP (part of the Nizhny Novgorod Generating Company (NGK)) and reconstructing it.

Gref spent four years pushing for the creation of the SEZ. Having achieved this, he appointed Zhdanov, who had been his deputy at the ministry before the administrative reform, to head the agency.

Oil prices have been falling for a week. This has not happened for almost three years. Brent crude costs almost $65 per barrel – and in July it was $79.3. A slight nervousness has appeared: citizens, having managed to wean themselves off the dollar as the main indicator of the state of the economy, have managed to get used to another indicator – oil prices. A sharp or prolonged drop in prices can cause unnecessary excitement. But cheaper oil could be good for Russia.

On March 16, 2004, Volga OJSC fully placed three-year bonds in the amount of 1.5 billion rubles. The issue consists of 1.5 million interest-bearing non-convertible documentary bonds with a par value of 1,000 rubles. The securities have six semi-annual coupons, the rates of all coupons are set at 12% per annum. Nizhny Newsprint Holdings Limited (Cyprus, a 100% subsidiary of the Cypriot Hayard Investment Limited) owns 98.98% of the shares of the Pulp and Paper Mill.

The head of the PR service of a large company and mother of four children, Maria Markina, says that after the birth of her third child and the de facto breakup with her husband, she did not officially get divorced. “A married woman with children is much more competitive on the labor market than a divorced one,” she says. She learned to be prudent from her interactions with her former employers.

More rights for partnerships On the article “HOA will be fined” (No. 170 of 12.09.2006, p. A3) Until homeowners' associations can influence residents, they might as well fine homeless people on the street. Well, they'll slap on fines, so what? Bankrupt the HOA and open a new one, that's all that comes to mind. Another problem. About 20 percent of the residents in the building don't want to or can't afford to contribute money for repairs, what should the rest do?