Russia is budgeting for an oil price of $60 per barrel for the next two years. This was stated by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin at the Russian Financial Forum, organized by the newspaper Vedomosti . “ Huge global liquidity is looking for a way out. The price of oil reaches $80 per barrel, and demand is at a record low and has been declining until recently. As global central banks wind down stimulus measures, energy prices may decline,” he recalled.

The Russian market is showing signs of “severe weakness”, which could lead to a significant downward movement if the global situation worsens. Despite the extremely positive external background, our indices are declining - the only indices of large developing economies. Since the beginning of this week, large and competent sales have been observed in many liquid securities. At 12.00 Moscow time, the MICEX index fell by 0.6% to 1322 points.

The investigation claims that Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor for the Hermitage Capital Management investment fund who died in jail, and William Browder, the head of the fund, were involved in the creation of several companies through which 2% of the gas monopoly's shares were sold in circumvention of the ban on the circulation of Gazprom shares abroad.

Today, the registration of Cyrillic domain names for government organizations begins. The end of registration is scheduled for March 25 next year. In April 2010, registration of domains in the .РФ zone will become available to everyone, Ecommerce Journal reports. More than half of the applications submitted for registration of domain names in the Cyrillic zone .РФ were written with errors, and therefore were rejected, said Andrey Vorobyov, a representative of the press service of RU-Center.

A Swiss court has ordered director Roman Polanski to be released on $4.5 million bail. Polanski is to remain under house arrest and electronic surveillance at his Swiss home. Meanwhile, the Swiss Justice Ministry says it will keep the director in jail until it decides whether to appeal his release to the country's Supreme Court. A ministry spokesman says a decision will be made "quickly," although the ministry has 10 days to appeal the ruling.

The situation in the Ukrainian economy remains one of the most difficult among the CIS countries, which creates certain problems for Russia. Ukraine is the leader in Russian investments in Eastern Europe and at the same time the main and most difficult partner in the transit of Russian hydrocarbons to European energy markets. Higher School of Economics State university, founded in 1992. HSE employs 1,000 teachers and 400 researchers.

The Russian pilot who was piloting the plane of Sudanese Vice President Salva Kiir managed to prevent a tragedy that could have happened immediately after takeoff from an airfield in northern Uganda, the DPA news agency reported on Wednesday, citing a statement from the country's authorities.

The Russian Consulate General in Geneva is dissatisfied with the work of the local police, which has still not sent any response to the official request about the scandalous accident in Switzerland involving Russians. "Naturally, we are dissatisfied. Our request was sent very early on Monday morning, two days - more than enough time to respond to a simple request from the consular service," a representative of the consulate general told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

Like most post-Soviet countries, Ukraine's booming economic growth of 2003-2008 was based on resource prices, and there is still some faith among the Ukrainian establishment that the old days of prosperity (cheap money and high export prices) will return someday – if not this year, then next.

The Geneva prosecutor's office has opened a criminal investigation into the scandalous road accident in Switzerland involving a 22-year-old Russian, the Swiss Telegraph Agency (ATS) reports, citing Geneva's Prosecutor General Daniel Zappelli. According to Zappelli, on Wednesday he received a preliminary report on the case from the police, which he immediately passed on to the investigating magistrate.

Today, the Nizhny Novgorod Duma approved the abolition of direct mayoral elections by 35 votes and adopted this change to the city charter as a basis, Dmitry Anisimov, chairman of the Duma commission on local self-government, told Vedomosti. 28 votes were enough to make a decision on the regulations. According to the new version of the charter, the head of the city is elected from among the deputies of the Duma and heads it, and the city economy is entrusted to a hired city manager.

In 2009, less than 600 people died from all types of flu in Russia, Russian Health and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova reported on Wednesday. According to her, the swine flu virus is dominant among all types of the disease. Golikova reported that 11,633 people in the country were infected with swine flu. The minister found it difficult to make a forecast about how the situation with swine flu will develop in Russia.

The financial crisis has affected the elite segment, according to analysts, even more than the economy and business classes. According to Anzori Khasia, adviser to the president of the company FC Otkritie - Real Estate, with the onset of any crisis, expensive housing falls in price first, the economy class housing segment is more inert. But the elite market will recover earlier, he said at the round table of Vedomosti-Real Estate.

The difference in costs for road construction in different regions of Russia cannot be twenty to thirty times, stated Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. "The lack of modern building codes and the existing pricing system hinder the use of highly efficient technologies, increase construction costs several times over and, of course, subsequently the maintenance of these facilities," Medvedev said at the State Council Presidium in Ulyanovsk.

The Moscow authorities are ready to provide assistance in creating a chain of fish stores "Ocean" in the city, however, premises for such stores can only be provided through an auction, said Vladimir Malyshkov, head of the capital's department of consumer market and city services.