Mining giant BHP Billiton slashed profits 21% in the financial year ended June and delayed a $20 billion expansion of its Olympic Dam copper mine. Profits fell to $17.1 billion from $21.7 billion in the previous financial year, the first decline in three years, as costs rose and prices fell for commodities including iron ore, copper, coal, nickel and aluminium. BHP raised its annual dividend by 2 cents to 57 cents a share, beating analysts' expectations of 58 cents a share.

Dell Inc cut its full-year profit forecast and warned of a tough second half as consumers cut spending on computers ahead of the launch of its new Windows 8 operating system. Dell, once the world's largest maker of personal computers, is trying to defend its market share from Asian rivals such as Acer Inc and Lenovo, as well as the fast-growing tablet segment. The company expects revenue to fall 2-5% in the third quarter of the fiscal year compared to the second quarter to $13.8-$14.2 billion.

Premieres of the Moscow Motor Show - 2012 32 photos The International Motor Show (MIAS) opened in Moscow. It will host 23 world, 21 European and 85 Russian debuts of various models and modifications of cars New Nissan Almera 8 photos The new Nissan Almera model, according to the company, is “designed, engineered and manufactured for Russia.” The car uses the B0 platform of the Renault-Nissan alliance (Renault Logan and Lada Largus are built on it); the car will be produced at Avovaz.

August 22, 2012, 21:46 / Auto The new generation of Volkswagen Golf will grow in size, but will become 100 kg lighter Gennady Anisimov Volkswagen AG managed to reduce the weight of the new generation Golf model by 100 kg compared to the current generation of the car. The weight savings are achieved through the use of stronger steel and will lead to a 23% reduction in fuel consumption, Bloomberg reports.

August 22, 2012, 01:01 / Lifestyle Film "The Expendables 2": Commandos of our youth “The Expendables 2” is built on the principle of “even more cool guys from the 80s.” Stallone, like a sad Winnie the Pooh, gathered almost everyone. But such tricks apparently don’t work twice Oleg Zintsov outnow.ch Corrected version. The original published version can be viewed in the Vedomosti archive (smart version) Sylvester Stallone wrote and directed the first “The Expendables” himself.

Renault will present a new generation of Logan and Sandero 9 photos Before the Paris Motor Show, Renault did a photo shoot of the Dacia Logan and Sandero models. They have redesigned the body design, which is now closer to the style of the latest models of the Romanian brand - Dokker and Lodgy Film passions 13 photos The US-produced film "Innocence of Muslims" tells the life of the Prophet Muhammad in a provocative way, depicting his sex life in detail.

August 22, 2012, 12:41 pm / Finance Hopes for a controlled exit of countries from the eurozone may turn out to be illusory Fedor Bizikov The US Federal Reserve, implementing the quantitative easing program, pursued two main goals. The first is to maintain a level of liquidity in the banking system sufficient for the survival of credit markets. The second is to reduce long-term rates to the lowest possible level.

The Voronezh prosecutor's office has conducted an investigation into numerous cases of coercion of parents of students to buy school uniforms, the regional prosecutor's office said in a statement on Wednesday. Thus, in the Zheleznodorozhny district of the city, cases of coercion of parents to buy school uniforms in a specific store were identified.

Analysts HSBC lowered the forecast price of STS shares from $12.6 to $10.1 per share, the “hold” recommendation remained unchanged. Analysts expect that the growth of the TV advertising market in Russia will continue to slow down and will amount to about 8% in 2012. And they believe that STS shares may be under pressure for this reason and because of the reduction in audience share.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong died 5 photos On August 25, 2012, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first to set foot on the surface of the Moon, died. City bus of record length 8 photos A giant-length bus is being tested in Dresden, which can carry up to 256 passengers. The new public transport rolling stock, combining the capacity of a tram with the maneuverability of a bus, is called Autotram Extra Grand.

A military helicopter crashed near Astana, killing four people, the press service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Kazakhstan confirmed. "On August 22, 2012, at about 8:00 a.m. (6:00 Moscow time), while performing training flights in the area of ​​the Astana airfield, a Mi-17 helicopter of the Ministry of Defense of Kazakhstan crashed," the press release of the department says. Four crew members died. An interdepartmental commission has been created to investigate the crash.

The consumer price index in Russia increased by 0.1% in the period from August 14 to August 20, 2012, compared to zero growth the week before, Rosstat reported on Wednesday. Inflation since the beginning of August was 0.2%, since the beginning of the year - 4.7%. The Ministry of Economic Development does not expect deflation in August, but inflation will be lower than 1.2% in July, when tariffs were raised in the country.

The Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR) has separated criminal cases against two participants in the riots on Bolotnaya Square into separate proceedings, the ICR press service reported yesterday. This was done "to complete the preliminary investigation as soon as possible." One of the accused, Luzyanin, has already been notified of the end of the investigative actions and will soon begin to familiarize himself with the case materials. The case against Kosenko is also in its final stages.

M.Lionstar Bloomberg Global sales of E. L. James' erotic trilogy have exceeded 40 million copies. Starting tomorrow, the first part of the trilogy, "50 Shades of Grey", hastily translated and published by Eksmo, will go on sale in Russia. The story of 49-year-old British Erica Leonard, writing under the pseudonym E. L. James, flew around the world this spring, when the sales of her books began to break all records.

How the market is divided. 17.7 billion dollars – this is how Gartner estimates the global security software market for 2011. The largest market participants, according to its version, were Symantec (20.6%), McAfee (6.9%) and Trend Micro (6.8%) Windows 8 has built-in antivirus software developed by Microsoft, Vedomosti found out after testing the new OS. Microsoft has been developing its own antivirus, Security Essentials, since 2009. But until now, users had to install it themselves.