The European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, Maltese John Dalli, resigned on Tuesday over allegations of fraud and involvement in extortion, Maltese newspaper Maltatoday reports. Dalli resigned after the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) launched an investigation into the official following a complaint against him from Swedish tobacco company Swedish Match.

Santander has abandoned 316 RBS branches worth £1.65bn ($2.7bn) after two years of work and 2½ months before the deal was due to close. RBS is now having to convince investors that the network is a profitable asset and will not cause liquidity problems: the network accounts for just 2% of RBS's equity. Its operating profit in the first half of the year was £186m. Santander was to take over the accounts of 1.8m retail customers and almost 250,000 companies.

About a week ago, the premium on convertible preferred shares of Bank Saint Petersburg fell sharply – from more than 15-20% to 5%. That’s when rumors appeared on the market that the bank might not pay annual dividends on preferred shares, says Gazprombank analyst Andrey Klapko.

October 16, 2012, 21:08 / Business A former top manager of TNK-BP accuses the company of bribing employees of Transneft and the Ministry of Energy London's High Court has allowed Igor Lazurenko to release documents that he claims contain evidence of corruption involving "hundreds of millions of dollars" Dmitry Dmitrienko D.

Credit Suisse Credit Suisse analysts have lowered their recommendation for Severstal GDRs from “hold” to “sell,” and the forecast price has been lowered from $13.1 to $8.9. Severstal has the same problems as Evraz: vertically integrated raw materials companies are especially sensitive to the overall price dynamics on the raw materials market, the bank’s analysts note. The margins of such companies should fall significantly in 2013–2014, they predict.

Citroën has outlined its ambitions: to be in the premium segment of the market. The brand’s flagship, the Citroen DS5, took part in the “How to Spend” test. Read more at Vedomosti.ru Clemens Graf, chief economist at Goldman Sachs for Russia and the CIS, is confident that life is getting better 1 Sberbank will suspend card services for three hours on Wednesday night On Wednesday night, Sberbank will suspend card services from 0.30 to 04.10 Moscow time .

Local elections in small settlements will no longer be held on party lists. The corresponding law, signed by the Russian president, was published on Tuesday on the official legal information portal. Now the regions themselves decide how to elect regional and local deputies: by single-mandate constituencies, multi-mandate constituencies or party lists.

Opposition on Trubnaya 15 photos On October 20 and 21, a rally was held on Trubnaya Square in support of the elections to the Opposition Coordination Council. On the boulevard one could register, be verified and vote for candidates. In addition, the protesters expressed support for Sergei Udaltsov and other opposition figures, who had been charged the day before in the case of preparing mass riots.

October 16, 2012, 12:55 / Auto Renault and Nissan will increase integration to reduce costs Vedomosti Renault and Nissan will increase integration and try to strengthen their alliance structure to better compete with Volkswagen, the sources said. The French and Japanese automakers plan to save 4 billion euros by 2016, twice as much as previously expected, and will review their mutual shareholding scheme.

Well, what did you want - you elected Obeshchalkin, and so he is wandering around. And it doesn’t matter that there are no more resources for these promises, this does not bother the populist. I liked the comment: the price of oil raised Putin, but it will kill him...

The poll conducted by the Levada Center in September of last year, 2011, began literally a couple of days before the top officials informed Russians that they had already decided who they would and would not elect as the country's president. The poll could not reflect the feelings of disappointment, humiliation, and frustration that emerged later. The ratings were calm - 68% for the one who was prime minister and 62% for the one who was president.

EU Heads of State Summit 9 photos The leaders of European countries agreed today to create a single banking regulator based on the European Central Bank. This should allow the eurozone's anti-crisis fund to begin injecting capital directly into the region's troubled banks. True, we can’t expect the regulator to start operating soon. Cheat sheet for migrant workers 9 photos The “Migrant Labor Handbook” has been published on the website of the St.

JSC Russian Railways (RZD) estimates the cost of building a bypass of a difficult section of the Trans-Siberian Railway near Lake Baikal at 140 billion rubles, Vasily Frolov, head of the East Siberian Railway, told journalists. The bypass, more than 100 km long along the southern coast of Lake Baikal, should reduce the transit time of goods along the highway.

The Kremlin will inevitably control half of Russia's oil production, effectively returning the industry to the 1990s, Leonid Fedun, vice president and second-largest shareholder of Russia's largest private oil company Lukoil , told Reuters. Russian authorities have given their blessing to the purchase by the largest state oil company Rosneft of half of the third largest company in the industry TNK-BP from the British BP, for which Rosneft will borrow $15 million from the West.

Bidzina Ivanishvili, the leader of the Georgian Dream coalition that won the parliamentary elections, announced the final list of candidates for the government. On October 8, the preliminary list was missing candidates for six posts. Now Ivanishvili proposes appointing Kakha Kaladze, a football player and former player of Dynamo, Milan and the Georgian national team, to the post of Minister of Energy, the GHN agency reports .