Trumpeter John Faddis practices music-making outdoors at any time of year / A.Mokrousov The festival in Tromsø, Norway, was held for the 26th time. It is not the most expensive in the world – its budget is slightly over $1 million – but it is certainly one of the nicest. The Northern Lights are actually shown – although there are up to five concerts a day, and the lights themselves can flare up and go out in half an hour (that is, the choice is often stark – either art or nature).

The world's largest cosmetics maker L'Oreal will spend about 500 million euros on share buybacks after reporting an acceleration in quarterly comparable sales. In the last quarter of 2012, the figure rose by 5.3%. The French company spent about the same amount on share buybacks a year earlier. The company's operating profit was 3.7 billion euros, compared with a forecast of 3.66 billion euros among analysts polled by Reuters.

The UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined UBS AG £9.45 million for failing to comply with regulations when selling securities linked to American International Group Inc., the FSA said in a statement. UBS failed to conduct due diligence on AIG Enhanced Variable Rate Funds before selling them to its clients. The bank claimed the fund invested in money market instruments, when in fact "a significant proportion of the fund's assets were invested in other assets," the document noted.

February 12, 2013, 20:00 / Business / News RSA named the most unprofitable regions for compulsory motor liability insurance undefined Vedomosti The most unprofitable regions in terms of compulsory motor liability insurance are the Ulyanovsk region, Kamchatka region, Murmansk region, Karachay-Cherkessia and Mordovia, the head of the Russian Union of Auto Insurers (RUA) Pavel Bunin told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the expert council on insurance under the State Duma committee.

telecommunications company Voentelecom The , subordinate to the Ministry of Defense through Oboronservis , has replaced its board of directors and general director, an official representative of the company said on Tuesday. “ was held in Moscow An extraordinary general meeting of shareholders OJSC of Voentelecom , at which a decision was made to terminate the powers of the old board of directors and elect a new board.

V. Matytsin / ITAR-TASS The State Duma approved the bill "On the protection of public health from the effects of environmental tobacco smoke and the consequences of tobacco consumption" in its third reading at a plenary session on Tuesday. The bill passed all readings in two months. The document prepared for the third reading is not much different from the version that the Ministry of Health submitted to the government at the end of August.

Moscow and Maputo will soon complete work on an intergovernmental agreement on the use of Mozambique's debt to finance projects to restore the infrastructure of this African country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday following talks with his Mozambican counterpart Oldemiru Bala.

Standard & Poor's (S&P) on Monday raised the outlook on Ireland's BBB+ sovereign credit rating to stable after Dublin struck a deal on bank debt that boosted its chances of exiting a bailout by the end of 2013. Fitch had earlier taken the same ratings action, leaving Moody's the only major agency with a negative outlook on Irish government bonds.

E.Razumny / for Vedomosti Russian President Vladimir Putin has introduced a bill to the State Duma banning officials and their family members from having bank accounts and securities abroad. As stated in the explanatory note to the document, the ban is established for the purposes of national security, streamlining lobbying activities and increasing investment in the national economy.

Moscow will continue to monitor the fate of all Russian children adopted by Americans, Russian Foreign Ministry Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law Konstantin Dolgov said on Tuesday. "From the point of view of our position, nothing has changed - just as we previously insisted on providing information (about adopted children) and achieved it, so we will continue to do so now," he said.

OJSC "Lenenergo" Electric grid company. Serves electricity consumers in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. The total length of overhead power lines is 37,123.3 km. Shareholders: OJSC Holding MRSK (43.36%), KUGI (24.56%). Capitalization – 8.1 billion rubles. Financial indicators (IFRS, three quarters of 2012): Revenue – 24.6 billion rubles, Net loss – 512 million rubles.

President Vladimir Putin has abolished his office of advisers by decree.

February 12, 2013, 01:52 / Finance Inflation approaches annual high Inflation is approaching an annual maximum, which may remain at this level until the summer. This is a test for the declared policy of macroeconomic stability Olga Kuvshinova M. Stulov / Vedomosti According to the Ministry of Economic Development, the consumer price index in February will be 0.6–0.7%.

The US Geological Survey recorded a 4.9 magnitude tremor in North Korea, Reuters reports. It happened at 11:57 a.m. local time on Tuesday. According to US seismologists, the epicenter of the seismic activity was at a depth of 1 km, geographically close to the North Korean nuclear test site Punggye-ri. The press service of the President of South Korea stated that it was possibly a nuclear test, which Pyongyang announced plans to conduct last Monday.

Moody's Investor Services said on Tuesday that the risks of a global economic slowdown have diminished in the past three months, but the threat remains. In a new report on global macroeconomic risk scenarios, the agency said it expects slow economic growth in many countries. "While our core forecasts have changed little, the downside risks have certainly diminished over the past three months," said Collin Ellis, senior vice president at Moody's.