Russians will not receive significant visa concessions from the United States. “Given the general tightening of US immigration policy, it would be premature to expect major changes for the better in bilateral visa relations,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Fedotov said yesterday.

Deputies change the law on deposit insurance The Banking Committee of the State Duma, when finalizing the bill “On insurance of deposits in banks” for the second reading (it will take place tomorrow), changed its main norm - the amount of compensation to depositors. According to the amendment adopted yesterday, private deposits will be fully guaranteed in the amount of up to 100 thousand rubles.

The Swiss won the final tournament of the year The final of the last competition of the season in men's tennis - the Masters Cup tournament with a prize fund of $3.7 million in Houston - ended with the unconditional victory of the Swiss Roger Federer over Andre Agassi from the USA - 6:3, 6:0, 6 :4. There was no fight in the decisive match of the tournament. When Federer led 2-0 in the second set, only 33 minutes had passed since the start of the match.

The President blocked the transfer of "autocitizen" Yesterday the head of state intervened in the Duma games with one of the most “social” laws of recent years. With a negative opinion on the bill on postponing the introduction of mandatory “motor citizenship”, Vladimir Putin made it clear that the populist initiatives of the deputies will not be implemented under any circumstances and the law will remain in effect.

The court found MTU-Intel a trade infringer The appellate instance of the Moscow Arbitration Court yesterday confirmed the decision that the Internet provider MTU-Intel is a violator of the exclusive right of the developer of multimedia programs Media Service 2000 to the Counter Strike trademark. MTU-Intel found itself hostage to the fact that the developer of the Counter Strike game, the American company Valve, did not register the rights to the trademark in Russia.

E.on commits €28 billion to ongoing investments Yesterday in Dusseldorf, at the headquarters of the German diversified energy concern E.on, the results of its activities for the first three quarters of this year were summed up. In the first nine months, the group's revenue increased by 33%, to 33.3 billion euros (for the same period last year - 25.1 billion euros).

CLUBS Vagif Sadikhov Trio (piano). Jazz. Le Club , 20.00. "Tubas groove": Evgenia Bragantseva (guitar, vocals), Sergey Shuranov (bass guitar), Sergey Vlasov (bass guitar), Valery Kuzmin (drums). "Course" , 20.00. CONCERTS Percussion ensemble of Mark Pekarsky , soloists Marina Sudzilovskaya (viola) and Nino Barkalaya (piano).

Popular music brings only losses For almost two years now, domestic and foreign media have been scaring us with the same thing: the record business is in a crisis, huge and widespread. Piracy is rampant. Western journalists see the cause of all troubles in latent piracy (illegal copying, distribution of MP3s via the Internet), while ours see it in simple piracy, which is 90 percent. Another pressing problem: the lack of new music stars.

Nature defenders do not trust the Ministry of Natural Resources and recall the State Committee for Ecology The III All-Russian Congress on Nature Conservation, opening today in Moscow, has caused a sharply negative attitude from the environmental community.

Centrists propose canceling two plenary sessions of the State Duma In the last weeks of the Duma's work, deputies want to have time to resolve as many important issues as possible. And, if possible, those that, when discussed, can once again remind voters of yourself and prevent competitors from doing so.

If Chisinau and Tiraspol accept the Russian plan for the Transnistrian settlement Yesterday, Vladimir Putin, during a regular meeting with members of the government in the Kremlin, announced that Russia is officially putting forward its plan for resolving the Transnistrian problem.

Pentagon chief comes to Korea to buy cannon fodder for Iraq Yesterday, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld carried out a difficult mission in Seoul. On the one hand, he came to South Korea as an envoy of a superpower that took upon itself the burden of protecting the southerners from potential aggression from the North. On the other hand, Rumsfeld was also a supplicant, interested in a favorable response from his interlocutors.

"United Russia" demands to punish the candidate for State Duma deputy who dared to stand up for Khodorkovsky Yesterday, the Left Bank Election Commission of the city of Voronezh began verifying a complaint from the Voronezh branch of United Russia against the candidate for this single-mandate constituency from the Union of Right Forces, Alexander Boldyrev.

Belarus decided to independently modernize Krinitsa Alexander Lukashenko held a meeting yesterday at which the prospects for the development of the Krinitsa brewery were discussed. The President of the Republic believes that Belarusian beer should be “the best in the world.” “This issue,” the press service of the head of state reported, citing his words, “has become not only economic, but also political. The reconstruction of this enterprise was planned for a long time.

Richard Ogdon has been appointed managing director and head of investment banking at the Troika Dialog investment company. He will replace Ruben Aganbegyan, currently managing director of the Renaissance Capital investment group, in this post. Prior to joining Troika, Mr. Ogdon held senior management positions at UBS for 13 years. From 1992 to 1998, Mr. Ogdon built SG Warburg's investment banking business in Russia, establishing and leading Warburg's Moscow office.