Banks will be able to check the honesty of borrowers in credit bureaus It may soon become easier and cheaper to be the happy owner of a bank loan, and the number of unscrupulous borrowers who do not repay their money will tend to zero.

The representative of the Central Bank was saved from prison by a “change of situation” The Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow yesterday handed down a new verdict to the Deputy Head of the Main Directorate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation for Moscow, Alexander Alekseev, the only defendant in the sensational case of a missing loan of almost a billion dollars, which was issued by the Central Bank to SBS-Agro Bank immediately after the default in 1998.

RUSAL will deal with airplanes, beer cans and foil optionally The other day, Chairman of the Board of Directors of RUSAL Oleg Deripaska announced that in the next ten years about 7 billion dollars will be invested in business development. Of this, 4 billion will go to the construction of new plants, 2 billion to the acquisition of new assets and only 1 billion to modernization of existing facilities.

Hockey. NHL. Regular season. Philadelphia -- New Jersey -- 4:1 -- Markov "F" (1+0) , Tampa Bay -- Toronto -- 4:4, Buffalo -- Sun -Jose" - 2:1, "Florida" - "Montreal" - 2:1 - Vic. Kozlov "F" (2+0), Markov "M" (1+0), "Ottawa" -- "St. Louis" -- 3:1, "Pittsburgh" -- "Boston" -- 3:6 - - Samsonov "B" (1+0), "Minnesota" -- "Los Angeles" -- 1:3, "Calgary" -- "Atlanta" -- 5:2 -- Kovalchuk "A" (2+0 ), Vyach. Kozlov “A” (0+1), Saprykin “K” (0+2), “Colorado” - “Islanders” - 1:1 - Kvasha “A” (0+1) .

The struggle of the Iraqi resistance against the Americans is turning into a campaign of terror against their compatriots who decided to side with the new government. At least 47 people were killed and about 50 were wounded in Baghdad yesterday after an explosion outside a recruiting center for the new Iraqi army. “It was a suicide bombing,” says US Army Colonel Ralph Baker.

Merge replaced by interaction The initiative of RSPP Bureau member Vladimir Potanin to create a single business organization consisting of representatives of large, medium and small businesses remains unrealized - the merger of RSPP, Business Russia and OPORA has been postponed indefinitely.

The Moscow government does not want to share powers with municipal deputies Today the presidential race officially starts in Russia. At the same time, the majority of Muscovites, watching with interest the statements of Vladimir Putin, the outfits of Irina Khakamada and the incredible adventures of Ivan Rybkin, did not notice the start of another election campaign.

“When the bird flu virus gets into the stomach, it dies.” The World Health Organization (WHO), having barely managed to cope with SARS, entered into a new battle - with bird flu, which poses a serious threat to humanity. Dr. Klaus STER, who heads a new project at WHO to monitor and study the outbreak of avian influenza strain H5N1, answered questions from a Vremya Novostei newspaper correspondent. - Does bird flu really deserve special study?

The governments of the European Union countries, fearing new bankruptcies after the collapse of the Italian dairy giant Parmalat, decided to hedge their bets. At a meeting of the European Parliament on Tuesday, its participants voted to establish a special committee whose responsibilities will include monitoring the work of global rating agencies. Their ratings determine the conditions for granting loans to companies and states and issuing shares and bonds.

The real bargaining between Washington and Pyongyang will begin only after the US elections North Korea's agreement to hold the second round of six-party talks in Beijing on February 25 with the participation of the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea seems to be a good sign, indicating the readiness of all parties to continue to seek a compromise.

Chairman of the Moscow City Duma Vladimir PLATONOV believes that Muscovites are well informed about municipal elections -- Vladimir Mikhailovich, the Moscow authorities are accused of organizing an information blockade of municipal elections. How would you comment on this? — These elections will not pass unnoticed by Muscovites; all necessary information has been communicated to residents.

The prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Carla del Ponte, said yesterday that the war criminals wanted by the tribunal since 1995, the legendary Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, are hiding in Belgrade. Similar unsubstantiated accusations against the Serbian authorities have been heard for three years now. “If the suspects were in Serbia, they would have already been arrested,” the republic’s Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic is indignant.

A group of apartment scammers was detained in Krasnoyarsk. It was led by a private entrepreneur Stanislav Kucher and a realtor from one of the Krasnoyarsk real estate agencies.

The Moscow City Duma proposes to increase fines for migrant workers If the State Duma is still preparing to discuss “anti-terrorist” amendments to the legislation, the capital’s deputies decided not to put the matter off for a long time. Yesterday, the Moscow City Duma proposed to the “senior comrades” from Okhotny Ryad to tighten punishment for illegal migrants and employers who use guest workers without official registration.

The government will help commercial banks compete with the monopoly The government's discussion of the banking sector development strategy ended yesterday with a surprise. Officials agreed to amend the newly adopted law “On Deposit Insurance” by removing state guarantees for newly opened deposits in Sberbank this spring (and not since 2007). For deposits already opened in it, state guarantees remained inviolable.