Andrey Kostin intends to sell a quarter of the state bank on the stock exchanges Chairman of the Board of VTB Andrei Kostin yesterday at the economic forum in Davos revealed some details of the bank's upcoming IPO. Presumably in November of this year, VTB plans to place a 25% stake on trading floors in Moscow and London. Market participants expect that the placement will be very successful, and during the course of it VTB will be able to attract at least $2.5 billion.

The President approves surveillance of Americans George W. Bush visited the holy of holies of American espionage - the National Security Agency (NSA), whose headquarters is located near Washington, in Fort Meade, Maryland. This department has electronic ears all over the globe. At the NSA, Bush was shown a room with a screen displaying statistics on communications in cyberspace - up to 592 billion messages per day. A small podium was set up in one of the NSA halls.

The authorities of the Sverdlovsk region are unhappy with the national project "Health" The priority national projects announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the beginning of September last year unexpectedly received the first portion of criticism from the regions.

Rosselkhoznadzor official exposed forbidden meat The Moscow prosecutor's office yesterday announced the arrest of one of the officials of the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor) for bribery. What position he held in this department remained unclear yesterday. It is only known that the name of the detainee, against whom the prosecutor's office of the Central Administrative District (CAO) of Moscow opened a criminal case, is Sergei Romanov. Mr.

The draft agreement with Russia will be assessed by the Constitutional Court of Latvia Yesterday, the Latvian Seimas adopted in the first reading a bill according to which the Constitutional Court must give a legal assessment of the text of the border treaty between Russia and Latvia. The decision is not final. There are two more readings of the bill in the Sejm ahead.

A national anti-terrorist body will appear in Russia In the near future, the State Duma will consider in the second reading the draft federal law “On Countering Terrorism.” Last November, the President became acquainted with the concept of this document and approved it. The new bill will replace the 1998 Anti-Terrorism Law, which has become outdated.

Valery Brudov will fight for the WBA championship belt Russia today can get another world champion in professional boxing. In a fight in the ring of the Tropicana casino in Atlantic City with American Virgil Hill, Russian heavyweight Valery Brudov will challenge the vacant WBA championship belt. It is impossible to predict how this fight will end: the eminent Hill has not entered the ring for almost two years, and the Pskov-born Brudov is almost unknown to the general public.

Prime Minister Kulov throws a “life preserver” to President Bakiyev Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Felix Kulov made an unusually harsh statement on Wednesday regarding the latest events in the country, which gave him reason to talk about the intensification of the process of merging crime with power in the country. The reason for Kulov’s demarche was the acquittal by the court on January 24 of the country’s well-known criminal authority, Ryspek Akmatbaev, who was accused of murder.

The Prime Minister entered into a new conflict with ministers The situation within the government of Mikhail Fradkov once again resembles a public apparatus war: the conflict between the prime minister and some subordinates provokes scandal after scandal, which, apparently, has become one of the reasons for a new surge in rumors about the imminent resignation of the head of the cabinet of ministers. The story of the end of last week has not yet been forgotten, when Mr.

The blame for the week of cold weather can be laid on a resident of Yaroslavl Galina Gromova, a rhythmic gymnastics coach from Yaroslavl, came up with an unprecedented way to glorify herself throughout the country. True, the national fame that the deputy director of the Yaroslavl sports school No. 5 secured for herself for a very small sum could also result in very sad consequences for her - after all, Ms.

Armenia will not get equipment from Georgia Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov, who arrived in Armenia on a working visit, visited the 102nd Russian military base in Gyumri. The base was created in 1995 for a period of 25 years. It is subordinate to the Group of Russian Forces in Transcaucasia and is armed with S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems and MiG-29 fighters. The number of personnel is about five thousand military personnel.

The cyclone will mark the North-West region with heavy snow on Friday, gusty winds will cause snowstorms, air temperature at night -6...-10oC, during the day -1...-6oC. On Sunday, a new cyclone, already approaching Murmansk, will spread its influence to the North-Western region. And already in the morning it will start snowing here again, and the air temperature after the night frosts will be -10...-15oC.

A 3D computer reconstruction of the Kremlin was presented in Moscow For the 200th anniversary of the Kremlin museums, the German construction company Knauf gave them a gift: a three-dimensional computer film - a journey through the ancient Kremlin. Epoch after era, from the 12th century to the 20th, we will observe how the ancient city ensemble was transformed, how wooden buildings were replaced by white stone ones, and those, in turn, by red brick ones.

A program to resettle orphanages is being launched in the Kaliningrad region The head of the westernmost Russian region, Georgy Boos, decided to resettle orphanages in the Kaliningrad region. And in the future, he wants to close them altogether, finding a family for each orphanage resident. Mr. Boos first voiced this idea before the New Year. Like many other proposals of the ambitious Kaliningrad governor, at first it seemed unrealistic.

Henin-Hardenne beats Sharapova to win her 22nd match in a row in Australia Maria Sharapova completed her performance at the Australian Open in Melbourne, the first Grand Slam tournament this season. In the semi-finals, the Russian woman who permanently resides in America lost to Justine Henin-Hardenne - 6:4, 1:6, 4:6. The Belgian's opponent in the decisive match for the main prize of the women's singles competition will be the winner of the November WTA Championship, Frenchwoman Amelie Mauresmo.