Yesterday in Luxembourg, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül met with the foreign ministers of Finland, which is presiding over the European Union and Germany, which is taking over the presidency in the next six months - Erkki Tuomioja and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as well as European Commission (EC) Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn. On November 8, Mr. Ren will present a report on the progress of reforms being carried out in Turkey to bring it closer to EU standards.

Pyongyang begins life under sanctions regime According to the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Muhammad ElBaradei, within a “very short time” up to 30 countries could become “virtually new nuclear states” with the technology to create nuclear weapons. The Director General announced this yesterday in Vienna at an IAEA symposium on measures to improve control over the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Yesterday, Swedish Culture Minister Cecilia Stego Cilo was forced to resign. For 16 years, she evaded paying the mandatory subscription fee for television and paying taxes for hiring a housekeeper. This is the second member of the new government led by Frederick Reinfeld to resign. Two days earlier, Trade Minister Maria Borelius left the cabinet after being convicted of similar violations.

In the north and center of European Russia, weather conditions will be dictated by the Atlantic cyclone in the next 24 hours; it is already approaching the Murmansk region, and is expected in the Polar Urals on Wednesday.

Oleg Deripaska resigned as head of the board of directors of RUSAL The leadership of RUSAL has changed: during the formation of the united company, which will include RUSAL, SUAL and the alumina assets of the Swiss Glencore, Oleg Deripaska will be replaced as chairman of the board of directors by the former head of the Australian WMC, Andrew Michelmore, who was hired by him six months ago. However, Mr. Deripaska will retain his membership on the board of directors of RUSAL.

Inter is at the center of a scandal While Juventus, Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina are trying through numerous appeals to reduce the number of penalty points by another 30%, with which it is difficult to get out of the basement of the standings, the echo of the proceedings has reached Inter Milan. In the camp of the Nerazzurri, who will have to beat Spartak Moscow at home tomorrow, not everything is in order with purely football matters.

Russia and NATO today do not consider themselves likely adversaries. At least this is officially declared. Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance actively cooperate within the framework of the Russia-NATO Council, but their positions on a number of key military-political issues can hardly be called similar. One of the problems is the deployment of a new missile defense system in Europe and Moscow's negative attitude towards this project.

Hungarian director conducted a social therapy session The “Territory” festival began with the theater, which is generally logical. Firstly, the organizers of the festival are entirely from the theatrical environment: actors Evgeny Mironov, Chulpan Khamatova, director Kirill Serebrennikov, theater critic Roman Dolzhansky and Teodor Currentzis - the chief conductor and artistic director of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater.

Geothermal energy is not popular in Kamchatka In the Kamchatka region, where, perhaps, like nowhere else in Russia, the development of geothermal energy is promising, an enterprise that has a monopoly on the development and use of numerous geothermal water deposits has fallen under bankruptcy proceedings.

The ITAR-TASS department manager, investigators believe, was the victim of a domestic quarrel. The executive director and business manager of the ITAR-TASS news agency, Anatoly Voronin (pictured), was found dead yesterday afternoon in his apartment in the center of Moscow. Forensic experts found six stab wounds on his body. The Moscow prosecutor's office took over the investigation into the murder.

The deadline for re-registration of foreign NPOs in Russia expires tomorrow The re-registration of Russian branches of foreign non-profit organizations, provided for by the new version of the law on NPOs, will inevitably lead to their reduction. The day before the deadline for submitting notifications to the Federal Registration Service, we can already talk about this with complete confidence.

The transition of the Our Ukraine presidential bloc to the opposition, promised in early October, has become the main intrigue of the political life of Ukraine. The situation should become clearer today.

The season that ended will be remembered for a series of doping scandals The jubilee, 100th race on the roads of Italy, the Giro Di Lombardia, ended the next season of road cycling pros. There are only a few insignificant starts on the international calendar until the end of the year, so we can already sum up the results.

In Ecuador, candidates have been identified to participate in the second round of presidential elections, scheduled for November 26. They were the country's richest man, banana magnate Alvaro Noboa, and left-wing representative Rafael Correa, a friend of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro. After 70% of the ballots were counted in Sunday's first round of elections, Noboa, 55, received 26.7% of the vote.

Russia ignored the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative The third conference of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) will conclude today in Oslo. Despite words of support for this event in the final communiqué of the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, the organizers failed to recruit new participants. And the country richest in natural resources - Russia (which also hosted the G8 group this year) - completely ignored the conference.