Inter has established itself as a leader The main news of the past week in Italy was the end of the investigation into corruption in calcio. As a result of the final proceedings, eight officials were charged with pressuring footballers, such as David Trezeguet, who were forced to sign contracts with the Gea World agency, owned by the son of former Juventus director Luciano Moggi.

Tbilisi and Washington disagree on natural gas purchases from Iran Washington, it seems, will have to sacrifice principles and turn a blind eye to the cooperation of “brotherly” Georgia with “terrible” Iran . The discussion between American diplomats about whether Tbilisi should be “allowed” to buy gas from the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regime was interrupted yesterday by Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli. “We will buy gas from Iran, there is no other opinion,” RIA Novosti quotes him as saying.

The commander of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), General Yahya Rahim Safavi, hinted to the press that yesterday's crash of an An-74 military transport aircraft assigned to the IRGC could have occurred due to sabotage. According to the general, the action could be timed to coincide with the 27th anniversary of the IRGC, celebrated this week.

Neil Gaiman. Anansi's children. Translation from English A. Komarinets. - M.: AST, 2006. Gaiman has been consistently published in Russia - two novels a year - ever since four years ago when American Gods supplanted the former favorites on fantasy culture fan sites. In America, a real gayman boom happened only after the release of his last novel, Anansi Boys, in 2005.

OECD report calls on Russia to reduce the state's share of the economy If it were not for the persistent recommendation to the state to stop buying up property, the authorship of the economic review of Russia prepared by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) could be attributed to the Russian Ministry of Finance and its head Alexei Kudrin personally. “Although economic growth remains high, the factors driving it are short-lived,” the report says.

Anatoly Kvashnin became the main evidence of the crisis of the institution of plenipotentiary representatives The presidential plenipotentiary representative in the Siberian Federal District, Anatoly Kvashnin, turned out to be the most unpopular of the seven plenipotentiary representatives of the head of state. According to the latest VTsIOM survey, only 22% of Russians evaluate its activities positively. At the same time, 51% of respondents are dissatisfied with the work of Mr. Kvashnin.

The other day, Belarus began surveying Russian tourists entering the country. After Minsk announced this intention in early November, fears arose in Russia that this move could lead to the resumption of controls on the joint border. However, the Belarusian authorities explain the survey by the need to collect statistical data and promise that the border between the union states will remain open.

One hundred years ago Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev was born Thirty years ago, the Nauka publishing house published a collection of scientific works entitled “The Cultural Heritage of Ancient Rus'. Origins. Becoming. Traditions." It opened with an article by three outstanding medievalists, “Problems in the Study of Old Russian Literature,” only by reaching the third paragraph of which the reader should have understood what he was dealing with.

Moscow December Evenings open with an exhibition on the history of masks After last year’s unsuccessful exhibition of traditional December evenings organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, doubt crept in whether anyone still had the strength and courage for this festival. Thank God, everything turned out to be not so sad. Today the December Evenings 2006 will open with the exquisitely conceived and carefully prepared exhibition “Masks: from myth to carnival”.

The cause of the accident could have been a wet road, high speed or an assassination attempt. Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov , hospitalized in France after a car accident , is in intensive care at a Marseille burn center “in a stable condition.” This information was officially reported yesterday by the Russian Consulate General in this southern French city. According to the local press, Mr. Kerimov suffered serious burns: about 70% of the surface of his body was damaged by the fire.

With a phenomenal result, the silver medalist of the World Championships (2004, 2006), European champion (2004), silver (2003, 2005) and bronze (2002, 2006) medalist of the European Championship, Frenchman Brian Joubert, won the Moscow stage of the Grand Prix of the Russian Cup. The native of Poitiers set two personal records at once, scoring 160.13 in the free program, and 237.83 points based on the results of two programs - short and free.

Two options for the fate of the American empire Among the books about the United States that have been published recently, I would like to draw special attention to two, which are distinguished from others by one feature in the position of the authors - they talk about today's America as an established empire. Based on this logic, they are trying to understand the current situation.

Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said yesterday after meetings with his colleagues from Cyprus and Turkey, Georgios Lillikas and Abdullah Gul, that negotiations with Ankara on the Cyprus problem have reached a dead end. Now Finland, which holds the EU presidency until the end of this year, together with the European Commission will prepare proposals for continuing negotiations on Turkey’s accession to the EU.

A marine refrigerator is in distress off the coast of Primorye due to shipowners An absurd situation has developed off the coast of the Primorsky Territory. The marine refrigerator "Cape Turali" began to drift five nautical miles from the port of Preobrazhenie. 36 crew members could see the lights of the shore for almost a week, but due to the fact that the border was not open to them, they were not able to land on this shore.

NATO leaders landed in the capital of Latvia Yesterday afternoon, high-ranking guests began arriving at Riga Airport. The leaders and ministers of defense of all countries of the North Atlantic Alliance are participating in the NATO summit that opens today. Russia was not invited, citing the fact that the internal affairs of the Alliance would be discussed in Riga.