Russian banks will pay less for private investors Russian banks offering private deposits to the population may begin to contribute less money to the insurance fund this year. In mid-March, the Deposit Insurance Agency intends to consider the issue of reducing the financial burden on credit institutions. If the DIA board of directors makes a positive decision, new rates for banks will begin to apply in the second half of the year.

Winter is gaining strength in European Russia. In the coming days, the onset of cold weather in the northwestern and central regions of European Russia will continue. In the northwestern regions, at night in some places the temperature will drop to -35°C, during the day -13...-18°C, in some places to -25°C. The center of Russia will be in the rear part of the cyclone leaving to the northeast. During the day the temperature will drop to -14...-20°C.

Chronicle of sporting events The managers of the Russian professional heavyweight boxer, champion of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens Alexander Povetkin, received an offer to hold a fight from their colleagues working with the American David Bostis. Povetkin, following his retirement from amateur boxing, began his professional career in June 2005 and has since fought ten fights. The Russian won in all these fights, and in eight cases - ahead of schedule.

On Friday, in the town of Shukolovo near Moscow, at the Leonid Tyagachev Ski Club, the Snowboard World Cup starts. It is being held in Russia for the third time and will open with parallel slalom competitions, where 19-year-old Ekaterina Tudegesheva will take part. It was she who became the first Russian athlete to win gold at the world championship in snowboarding. On the eve of the tournament, Vremya Novostei correspondent Olga ERMOLINA spoke with Ekaterina TUDEGESHEVA.

The Ministry of Emergency Situations is creating a new system for warning and identifying threats This year, the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations plans to complete the creation of a fundamentally new system for alerting the population about emergency situations. The all-Russian integrated system of informing and alerting the population in places where people are in large numbers (abbreviated OKSION) will work in all cities with a population of more than a million people.

"A family man" became Poland's defense minister Today, 43-year-old Alexander Szczyglo (pictured) , until yesterday the head of the administration of President Lech Kaczynski, takes office as Minister of Defense of Poland. The name of the successor to the head of the military department became known on Monday, just a couple of hours after the resignation of Radoslaw Sikorski. One of the fastest changes in the history of the Polish government took place.

The four international mediators in the Middle East settlement (Russia, the USA, the European Union and the UN) decided to intensify their efforts. Now is the time to do this - the unrest in Palestine is intensifying, and there is no need to talk about peace between Palestinians and Israelis. The Middle East quartet, which met rarely in 2006 largely due to US reluctance, will meet on February 21 in Berlin.

Chechen authorities are not giving up attempts to increase compensation for Stalin's deportation 50 years after the decision on the rehabilitation of the Chechen and Ingush peoples and the restoration of the Chechen-Ingush autonomy within the RSFSR, abolished, as is known, by Stalin in 1944 after the total deportation of the indigenous population to Central Asia, in Grozny there is an increased interest in compensation for moral and material damage caused by deportation.

Poiret does not agree that Bjoerndalen is the greatest The World Championships in Anterselva (Italy) are marked by the rivalry between two great biathletes of our time. Before the start of the current tournament, Norwegian Ole Einar Bjoerndalen and Frenchman Raphael Poiret each had in their collection seven top awards won at world championships.

All bank deposits turned out to be unprofitable in January The traditionally high January inflation, which this year amounted to 1.7%, became the reason that deposits denominated in both rubles and foreign currencies turned out to be unprofitable. Due to the fall in global oil prices, mutual funds also performed poorly. Such data was published yesterday by the Center for Macroeconomic Research (CMER) of the BDO Unicon company.

MEDT and Ministry of Health and Social Development will argue about pension projects The Ministry of Economic Development insists on not just maintaining the funded pension system in Russia, but radically raising the role of private management companies in it. This was stated yesterday by Deputy Head of the Ministry of Economic Development Andrei Sharonov.

Development Bank may enter Sukhoi capital Vnesheconombank announced yesterday its intention to acquire at least 10% of the shares of Sukhoi Civil Aircraft (SCAC), which is designing the Sukhoi Superjet 100 regional aircraft. However, VEB is ready to carry out this transaction only after it itself has been transformed into a Development Bank. The Russian government introduced a bill on the Development Bank to the State Duma in January.

Jealousy brought NASA astronaut to handcuffs American astronauts have once again given Hollywood a story worthy of being immortalized on film produced by the world's dream factory. The report from the Orlando airport police station about the arrest and charging of astronaut Lisa Marie Novak with assault on a person can be considered a scenario application.

Georgians warmly greeted and coldly saw off the Russian ambassador Yesterday in Moscow, representatives of the Russian Ministry of Transport and the Georgian National Transport Commission agreed to create a working group to resume air traffic, which was interrupted in early October 2006 .

The Ministry of Natural Resources returned the water use license to the project With the arrival of Gazprom in Sakhalin-2, it seems that the attitude of officials towards the project is gradually changing. As it became known yesterday, Rosvodresursy renewed 12 licenses for water use of the general contractor of Sakhalin-2 - the Starstroy company (owned by LUKOIL and Eni).