April 4 -- May 4, 2007 “Politicians Through the Eyes of the Media,” a joint project of Vremya Novostei and the Medialogia company, are ratings of the political figures most actively discussed in the Russian media.

Yushchenko and Yanukovych are ready to quarrel again The emerging compromise in Ukraine between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych is breaking down . They have almost agreed to hold early elections to the Rada, but yesterday’s meeting between the two leaders turned out to be fruitless. Immediately after the meeting, Yushchenko said that on May 8-9 the Rada would not be able to accept compromise documents.

Russian peacekeepers billed the government The Supreme Court ruled on yet another lawsuit to invalidate a number of regulations of the Russian government, which brought to light a completely unexpected and scandalous topic - the truly plight of the Russian “blue helmets” carrying out the UN peacekeeping mission as civilian police officers.

Moody's changed ratings of Russian banks Moody's Investors Service yesterday announced a revision of the ratings of 79 Russian banks. This happened in connection with the emergence of a new methodology for assessing credit institutions at the agency. And although, thanks to the updated methodology, many banks have had their ratings raised, none of them are financially stable enough to reach investment grade, the first level of which (at Moody's - Baa3) has long been occupied by Russia.

The author of the script for the film “1612” and the co-author of the script for “Mongol” is the same person, Arif Aliyev, who ten years ago received the State Prize for the script for “Prisoner of the Caucasus,” but for a long time preferred to remain simply a “journalist writing about travel.” Our correspondent Irina LYUBARSKAYA met with Arif ALIYEV - Tell me, Arif, have you really become the “Kremlin nightingale” now, as they say? - I don’t even know what to say to this...

The economic sanctions that Russia imposes or threatens to impose against post-Soviet states whose policies the Russian authorities do not like bring us neither economic nor political benefits. Therefore, before “punishing” unwanted neighbors in a jingoistic frenzy, it is fundamentally important to calculate the consequences of such punishment for ourselves and for those whom we are trying to protect in this way.

Russia dropped in the ranking of information technology development The research division of The Economist magazine, with the participation of the IBM Institute for Business Value, has published its latest annual ranking of e-readiness for 69 countries. The main results of the 2007 rating are as follows. Denmark, the USA and Sweden, like a year ago, retain their leadership, but Asian countries, led by Singapore and Hong Kong, have come close to them.

In an interview with Vremya Novostei, Mikhail CHECHETOV, deputy head of the Party of Regions faction in the Rada, comments on the situation in Ukraine. — How should the prime minister’s concession on the issue of holding early elections be assessed as a victory or a defeat? - In this situation, neither the president nor the prime minister lost or won. Ukraine won .

The President of Russia knows about the problems of tourists Transport Minister Igor Levitin yesterday instructed Rosaviation and Rostransnadzor to check how Russian airlines fulfilled their New Year charter programs. In this way, the ministry responded to several cases of many-hour delays of charter flights that occurred in the first two weeks of January at both Russian and foreign airfields.

Angela Merkel reassured Poland before her visit to Sochi The First Lady of Germany, the European Union and the G8, Angela Merkel, continues to prepare for her first visit to Russia in such a triune capacity, scheduled for next Sunday. The meeting in Sochi promises to be tense. Mrs. Merkel will inevitably have to convey to her Russian colleague the idea that it is impossible to risk the energy security of Europe like what happened during the days of the oil conflict with Minsk .

Aluminum corporations staged a race for leadership Perhaps the primacy of the United Russian Aluminum Company , recently created as a result of the merger of RUSAL, SUAL and the alumina assets of the Swiss Glencore, in the global aluminum industry will end just before it began. Yesterday, one of the industry leaders in the production of primary aluminum, the American corporation Alcoa, made an offer to purchase its main competitor - Canadian Alcan.

The State Duma is discussing the need for a Russian language test for migrants Despite the federal government's satisfaction with the results of the new "market" and migration policies , Russian legislators seem to believe that the measures taken are still insufficient to effectively screen out guest workers . Some State Duma deputies believe that a document confirming knowledge of the Russian language should be a mandatory condition when entering the country to work.

Bank of China is concerned about the stock market The Chinese central bank remains concerned about excessive stock market activity and is monitoring inflation and asset prices, which are too high even for such a fast-growing economy. Since the beginning of the year, the Chinese stock market has grown by more than 40%, and, according to the head of the Chinese Central Bank, Zhou Xiaochuan, the existence of a “bubble” in the stock market is a matter of concern.

Leman Pipe, controlled by Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, is trying to conquer the Russian market A new player in the pipe market may appear in Russia. The intentions of the Leman Pipe group, owned by the Ukrainian group System Capital Management of Rinat Akhmetov, together with its Russian partners, to build a plant for the production of large-diameter pipes were reported to Interfax yesterday in the industry department of the Kurgan region administration. The official called Mr.

The explosion of the main gas pipeline did not affect gas supplies to Europe Yesterday, on the territory of Ukraine, after an explosion, one of the gas pipelines through which Russian gas flows to Europe failed. As Interfax reports with reference to the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Ukraine, the accident occurred near the village of Luka, Tarashchansky district, Kyiv region.