NASA showed off a new super telescope The US National Aerospace Agency is preparing to change the way we look at the Universe. At the end of last week, NASA showed the public what the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is scheduled to go into deep Earth orbit in 2013, will look like. A life-size model of the apparatus stood in the US capital in the open air next to the Smithsonian Aerospace Museum, and everyone could admire this miracle of astronomical technology.

The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade proposes to exempt from duties the import of equipment that has no analogues in Russia This week, the Ministry of Economic Development will submit to the White House a draft resolution on the abolition or reduction of import customs duties on technological equipment that has no domestic analogues. This is the second such step aimed at modernizing Russian industry.

Major European banks are looking for an alternative to MasterCard and Visa A group of major European banks is discussing options for creating a single European payment card system that could compete with Visa and MasterCard. An alternative to international giants is currently planned to be created on the basis of the Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes (EAPS), a recently created network for the mutual acceptance of cards from German, Italian and Spanish local payment systems.

Unknown Prana LLC won the auction for the sale of Yukos offices The last major auction for the sale of Yukos property , held last Friday, set a record. Only two participants were allowed to participate - the “granddaughter” of Rosneft, Neft-Aktiv, and the Prana company. The auction lasted for more than three hours, and during this time the bidders managed to make as many as 707 steps, as a result of which the price of the lot increased 4.5 times, from 22 billion to 100.09 billion rubles.

The "trade union" of businessmen stood up for migrant workers Having experienced, in the first five months of the new migration policy, the arbitrariness of local officials when processing applications for foreign labor, Russian business is ripe for declaring its position, which differs from the official point of view of the authorities.

German RWE rises in price on rumors of takeover by Electricite de France No sooner had passions cooled down in the European energy market after the unsuccessful attempt by the private German concern E.ON to obtain a controlling stake in the Spanish Endesa than rumors of a new large-scale merger flared up.

Special operations against militants in the Dagestan residential sector continue Last weekend, Dagestan police officers once again had to take part in a street battle - to “smoke out” terrorists entrenched there from a private house. There is still no exact information on how many bandits were killed during the special operation - although the police found the body of only one bandit under the rubble of the house, law enforcement officers have reason to believe that there were more.

CONCERTS "Two geniuses of one era" . Chamber choir "Vivat" , conductor Igor Zhuravlenko , string ensemble "Prestige-Classic" conducted by Natalya Silkina and soloist Fyodor Stroganov (harpsichord). Program: Handel - cantata Dixit dominum, Italian duets accompanied by strings and cymbals, trio sonata for strings, “Sing to the Lord a new song”, Anthem IV from the XI Chendos Psalms, Alleluja from the oratorio “Messiah” and Vivaldi - Kyrie, Magnificat, concerto for strings and cymbal.

Chronicle of sporting events The Tomsk-400 team won the Russian club championship, held in Dagomys. Ten participants of the Premier League played each other in one round, with each match taking place on six boards. The standings were awarded two points for a win, one for a draw, and zero for a loss. "Tomsk-400" finished with a 100% result - 18 points. The second place went to the Yekaterinburg Ural (14 points), the top three winners were closed by the Cheboksary club Elara.

Prosperous Armenia performed worse than expected On Sunday, the Central Election Commission of Armenia summed up the preliminary results of the elections to the new National Assembly of the republic. As expected by the Vremya Novostei newspaper , the overwhelming majority of seats in parliament will be taken by two pro-government parties - the Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia, which together received almost 40% of the votes.

A series of explosions rocked what was considered a relatively calm northern Iraq, home to a predominantly Kurdish population. Yesterday, a suicide bomber drove a truck filled with explosives into the building of the Kurdistan Democratic Party branch in the city of Makhmur, which is 50 kilometers from Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. At least 50 people were killed, including the local police chief, and more than a hundred were injured.

Yushchenko lost touch with the Donetsk elite Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko replaced the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC). On Saturday, he fired Vitaly Gaiduk , who submitted his resignation, and had served as secretary of this department since October 2006. In his place was appointed Ivan Plyushch, Speaker of the Rada in 1991-1995 and 2000-2002, who contributed to the unification of national democratic forces and Yushchenko’s coming to power.

It's hard to forget Andijan Yesterday, on the second anniversary of the tragic Andijan events, rallies were held in London, Brussels, Kyiv, Moscow and other cities in memory of the victims of this bloodshed. On May 13, 2005, in the Uzbek city of Andijan (Fergana Valley), government troops suppressed anti-government unrest . Indiscriminate fire on a crowd of demonstrators, among whom there were many bystanders, claimed the lives of, according to official figures, 187 people.

VTsIOM released an "Election Guide" Another monograph by the team of authors of the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion Research has been published, summing up the results of research conducted by this leading sociological center in the country in 2006. The book is called "Guide to Elections" and its content focuses on the upcoming elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation at the end of 2007.

The State Duma finally approved the bill on reforming the Prosecutor General's Office The State Duma, in the final, third reading, adopted a bill on reform of the investigation system in Russia - transferring the function of conducting investigations from the prosecutor's office to a specially created Investigative Committee (IC) under the Prosecutor General's Office.