VTB wants to place Belarusian sovereign bonds in Russia Next year, foreign government bonds will appear on the Russian stock market for the first time. As VTB President Andrei Kostin said on Friday at the opening ceremony of the head office in Minsk, which was attended by Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, the placement of Belarusian bonds will take place in the first half of 2008.

The commander of British forces in the southern Iraqi province of Basra, Major General Graham Binn, yesterday handed over full security powers to the province to Governor Muhammad al-Waili. The 4.5 thousand British troops remaining there will act as instructors for 30 thousand Iraqi security forces and participate in combat operations only at the request of local authorities.

November 24 -- December 14, 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.

The president's party wins parliamentary elections Early parliamentary elections held yesterday in Kyrgyzstan ended in a landslide victory for the pro-presidential Ak Zhol (Bright Path) party created several months ago, which received an overwhelming majority of seats in the 90-seat Zhogorku Kenesh (parliament). These were the first elections in the republic held entirely according to the proportional system, to which 12 political parties were admitted.

Miami gets to know Russian art For the second year now, the prestigious contemporary art fair Art Basel Miami Beach has hosted a non-profit exhibition of Russian artists. Its organizer is Zhanna Bullock, an American of Russian origin, collector, head of the construction company RIGroup. Bullock takes Russian art seriously, believing that the rise of its popularity is close, it is only necessary to show it in the right way. Which is what Bullock does.

FOOTBALL. December 19-20. UEFA Cup. Group stage . 5th game week . The last of the Russian clubs to finish the season is the capital's Spartak. On Tuesday at 22.45 Moscow time, the red-whites will begin their away match against the French Toulouse. Also in this group “E”, the Swiss “Zurich” takes on the German “Bayer” (Leverkusen).

The mayor of Kaliningrad Yuri Savenko decided to become a State Duma deputy so as not to share powers with his successor One of the few “locomotives” of the United Russia party in the Duma elections who did not refuse a deputy mandate was the mayor of Kaliningrad, Yuri Savenko (pictured) . He headed the "capital" of the country's westernmost region for just over nine years - first as acting mayor, and then twice elected to this post by popular vote. The “reign” of Mr.

US visa recipients will fund the FBI The US State Department has decided to ease the burden of its costs for issuing visas by increasing the cost of the procedure. Starting January 1, 2008, an American nonimmigrant visa, which is needed for anyone traveling to the States on business, study or on a tourist trip, will cost $131 instead of the current $100. A significant part of the “increase” will go to the budget of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

One of the largest Russian pharmaceutical distributors continues to prepare for sale Representatives of one of the largest Russian pharmaceutical distributors - Protek - do not give up hope for a successful outcome of the deal with foreign partners. Yesterday, the company's press service told a Vremya Novostey correspondent that negotiations on the sale of a majority stake to the German concern Celesio are continuing.

The “Golden Verb” competition for foreign journalists, organized by the all-Russian public organization of media workers “Media-Soyuz”, summed up the results for 2007 and awarded colleagues covering the life of Russia abroad.

The strike at FORD is over Today, the Ford plant in Vsevolozhsk, Leningrad Region, is resuming normal production in three shifts, the company said in an official statement. This means that the enterprise administration managed to achieve a serious victory over the union - management forced the workers to end the strike and begin negotiations with the company. The strike committee had to abandon the action, which lost its meaning, since more than half of the workers returned to the assembly line.

Two major special operations were carried out in Chechnya and Dagestan Residents of Grozny last weekend once again witnessed the fighting that unfolded on one of the central boulevards of the Chechen capital. For more than ten hours, special forces stormed a group of militants holed up in one of the apartments of a five-story residential building. In the first minutes of the battle, the separatists managed to kill one and wound three riot police officers.

The Russian team confidently won the home stage of the Eurotour The Russian national ice hockey team won the Channel One Cup, the second stage of the Eurotour. Having received moral satisfaction, Vyacheslav Bykov's team did not win anything else. The coaches of the losing teams studied the nearest reserve, but the Russian coaches did not learn anything new. Topic number one at the current stage of the Eurotour is changing the format of the tournament.

In "A Just Russia" in the Urals they are again fighting for money and party posts Not counting the Stavropol Territory, where, not without the machinations of United Russia, the Just Russia party, right before the Duma elections, lost both its mayor of Stavropol Dmitry Kuzmin and the only “Socialist Revolutionary” - the speaker of the regional legislative assembly Andrei Utkin , against whom criminal cases were opened , the Sverdlovsk region is causing the party the most trouble.

The resignations of the heads of two social funds may become a prelude to the division of the Ministry of Health and Social Development The Ministry of Health and Social Development, subordinate to Tatyana Golikova, suddenly lost the heads of two funds at once. At the end of last week it became known that the head of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, Gennady Batanov, resigned.