Deputies finally clarified what “human trafficking” is At the end of last week, the State Duma Committee on Civil, Criminal, Arbitration and Procedural Legislation finally introduced amendments to Art. 127 approx. 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (trafficking in persons).

The head of the Russian Church Abroad died on the day of the Triumph of Orthodoxy Metropolitan Laurus, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, who died last Sunday, will be buried in the New York suburb of Jordanville, in the Holy Trinity Monastery - the center of Russian Orthodoxy abroad, of which Bishop Laurus was rector for many years.

Bush and Saakashvili will talk about Putin Today and tomorrow, 40-year-old Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili will hold meetings in the United States with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his American counterpart George Bush. On board the plane of the Georgian leader it is written in English: Sokhumi (the Abkhaz capital Sukhumi sounds like Sokhumi in Georgian). This inscription first appeared during Saakashvili’s February trip to Moscow for negotiations with President Vladimir Putin.

Development Bank will increase its loan portfolio to 850 billion rubles The Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (VEB) has prepared a development strategy until 2012. As the head of the state corporation, Vladimir Dmitriev, told reporters yesterday, VEB intends to quadruple its loan portfolio by this date - to 850 billion rubles. The bank's supervisory board has already approved 11 investment projects with a total volume of 140 billion rubles.

CLUBS Down (USA). Down leader Phil Anselmo didn't think about starting a band. Rather, the group formed itself during the pause between the albums Far beyond driven and The great southern trendkill. It was during this time that Anselmo, with the help of several friends - Pepper Keenan from Corrosion of Conformity, Todd Strange and Jimmy Bauer from Crowbar - tried out new approaches in metal music.

Severstal will increase its dividends Severstal yesterday announced the possibility of paying increased dividends based on last year's results. “With the exception of Severstal North America, all our enterprises ended the year with significant profits,” the company quotes its main beneficiary and CEO Alexey Mordashov as saying.

The St. Petersburg prosecutor's office became interested in the life of the city's main pre-trial detention center The St. Petersburg prosecutor's office, it seems, has decided to seriously take on the staff of the famous St. Petersburg pre-trial detention center "Kresty". The reason for this was the murder of one of the prisoners, committed in the 48th cell of the pre-trial detention center back in October 2006.

The investigation will check whether politics is to blame for the cancellation of the concert The tour of the world-famous Russian ensemble “Berezka” ended in Poland yesterday. Success was predictable, but there was a fly in the ointment. The main festive concert was to take place in Warsaw on March 8 - in the largest hall in the country, accommodating about three thousand spectators.

Five years ago, in the Azores archipelago, lying in the middle of the Atlantic halfway between America and Europe, a summit took place at which the first anti-Iraq coalition took shape. The date of intervention against the regime of Saddam Hussein was also determined there. It began on March 20 with massive bombing and rocket attacks on Baghdad and Iraqi troops.

Jews threw stones at the house of a Palestinian who shot schoolchildren Yesterday, Israeli police reported that six people, two of whom were law enforcement officers, were injured the day before during clashes with radical Jewish activists. 22 people were arrested. On Sunday evening, about two hundred Jewish far-right activists reached the Arab village of Jabal Mukabar, which is part of East Jerusalem.

The new league cannot find a common language with the Hockey Federation Deputy Chairman of the Board of Gazprom and organizer of the Continental Hockey League (KHL) Alexander Medvedev held a press conference yesterday at which he explained why a common language has not yet been found with the Russian Hockey Federation (RHF).

George Bush's envoys told Dmitry Medvedev about the inheritance Yesterday, the most loyal associates of US President George W. Bush - his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates - met the newly elected President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev. This happened in Moscow, where American guests arrived for consultations on strategic stability , held in the “two plus two” format (the heads of foreign affairs departments and defense ministers from both sides).

The West is experiencing its biggest financial crisis in decades Even the most optimistic investors could see yesterday that global financial markets are far from recovery. The American economy appears to be in even worse shape than market participants expected. Investors are in panic withdrawing their assets from dollars, which is why yesterday the euro updated its historical maximum against the US currency - $1.5904 per euro.

The outgoing cabinet of ministers wants to help state employees and small businesses The task of “letting citizens earn money” will be decided by the outgoing government by the end of March. The Ministry of Finance expressed its intention to help regions that do not fulfill plans for indexing salaries for public sector employees , and the Presidium of the State Council should consider measures to support small businesses.

America is trying to make Uzbekistan its ally again The art of American diplomacy, with which it defends the interests of the country in Central Asia, must be given its due. A striking example of this art is the US policy towards Uzbekistan. Today, before our eyes, America is returning again to this country, which seemed to have already been lost to it after the tragic events in Andijan in May 2005.