Officials want to limit purchase prices for medicines In a crisis, the state needs to revise the rules for purchasing drugs for preferential drug programs, clinics and hospitals, says Nikolai Yurgel, head of the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare and Social Development (Roszdravnadzor).

More than 8 million Russian viewers watch French films a year. In France they know how to work with their own cinema and care about the success of their national films in the world. One of the tools for this promotion is the annual film festival “French Cinema Today”, for which the organizers choose a new region each time to hold it in Russia. This time, new French films are being watched in Vladivostok and Khabarovsk from December 9 to 13.

Fellow deputies are ready to protect Valery Draganov from investigators The cassation instance of the Supreme Court (SC) of the Russian Federation yesterday recognized as legal the previously issued conclusion about the presence of signs of a crime in the actions of State Duma deputy, member of United Russia Valery Draganov. Thus, the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office (SKP) received the permission required by law to bring him to criminal responsibility.

The former vice-governor of the Primorsky Territory was sentenced The Primorsky Regional Court yesterday announced the verdict in the case of the former vice-governor of the region for housing and communal services, Alexander Shishkin. He was found guilty of accepting a bribe and abuse of power and received nine years in a maximum security colony. The court also fined him 1 million rubles. and was deprived of the right to hold leadership positions for three years.

The Latvian government cannot cope without IMF help The Latvian government is urging members of the Seimas to approve budget changes necessary to receive a loan from the International Monetary Fund.

Memphis beat Houston Basketball. NBA. Regular season. “Miami” — “Charlotte” — 100:96, “Oklahoma City” — “Golden State” — 102:112, “Memphis” — “Houston” — 109:97, “Clippers” — "Orlando" - 88:95. League outsider Memphis sensationally beat Houston, which is striving to become the NBA leader. The reason for the defeat was that most of the visiting team's strong players did not play that day.

The Israeli Likud party has decided In Israel, yesterday the results of internal party elections in one of the oldest parties, Likud (translated from Hebrew as “consolidation”), became known, which determined the party’s electoral list for the upcoming parliamentary elections on February 10. The first place was previously reserved for 59-year-old former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Likud members chose him back in August 2007 .

Banker, owner of a consulting firm and creator of the website Liveinternet.ru (Li.ru) German KLIMENKO became known in wide circles precisely thanks to his Internet activities. At the time of the creation of Liveinternet.ru (the resource combines blog hosting and statistics), a Russian version of Livejournal (popularly LiveJournal) already existed on the RuNet.

Today in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the trial of 38-year-old Andrei Mogilyansky, a native of Russia with dual citizenship of Russia and the United States, which began on December 5, will continue. After his arrest on December 2, he was accused of corrupting three orphan girls under the age of 14, taken from one of the orphanages in St. Petersburg, in December 2003 - January 2004, and then using them “for profit” in as prostitutes “on call” in Moscow.

Watch from December 11 on Moscow screens "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (USA, 2008, Scott Derrickson) . A remake of Robert Wise's 1951 classic sci-fi film about the alien Kllatu (Keanu Reeves - The Matrix, Sweet November, Street Kings) who comes to Earth to warn earthlings that they are living wrong, and If decisive measures are not taken, then humanity will have to say goodbye.

UNICS knocked out the capital's Dynamo in the first quarter In the third round of the first group stage of the European Cup, two Russian clubs met on the banks of the Volga - rivals in Quartet "B" Kazan UNICS and the capital's Dynamo. The Blue and Whites, led by David Blatt, received a minus 20 on points by the 8th minute. first period -- 2:22.

Ukrainian deputies elected a speaker Yesterday, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, after much torment, finally managed to elect a speaker. 244 deputies, out of the required 226, cast their votes in favor of 52-year-old Vladimir Lytvyn, who heads the bloc named after him. Moreover, he received 30 votes from political forces that were not included in the coalition, which may still be formed. 27 communists and three deputies from the Party of Regions voted for Mr. Lytvyn.

The investigation refuted the conclusions of the state commission about the causes of the plane crash in Irkutsk The Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor's Office (ICP) yesterday officially announced the closure of the criminal case into the crash of the Siberia Airlines A-310 airliner at Irkutsk airport in the summer of 2006.

Warsaw resumes consultations with Berlin German Chancellor Angela Merkel, accompanied by five ministers and numerous officials, took part in Polish-German intergovernmental consultations in Warsaw yesterday. Negotiations of this level have not been held for more than three years - since the parliamentary elections in Poland, which were won by the Kaczynski brothers' Law and Justice party in 2005. Under the government of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Polish-German relations were tense.

EU peacekeepers occupy the Serbian region Today in Oslo, the former special envoy of the UN Secretary General to Kosovo, 71-year-old Martti Ahtisaari, will receive the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize. The ceremony will take place in the City Hall of the Norwegian capital, since the Peace Prize is the only Nobel award that is awarded not in Stockholm, Sweden, the homeland of the prize's founder, Alfred Nobel, but in Oslo.