There is no need to introduce Andrejs Žagars in Russian capitals for a long time. In 1996, as director, he headed the Latvian National Opera - and soon brought it to the leaders of the Eastern European opera process. Over the past ten years, LNO has been one of the most successful, interesting and dynamically developing companies.

Three friends from the police, the prosecutor's office and the Federal Penitentiary Service were accused of extorting money from someone else's suspect The capital's department of the Investigative Committee, as Vremya Novostei learned, has completed an investigation into another scandalous case against law enforcement officers.

Drought and crop failure raise inflationary expectations among officials The drought, which destroyed a significant part of the grain harvest in the Southern Urals, the Volga region and the Central Black Earth Region, can spur inflation, providing the planned indicators of 6-7% with an additional 1.5-2 percentage points. Such concerns were expressed by the President of the Russian Grain Union (RGU) Arkady Zlochevsky.

The final tournament of the World League starts in Argentina Six men's national teams will compete for the title of World League champion over five days in the Argentine city of Cordoba. The final tournament of the largest commercial volleyball competition starts today with the participation of teams from Russia, Brazil, Italy, Cuba, Serbia and the home team.

During the spring session, out of 250 laws, the Federation Council rejected five The upper house of the Russian parliament went on vacation. On Monday, July 19, members of the Federation Council held the final meeting of the spring session, finally adopted another package of bills and said goodbye to each other and to journalists for two months.

And entered into negotiations with Ashgabat In recent days, changes have begun to occur in the fate of residents of Turkmenistan who have Russian-Turkmen citizenship and are therefore in the position of “second-class” citizens in their country. The Vremya Novostei newspaper twice this month (see Vremya Novostei, July 5 and 9 ) reported on the harassment suffered by some of these citizens, who, starting on July 1, tried to fly from Ashgabat to Moscow.

Vnesheconombank: from anti-crisis measures to development projects Vnesheconombank has succeeded not only as an anti-crisis firefighting tool, but also as a development institution, believes Vladimir Dmitriev, chairman of the state corporation “Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs”.

Watch from July 22 on Moscow screens “Inception” (USA, 2010, Christopher Nolan). A fantastic thriller, the plot of which is built around the ability of some individuals to penetrate the dreams of other people and extract from there (or, conversely, introduce) valuable information.

Nowitzki signed a contract with Dallas Dallas leader Dirk Nowitzki, who became a free agent at the end of the season, signed a new contract with this NBA club. The details of the agreement are not disclosed, but, according to preliminary information, the deal was valued at $80 million. It was also reported that the term of the new contract is for four years. Note that the 32-year-old German basketball player spent his entire career in Dallas.

North Korea could execute the main participant in the dialogue with the South Yesterday, information was received from South Korea that 51-year-old Kwon Ho Un, Pyongyang's main representative in negotiations with Seoul in 2004-2007, was shot in the North. But why and when he was executed remains unknown. This was reported by the South Korean Dong'A Ilbo (East Asian Newspaper), citing an informed source in Beijing.

The Italian concern is ready to transport Turkmen gas through the Caspian Sea for competing projects The Italian company Eni, Gazprom's partner in the South Stream project, has been actively promoting an initiative that could help rival Nabucco extract gas resources.

Ilya Kovalchuk will sign a new contract with New Jersey Ilya Kovalchuk finally decided on his future and chose the New Jersey Devils to continue his career, the club to which he was traded from Atlanta. Over the next 17 years, the forward will receive $107 million. The most interesting thing is that Kovalchuk refused more lucrative offers, choosing stability. The Kovalchuk story has amused the hockey community on both sides of the pond since July 1, when the free agent market officially opened.

The Ministry of Energy wants to receive a license for the deposits named after. Trebs and Titov 60 billion rubles Around the competition for the deposits planned for the end of the year. Trebs and Titov, which are claimed by almost all major Russian oil companies, tension is growing. An anonymous source in the Ministry of Energy told Interfax yesterday that the actual one-time payment for them should be 60 billion rubles.

Goldman Sachs profit fell almost sixfold Net profit of Goldman Sachs Group in the second quarter of 2010 amounted to $613 million, or $0.78 per share. This is 5.55 times less than the data for the same period last year ($3.44 billion, or $4.93 per share). Reports from the three largest US banks for the second quarter showed that their income from investment business fell by 20-40% compared with data in the first quarter due to the debt crisis in Europe.

Afghans want to manage the international community's money themselves A representative international conference dedicated to the restoration of devastated Afghanistan was held in Kabul yesterday. This was the first time such an event was held in this country. Previously, for security reasons, they were held in other places - in London, The Hague, Moscow, but not in the Afghan capital.