A rally against amendments to the Constitution in Yekaterinburg. Photo: ivana / wikicommons The outgoing year was “bad”, “unsuccessful” and “heavy” both for Russia as a whole and personally for most Russians. These are the results of a survey of public opinion conducted by the Levada Center on December 18–20 and dedicated to the results of 2020. Coronavirus is not to blame 88% of respondents believe that a year was more difficult than the previous one.

US President Donald Trump tried to put pressure on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and demanded that he recount the votes he received in the November elections, The Washington Post writes , citing an audio recording in its possession. Trump urged Raffensperger to "find" another 11,780 votes for him in the state, insisting his defeat was impossible. “You know what you did and you don’t report it. This is a criminal offense.

A British court has refused to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States, the court's decision says . The reason for this decision was the state of his mental health. Assange was severely to moderately clinically depressed throughout his time in Belmarsh Prison, the document notes.

Photo: IVAN SAMKOV/PEXELS In the article: Work and workplace Profile journalists of the British Financial Times and the owner of the newspaper, the Japanese publishing house Nikkei, analyze what the situation in the area that they write about could be in five years. VTIMES for five days represent their opinions in five areas - the labor market, finance, energy, consumer sector, technologies. Today we are talking about what changes are possible in the field of employment.

Starting Monday, January 4, Moscow authorities added new categories of citizens to the lists of those who are eligible for the coronavirus vaccine. The mayor of the capital, Sergei Sobyanin, announced this in his blog. “We are opening registration for vaccination for employees of the banking and financial sector, as well as government bodies and budgetary institutions at the federal, regional and municipal levels,” Sobyanin said.

China's three largest oil companies - CNOOC, PetroChina and Sinopec - may be withdrawn from trading in the United States, Bloomberg writes . CNOOC is most likely to be delisted because it is already on the Pentagon's list of companies owned or controlled by the Chinese military. PetroChina and Sinopec could also be at risk because they are so important to China's military. All three companies are primarily traded in Hong Kong, but their depositary receipts are also registered in New York.

The volume of cash in circulation by December 1, 2020 amounted to 12.9 trillion rubles, follows from the Central Bank data. This is 21.7% higher than at the beginning of the year. At the end of the entire year, the cash inflow could amount to 2.5–2.8 trillion rubles, or 24.5–25%, say analysts interviewed by RBC. This is a record figure for 10 years. The last time such growth rates were recorded was in 2010, when the volume of cash in circulation increased by 25.1% in annual terms.

Herbalife has bought out more than half of the stake of its largest shareholder, billionaire Carl Icahn, the company itself said . Icahn sold his shares at the December 31, 2020 closing price of $48.05 per share. The total amount of the transaction will be about $600 million and will be closed by January 7. After this, Icahn's share in the company will decrease from 16 to 6%. The transaction will be financed through Herbalife's cash on hand and a line of credit.

Photo: Karolina Grabowska/Pexels In 2021, the United States intends to release a large number of long -term bonds to the market, and this raises the question of who will buy them and at what price. The Ministry of Finance plans to reorient to the issuance of bonds with more distant maturity, since the government needs to finance large -scale expenditures.

Photo: kremlin.ru In fact, in Russia, all politics has now come to the conflict of power and opposition. Other socio-political contradictions in the country does not seem to exist. This temporary state is a natural consequence of increasing authoritarianism. The Kremlin presses on society with such force that it is not able to think about anything else. When your leg is broken, you forget about pressure problems with pressure, and the progressive myopia does not bother you.

Photo: kremlin.ru In fact, in Russia, all politics has now come to the conflict of power and opposition. Other socio-political contradictions in the country does not seem to exist. This temporary state is a natural consequence of increasing authoritarianism. The Kremlin presses on society with such force that it is not able to think about anything else. When your leg is broken, you forget about pressure problems with pressure, and the progressive myopia does not bother you.

A rally against amendments to the Constitution in Yekaterinburg. Photo: ivana / wikicommons The outgoing year was “bad”, “unsuccessful” and “heavy” both for Russia as a whole and personally for most Russians. These are the results of a survey of public opinion conducted by the Levada Center on December 18–20 and dedicated to the results of 2020. Coronavirus is not to blame 88% of respondents believe that a year was more difficult than the previous one.