POLITICS
U.S. Congress rejected a bill raising the state debt limit by $2.4 trillion.
(Kommersant)
Former Federation Council speaker Sergei Mironov will head the faction of the A Just Russia party in the State Duma.
(Vedomosti, Kommersant, Rossiiskaya Gazeta)
ECONOMY BUSINESS
Russian Railways signed an agreement to buy 1,200 electric rail cars worth $2.98 billion from Siemens and billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky’s Sinara Group on Wednesday.
(Moscow Times)
Belarus said Wednesday that it had asked the International Monetary Fund for an emergency loan of up to $8 billion, hoping to stave off a financial crisis in the ex-Soviet republic.
(Moscow Times)
The Federal Tax Service issued recommendations on how to expose illegal schemes with the use of dummy firms.
(Vedomosti)
SOCIETY
Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov promised Wednesday not to draft postgraduate students into the armed forces after a group of students who fell victim to a bureaucratic mix-up appealed to President Dmitry Medvedev.
(Moscow Times, Kommersant, Vedomosti, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Moskovskiye Novosti)
Moscow investigators completed the probe into the murder of 22-year-old Spartak Moscow fan Yury Volkov.
(Kommersant)
The number of internet fraud cases increased 95% over the past six months.
(Rossiiskaya Gazeta)
The Supreme Court has submitted a bill to the State Duma proposing the creation of a united website for general jurisdiction courts and peace justices. The site will provide verdicts and judges’ wages, as well as answers to requests submitted online.
(Rossiiskaya Gazeta)
MEDIA
Russia might be known in the West as a dangerous place for journalists. But the country also has long been a pretty place to work, with many media outlets offering salaried employment to reporters and editors without earning any money in return.
(Moscow Times)
OIL GAS
Energy giant Gazprom will have to pay $18 billion additionally over three years for the right to be the gas export monopoly.
(Kommersant)
Gazprom has increased its investment program by 364 billion rubles ($13 bln), or nearly 45%. The company does not say what the money will be spent on.
(Kommersant, Vedomosti)
IT
VimpelCom posted the largest profit among the top three Russian cell phone operators but failed to regain the second place that it lost last year to Megafon.
(Kommersant)
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