31.07 Russian Press at a Glance, Wednesday, July 31, 2013
POLITICS
Moscow's election committee announced Tuesday that debates for the September 8 mayoral election will be held with the participation of all six candidates simultaneously - an arrangement many say is due to acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin's reluctance to go head to head with opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
(RBC Daily, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, RBC Daily, The Moscow Times)
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
The breakdown of potash mining giant Uralkali's joint venture with Belaruskali has been called a "revolution" on the fertilizer market. The company's share price nosedived Tuesday as a result.
(The Moscow Times, Vedomosti, Kommersant)
Russias health and finance ministries are to mull the option of using tobacco taxes to help fund spending on healthcare, Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated at a meeting Tuesday.
(Kommersant, RBC Daily)
Almost 30 percent of polled managers from IT-companies named state control as the main risk for innovation in Russia.
(Vedomosti)
The Russian government and private investors will spend 300 billion rubles ($9 billion) to increase the investment potential of rural areas and make them attractive to young professionals, but experts said the new state program was too small to even begin to reverse the decline of the Russian countryside.
(The Moscow Times)
Russia's Trade and Industry Ministry is to set up a special department to deal with defending national interests in disputes related to the World Trade Organization.
(RBC Daily)
Many Russian companies are paying higher wages even as the economy stagnates, according to a new survey.
(Nezavisimaya Gazeta)
WORLD
Israel and Palestinians launched a fresh effort in Washington to hammer out a final peace deal that would result in the creation of a Palestinian state, as the United States set an ambitious timetable of nine months for achieving such an agreement.
(Kommersant)
Twenty five candidates have registered already to run in the Georgian presidential election, scheduled for October.
(Vedomosti)
SOCIETY
Investigators in Russia's central Urals region have opened a criminal case after a newspaper article called on people in a provincial town to attack ethnic Chechen residents, following a high-profile murder there.
(Kommersant)
CRIME
Police searched the offices of Andrei Shishkin, a high-ranking Russian construction official suspected of a 30 million ruble ($920,000) fraud.
(Kommersant)
Russias Federal Security Service (FSB) has discovered a large cache of homemade explosives in the capital of Russia's troubled North Caucasus republic of Dagestan.
(Kommersant)
REAL ESTATE
The wife of former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, Yelena Baturina, has filed a lawsuit demanding 100 million euros from her former business partner in Morocco.
(Vedomosti)
MOSCOW
A fire broke out at Moscows Ostankino Technical Support Center late Tuesday, prompting the evacuation of more than 1,000 people, including a sports commentator who was told to leave even though he was covering a football match.
(Kommersant, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, RBC Daily)
Moscow police had rounded up over five hundred people in the citys marketplaces by Tuesday morning following an attack over the weekend on a police officer trying to detain a suspected sex offender at a food market.
The market in question will now be removed.
(Kommersant, Moskovsky Komsomolets)
SPORTS
Zenit St. Petersburg football club took a stride toward the Champions League group stage Tuesday with a 1-0 away win against Danish side Nordsjaelland in the first leg of their third-qualifying-round tie.
(Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Kommersant)
DEFENSE
Tajikistan may turn to Washington for help in modernizing its armed forces, in order to defend the border with neighboring Afghanistan. President Rakhmon Imomali held talks with American military officials Tuesday.
(Nezavisimaya Gazeta)
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