Russia’s federal consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor reports the outbreak of cholera on the island of Haiti is growing increasingly more serious. According to Haiti’s Healthcare Ministry’s official data, over 18,000 people diagnosed with cholera had been hospitalized by mid-November, and over a thousand died. Patients diagnosed with cholera have been registered in all of the country’s ten departments as well as in the Dominican Republic and the state of Florida, U.S. The World Health Organization’s Pan-American office predicts the epidemic will be spread further and affect the

Most Yekaterinburg-based computer users were faced with a sudden breakup of QIP, an instant messenger program. When a user is trying to get connected to the program, the system tells them the connections limit has already been exceeded. Meanwhile, no information on the large-scale hook-offs has been provided via the program’s official website.

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service filed yet another lawsuit against Evraz Group. The company is suspected of setting monopoly vanadium-containing raw materials prices and of discriminating its consumers, RBC daily reports. The complaint against the company was placed by Chusovskoy Metallurgical Plant; the plant was unhappy with the fact that Evraz’s Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise set monopoly prices and practiced different price policies for different consumers of vanadium-containing raw materials. Now Kachkanar Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise is Russia’s only

The international rating agency Standard & Poor's promoted the Russian telecommunications provider Uralsvyazinform’s long-term credit rating from B+ to BB-. Besides, all the ratings were taken off the agency’s CreditWatch list and have Positive outlook. ‘This promotion means we believe the company’s financial profile has come to look better recently,’ says Standard & Poor's credit analyst Alexander Gryaznov. ‘The company’s liquidity estimates were improved from Weak to Sufficient since Uralsvyazinform managed to reduce its dependence on short-term debts this year, he

A portion of counterfeit gods was confiscated by Nizhniy Tagil Customs officers and the representatives of Serov and Sosva law-enforcement agencies in the town of Serov. It has been reported by Ural Customs Administration that no papers necessary for the legal import of sportswear bearing the logos of Lacoste, Adidas, Umbro, and Nike could be provided. An expert examination also made it clear that the goods in question were not genuine products. This means selling this sportswear infringed upon the trademark owners’ rights, so 230 fake items of clothing were confiscated. All in all, the