The Ural Parent Committee appealed to the Children's Rights Commissioner for the President of the Russian Federation Pavel Astakhov, asking him to look into the actions of Talk Fusion that appears to look like a pyramid scheme. The organization actually involves minors into its activity, President of Ural Parent Committee Evgeny Zhabreyev told UrBC. According to Zhabreyev, Astakhov has already decided to investigate the issue. Talk Fusion has been very active in Yekaterinburg recently; experts believe this organization has all the characteristics of a pyramid scheme and has

Diplomatic mechanisms will be used to promote Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Region, and Yekaterinburg’s application for hosting World Universal Exhibition EXPO 2020. The possibility of using these mechanisms was discussed at Governor Evgeny Kuivashev’s meeting with heads of Yekaterinburg-based diplomatic missions on September 25. This proved a very lively discussion. It was decided to hold such meetings on a regular basis and to have the next one as soon as January to exchange the latest news on how the city’s EXPO 2020 application is progressing, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region’s PR Department

Russian Copper Company (RMK) was given the 46th position in the traditional rating of non-public companies carried by the Forbes magazine, RMK’s PR Department reports. For the purposes of the rating, companies are ranked according to their revenues in 2011. Russian Copper Company’s key financial performance indicators have been growing steadily for the last few years due to the ongoing upgrades projects (which are part of the company’s long-term development program), proactive policy on securing the group’s raw materials base, and clever management. The company’s production capacity currently

In the first half of 2012, the agricultural insurance market in Ural Federal District rose by 133.5% and came to 332m RUR (against 142.2m RUR a year earlier). At the same time, the Russian market volume dropped by 22% on the first half of 2011 and amounted to 7.04bn RUR, AlfaStrakhovaniye’s press service reports. In Ural Federal District, the amount of insurance payments went up by 11.5% and reached 23.9m RUR, while on the Russian market on the whole, the amount of payments declined by 24.8% and came to 2.64bn RUR.

The air pollution rates declined in Yekaterinburg when compared with the year 2010, Sverdlovsk Region Government’s Press Service Administration reports. Sverdlovsk Region Government adopted a decree on the state report On the Condition of & Protection of Sverdlovsk Region Environment in 2011. According to this paper, the amount of harmful emissions decreased in 2011 in comparison with 2010, and Yekaterinburg is no longer on the list of highly polluted cities. ‘The air pollution rates in Yekaterinburg dropped from Very High in 2010 to High in 2011 (the atmospheric impurity index went down