Russia named nationalist politician Dmitry Rogozin as its new representative to NATO. According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the 44-year-old Rogozin has led several marches and demonstrations to assert the rights ethnic Russians. He has been strongly critical of the West and NATO, and is opposed to the missile-defense shield that the United States has proposed deploying in Poland and the Czech Republic. Rogozin kicked off his tenure by giving a newspaper interview in which he hailed Moscow's decision to stop participating in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty and said it freed Russia from "colonial dependency".

The Financial Times of London is reporting that Nitol Solar, a Russian company that produces silicon for the solar industry, is planning an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange. The offering would value Nitol, which is based in Irkutsk, at around $1 billion.

In other business news, Lukoil said it expects its net profit for 2007 to reach $8 billion. The results for the company, which is Russia's second largest oil producer would be a 7% jump from 2006. Net capital inflows into Russia hit a record $82.3 billion in 2007. The final numbers were even higher than a forecast made by Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin on December 10. And Russian officials said Thursday that the country will join an international agreement that bans all cigarette advertising. According to Reuters, Russia is one of the world's top markets for tobacco sales.

Survivors of the 2004 seizure of an elementary school in Beslan, Russia, are saying that Russian prosecutors have accused them of being extremists. According to the Associated Press, the chairwoman of the Voice of Beslan said prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into the group. Attackers seized more than 1,100 hostages at the school on Sept. 1, 2004, and 334 people--more than half of whom were children--died. The wire service says prosecutors are saying that a statement made by the group in 2005 accusing Russian officials failing to investigate Beslan was extremist.

And finally, Russian officials said this week that they have issued 292,381 certificates for benefits under a new law designed to encourage Russians to have more children. According to a Russian newspaper account, the Volga region accounted for 70,702 of the applications. The law, which came into effect on January 1, 2007, pays out 250,000 roubles to families having more than one child.

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