A delegation from the UK, who came to St. Petersburg to participate in the Russian-British Raw Materials Dialogue, aims to destroy the negative buzz surrounding Russia that builds up in the Western media.

One of the main advantages of meetings held in the forum format is in the opportunity to establish real contacts between the scientific and business communities of two countries, achieved by switching from exchange of opinions and theoretical discussions to more practical concerns

It has been a second year in a row for students of the AGH University of Science and Technology (Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza im. Stanisława Staszica w Krakowie) at the Mining University. For the second time as well, they have chosen the two week-long international summer school programme "Modern Technologies of Drilling Wells, Transport and Storage of Oil & Gas."

Students from Hanoi University in Vietnam and Taiyuan University of Technology (TUT) in China came to the Mining University to participate in the International Summer School programme, named "Underground Coal Mining”.

The network of foreign partner universities of Russian scientific community is set to increase further. Last week, an agreement on scientific-technical cooperation between the International Competence Centre for Mining-Engineering Education under the auspices of UNESCO and the University of Leoben (Montanuniversität Leoben) was signed in Austria. The document was signed by Vladimir Litvinenko, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Competence Centre, and Wilfried Eichlseder, Rector of the Austrian University. The ceremony was also attended by Kurt Wallner, Mayor of Leoben, and Kirill Molodtsov, Aide to the Chief of Staff at the Presidential Executive Office of the Russian Federation.

Beirut, Damascus, Latakia, Batroun, Tripoli - what would you think of when seeing the list of those cities? Most likely, the first things that spring to mind are military operations and counterterrorism efforts; Russians are not the exception and have similar thoughts. What do Syrian and Lebanese people think of Russia though - in particular, about higher education in the country?

This autumn, the Russia-Africa Summit took place in Sochi, one of the most southern Russian cities. Over the course of two days the event lasted, a number of significant agreements were achieved. A delegation from the Republic of the Congo proposed a joint project on building a 1000 kilometres long gas pipeline. Alrosa, which is a Russian leading diamond company that has been already involved in geological exploration and diamond mining in Angola, will be supposedly granted 15 exploration licenses in Zimbabwe at the end of this year. It is also in the middle of discussions concerning future cooperation areas with the Government of Mozambique. Lukoil signed a memorandum with Equatorial Guinea empowering Russian energy corporation to start hydrocarbon production in the Republic.

In accordance with the calculations done by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment of the Russian Federation, the total value of mineral resources in possession of the country amounts to approximately 93.4 trillion roubles (roughly $1.46 trillion). Undeniably, the most valuable asset is oil reserves; their proven amount can be sold for $1.16 trillion. The other subsoil assets constitute much smaller share of the total sum - for instance, gold reserves account for $9.53 billion whilst iron ore can make about $19.38 billion in money equivalent.