Which company won the auction at last?

It only took 10 minutes to auction off the main oil-pumping division of Russia’s largest oil company, Yukos.
    But in a surprise, a virtually unknown company called the Baikal Finance Group won, paying just over $9 billion.

The world’s first treaty aimed at cutting tobacco-related deaths has come into force. The World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control becomes legally binding upon countries that have ratified the landmark agreement.
    The WHO estimates that nearly five million people die prematurely every year from tobacco-related diseases. If current smoking trends are not reversed, the WHO warns by 2020, tobacco will kill 10 million people a year, 70 per cent of them in developing countries.