New owner takes over Moscow News

MOSCOW, 4 July - (RIA Novosti) The president of Media International Group (MIG), Vadim Rabinovich, said Sunday that he had bought outright a Russian company, Moskovskiye Novosti, and its popular brands the Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper and its English-language version, The Moscow News. Speaking live on Ukrainian television, Rabinovich also said that the day before the deal had gone through, the previous owners had dismissed former TV anchorman Yevgeny Kiselyov from his posts as editor and general director of Moskovskiye Novosti.

A report on the Media International Web site, Mignews.com, said the holding now had a daily in the United States, another two papers in addition to Moskovskiye Novosti in Russia, one in Ukraine, and a paper in Israel.

The report also said that the holding's main priority would be to develop papers in the Russian capital.

Moskovskiye Novosti is considered to be one of the oldest broadsheets in Russia (it was first published in the 1930s). The paper's heyday came in the 1980s, when it energetically promoted reforms under Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika program. The paper, which is known as MN, is published in both Russian and English in Russia, the U.S., Israel, Germany and Australia, and is available in 54 countries.