Moscow News sold to Ukrainian businessman

MOSCOW - Media International Group (MIG) headed by Ukrainian businessman Vadim Rabinovich has bought the company that publishes the English-language newspaper Moscow News, which first appeared on newstands in 1930, the company announced Sunday.
MIG confirmed the acquisition of all the shares in the publishing company Moskovskiye Novosty including its distribution networks, MIG said in a statement on its website.
"Despite the change in ownership, the newspaper will continue to occupy its liberal democratic niche," the paper's spokeswoman Tatyana Blinova told the Russian news agency Interfax.
The first issue of Moscow News was published on October 5, 1930, with the aim of providing an English-language publication for foreign specialists about the Soviet Union.
It was followed by editions in many other languages including Arabic, Estonian, French, German, Italian, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian and Spanish.
In 1986, the newspaper became one of the main defenders of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's economic and political reforms.
It is currently edited each week in English and in Russian and printed in Australia, Germany, Israel, Russia and the United States and sold in 54 countries.

07/03/2005 19:42 GMT