An $800 million funding deal led by Russian venture capital firm DST Global will award Twitter with ‘the largest venture capital investment in history’.  The chairman of Goldman Sachs says that Russia has replaced Brazil as his top BRIC investment choice.  Like many other international stock markets, the MICEX also perked up on news that the U.S. will avoid a debt default.  Prime Minister Vladimir Putin slammed the States for living beyond its means and leaning on the global economy ‘like a parasite’.  Privacy protection is needed, but a new bill to criminalize breaches like last week’s release of consumer information on the Yandex search engine may just ‘mire companies in superfluous red tape’, says the Moscow Times.  In response to last week’s leak, an independent consumer rights watchdog is suing 10 of the 80 online stores responsible for exposing customers’ information.  On the cutthroat branding of…confectionary.  The latest use for Moscow’s warehouses is to convert them into data storage space.  Sberbank’s Kazakh unit has revealed plans to issue $684 million worth of bonds by the end of next year.  As many as 100 small airlines could face bankruptcy this year pending new rules that would tighten the minimum requirements for flight schedules.  A new poll indicates that 45% of Russians consider themselves to be poor.