Putin to meet journalists today

President Vladimir Putin is expected meet with the journalists of the troubled NTV television channel. The meeting is to take place alongside the traditional Monday meeting of the head of state with the cabinet members, the president's press secretary Alexei Gromov has told RIA Novosti news agency. According to anchorwoman of the channel Svetlana Sorokina, a consent to Vladimir Putin's meeting with the NTV journalists was reached during her talk with the president on Friday at his initiative. Ms. Sorokina said that the journalists had already discussed the number of the participants in the meeting with the president so that "a talk but not a row would take place, and decided that ten people would be enough." Tatyana Mitkova, another anchorwoman of the channel was questioned on Friday by at the prosecutor-general's office of Russia. The NTV channel, part of Vladimir Gusinsky’s Media-MOST empire, was earlier reported to have been taken over by the Gazprom-Media conglomerate.