The Russian Journalist killed last week after plummeting from a fifth floor window was investigating a secret arms deal between Russia, Syria and Iran, his paper announced.

Sberbank, Russia`s largest government bank raised $8.8 billion in a in a secondary stock offering that closed on Wednesday, the Russian Minister of Finance, Aleksei L. Kudrin, announced last week.

A Russian jet en route from Moscow to Geneva abruptly landed in Prague, after one of the passengers, apparently drunk, run amuck, threatened to damage the plain and demanded the flight plan be altered

The Russian prosecution investigating the poisoning of ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, intends to send investigators to London to interrogate Businessman Boris Berezovsky and Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev

Former Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, the first Prime Minister in post-Soviet Russia, said Thursday that he was convinced that his mysterious illness that he suffers from is a result of poisoning initiated last month by opponents of the Russian authorities.

Typically, alcohol has always been a major issue in Russia. Russians seem to be famous for their drinking, and numerous jokes have been created on the subject. However, this time Russian officials are not in the mood to joke.

The Kremlin is demanding an explanation from the government of Macedonia following an incident in Skopje, the capital. Four staff members of the Russian Embassy were leaving a caf? in Skopje on October 28 when an unknown assailant launched punches at one of the Russians for no overt reason.

With Russian ascendancy to an energy powerhouse catering to the needs of an ever-more-dependent Europe, what influence will Russian oil have not only on the economies of Europe but the politics as well?

Andy Roddick was down 0-2 in his match against Russian Dmitry Tursunov, but would hustle back to serve for the match in the fifth set, leading 6-5. But the game was nowhere near ending.

Even as the Russian Federation moves toward greater and greater authoritarianism, the country?s economy seems on an upward track. The country?s Prime Minister, Mikhail Fradkov, signed this past Monday a draft federal budget for fiscal 2007 which predicts an economic growth level of at least six percent.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, but more accurately since the mid-1990s, Russia has been battling with Chechen separatists and counted few true victories to its credit ? even though, autonomously, Muslim Chechnya remains part of the Russian Federation. Russia?s Chechen ?public enemy number one? is no longer a threat,

Is it possible that the Russian ruble, long known as a joke in the international financial world, could become as important an international currency as the U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen, the British pound sterling, or the Euro? It is evident that the Russians have a ways to go.

Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev was shot in the town of Argun, east of the Chechen capital, Grozny. The Russian Federal Security Service, successor to the infamous KGB, reported that Sadulayev was killed after resisting arrest.

As more newspapers in the Russian Federation come under the control of the Kremlin in one way or another, the former Premier of the now-defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Mikhail Gorbachev, has announced that he is buying a stake in a newspaper which still manages to often take a critical line towards Russian president Vladimir Putin.

While the Russian state-owned company Atomstroiexport says that no concrete agreements have been reached and Turkey and Russia have often been at odds in the past over rights to access to the Black Sea, a thaw in relations coupled with Russian ambitions had led to past barriers being broken down in favor of energy cooperation.

It has been announced that a travel ban has been enacted by the United States and is in effect for members of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko`s government. The travel ban to the United States is in effect for those who "undermine or injure democratic institutions or impede the transition to democracy in Belarus".

The paper said that U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney?s speech, delivered in Vilnius, capital of Russian neighbor and former Soviet slave state Lithuania on Thursday, "marks the beginning of a second Cold War," comparing it to Winston Churchill?s famous 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech that warned of Soviet expansion at Fulton, Missouri.

Observers from OSCE, a European organization, noted that in no way were the Belarussian elections conducted in a free and fair environment, though appearances were contrary to the conditions which resulted in the "Orange Revolution" which helped change Ukraine`s system of government after corrupt elections there.

Many Russians are joining United Russia, a party whose only political commandment is unequivocal support for President Vladimir Putin. The moves have the eerie echoes of Russians joining the Communist Party in the USSR in order to get ahead. This time, though, people are joining with sights set on the future, not because of a current reality that demands it.

The diplomacy could help the new Palestinian government fend off radical influences. But Hamas`s plans to attend talks in Moscow drew initial Israeli accusations of a "slippery slope" toward legitimizing an organization branded as terrorists in the US and Europe.

Senior officials in Moscow said they were not made aware of the incident until last week. But human rights groups have for years complained about violent bullying in the Russian army. All Russian men between the ages of 18 and 27 are supposed to serve two years in the armed forces, a requirement that will be reduced to one year by 2008.

Recent racially motivated attacks in Russia are triggering debate over how to deal with rising xenophobia. "All too often, crimes of hate get dismissed as hooliganism," says Sol Butingolts, vice president of the Russian Jewish Congress.

Russia, the world`s second-largest oil producer, sees energy as a key foreign policy tool. To date, Moscow has effectively renationalized almost a third of the formerly private oil-and-gas sector of the Russian Federation. President Vladimir Putin has appointed some of his top aides to run the Kremlin`s newly acquired oil empire.

Opposition politicians denounced the appointment as a conflict of interest. "It stinks," said Reinhard Buetikofer, co-chairman of Germany`s Greens, who were a coalition partner in Schroeder`s Social Democrat-led government

Russian President Vladimir Putin has fired the head of Russia`s space construction company. The dismissal comes after a series of embarrassing launch failures which has hurt the program`s prestige and commercial ambitions. The loss of a high-profile European satellite was among a series of mishaps in October blamed on the now former head.

Eighty-one years after his fatal stroke in 1924 (although speculation that he really died from syphilis has refused to go away), the wish of Vladimir Lenin to be buried alongside his mother in St Petersburg`s Volkovskoye Cemetery, resting place of writers, intellectuals and academics, remains controversially unfulfilled.

Russian billionaires, and mere megamillionaires, are dropping tens of millions of dollars for the most opulent houses in London. No one knows exactly how many Russians live in London. The embassy and city officials estimate there are about 200,000, but others say the number could be much higher.

Factors such as increased poverty, alcoholism, emigration and degradation of the health care system, are a few reasons for the decline in birth rates and life expectancy.

As of the latest reports, 128 people were killed as a result of the fighting in Nalchik, which is the capital of the Kabardino-Balkariya republic, near the rebellious Russian republic of Chechnya.

The Redmond Little League team beat Europe 10-8 in the second day of pool play at the Junior Softball World Series on Monday at Everest Park.