UKRAINE

Twelve of the worst pollution problems in the developing world are being cleaned up, demonstrating that tens of thousands of others also could be improved, according to a report released on Wednesday.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen hopes to secure Russian help in equipping and training Afghan security forces during a visit to Moscow in December, an alliance spokesman said on Wednesday.

Philip Morris International Inc and Reynolds American Inc posted higher-than-expected quarterly profits and raised their full-year forecasts on Thursday, as tax increases and the recession did not hurt the cigarette makers as much as feared.

Moscow and Washington must agree on where the threats to their security come from before plans to cooperate on missile defense can progress, Russia's negotiator said.

The United States slipped from first to third place after the U.K. and Australia in a ranking of financial development released by the World Economic Forum on Thursday, as the global financial crisis badly hurt bank stability in developed countries.

Norway's Telenor and Russian partner Alfa Group have agreed to merge their Russian and Ukrainian holdings into a New-York listed mobile operator worth over $23 billion, ending one of the longest ever Russian corporate wars.

Norway's Telenor and its key partner in Russia, the Alfa Group, will pool their Russian and Ukrainian holdings into a New-York listed mobile operator, ending one of the longest corporate wars Russia has ever seen.

President Barack Obama has told east European states he was backing away from plans for an anti-missile shield there, in a move that may ease Russian-U.S. ties but fuel fears of resurgent Kremlin influence.

British singer Elton John, visiting Ukraine with his AIDS charity foundation, said on Saturday he wanted to adopt a 14-month-old boy from an orphanage in the east of the country.

Hacker Albert Gonzalez, accused of masterminding the massive data thefts at BJ's Wholesale Club, TJX and several other retailers, pleaded guilty to some of the largest identity-theft crimes on record on Friday while leaving the federal judge wondering how to compensate his millions of victims.

Industrialized nations can deepen planned cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to shore up a U.N. climate treaty due in December but analysts say there are risks they will promise more than they deliver.

A cow stands on the Klausenpass mountain pass road, 1,952 m (6,404 ft) in the Swiss Alps August 19, 2009. In the background is the Urnerboden Valley.

Gazprom, the world's biggest gas company, saw net profit fall in the first quarter, when it paid more for Central Asian gas and incurred foreign exchange losses, but was tipped to bounce back in the rest of 2009.

President Viktor Yushchenko criticized domestic and foreign detractors on Monday and said Ukraine needed strong institutions to parry threats to its future prosperity.

Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who was crowned as the winner of the show, uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and

Russian leaders are stuck in their imperial past and seem to relish bullying and threatening their neighbors, a senior Ukrainian official said on Wednesday, responding to a tirade from Moscow the previous day.

President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday proposed legislation to give him the legal basis to send troops abroad to defend Russia's interests, the Kremlin said.

Hungarian drug producer Richter Gedeon said its second-quarter net profit more than doubled on rising sales, especially to Russia and the United States, muted cost growth and a smaller-than-expected loss.

At Microsoft's research center in a leafy lane in India's tech capital, a new generation of researchers are being groomed half a world away from the software giant's sprawling headquarters in Seattle.

President Dmitry Medvedev will defend a Russia-backed deal to buy German car maker Opel and seek more support for the Nord Stream gas pipeline project when he visits Munich on Thursday, a top Kremlin aide said.

Ukraine and Russia began talks with international lenders and the European Union on Monday on loans to help Kiev pay for Russian gas and avert a new crisis that could cut off supplies to Europe.