RUSSIA

Arab states, divided over how to handle the crisis in Syria, are likely to extend a peace mission there that critics say is handing President Bashar al-Assad more time to kill opponents of his rule.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Saturday it considered the likely return of U.S. warships to the Persian Gulf more or less routine activity, backing away from previous warnings to Washington not to re-enter the area.

Digital storage services like Megaupload, which was accused of criminal copyright violations on Thursday, play a small but growing role in a broader piracy problem that continues to evolve and dog the entertainment industry.

Fans took to Twitter to offer praise and condolences, noting her legendary skiing status.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday warned against military intervention in Iran, fearing that it would not stop the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons program, but instead bring more chaos to the region.

Megaupload, one of the world's largest file-sharing sites, was shut down Thursday by the U.S. government. Its founder, Kim Schmitz, and several company executives were arrested in New Zealand at the request of U.S. officials for mass copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit money laundering, reports Wired.com.

America's new ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, didn't exactly get the warmest of welcomes.

Iran's foreign minister warned Arab neighbors on Thursday not to put themselves in a dangerous position by aligning themselves too closely with the United States in the escalating dispute over Tehran's nuclear activity.

Space Exploration Technologies, a startup space transportation firm hired by NASA to fly cargo to the International Space Station, is delaying a planned February 7 test flight to allow more time to prepare for the mission, a company spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Experts have recommended eliminating leap seconds from the time scale used by most computer systems, but governments are split on the issue, to be decided this week, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) said Tuesday.

Rather than sending back the RQ-170 Sentinel drone that crashed into Iran last year, Tehran-based Aaye Art Group says it plans to send President Obama miniature fake versions of the spycraft... and rumor has it the $4 toys are likely to be pink. Though the Iranian government is still insisting that the spy drone was over Iran when it crashed and that Iranian spies brought it down, the U.S. claims the aircraft was in Afghanistan, and suffered a technical malfunction.

The lair was largely destroyed by retreating German forces in early 1945.

The IMF currently has a lending capacity of about $380 billion and estimates demand could be about $1 trillion in the medium-term.

U.S. prosecutors arrested a Chinese computer programmer on charges he stole software code valued at nearly $10 million from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The International Monetary Fund is seeking to more than double its war chest by raising $600 billion in new resources to help countries deal with the fallout of the euro zone debt crisis, but the United States and other countries are throwing up roadblocks.

The International Monetary Fund is seeking to more than double its war chest by raising $600 billion in new resources to help countries deal with the fallout of the euro zone debt crisis, but the United States and other countries are throwing up roadblocks.

Lavrov also criticized moves by the West to tighten the economic screws on Iran.

Canada still enjoys the confidence of its allies despite the arrest of a Canadian naval intelligence officer charged with handing over secrets to an unnamed country, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said on Tuesday.

What can we expect from a Grand Jury Prize winner? Apparently, not too much.

Crows are generally regarded as intelligent, playful birds, but a new video from Russia that has taken the internet by storm shows just how playful a crow can be.

He is Russia's third richest man and has been described as its most eligible bachelor.