RUSSIA

Blackberry maker Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM) said its chief marketing officer Keith Pardy will be leaving in six months, just weeks ahead of its PlayBook tablet launch.

Japan's unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Monday refused to step down after the resignation of his foreign minister over a political funding scandal that has added to pressure on him to quit or call a snap election.

The U.S. Air Force's second mysterious robotic mini space vehicle, X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, blasted off from Cape Canaveral, carrying classified payload. Soon after the launch a media blackout shrouded the mission, fuelling speculation about its possible military purposes.

Siberian craftsman Anatoly Konenko is responsible for the smallest aquarium in the world.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed concern on Thursday that the United States was losing the information war internationally, and especially in the Middle East, drawing a critical comparison between the U.S. media and broadcaster Al Jazeera.

China is ramping up its military spending at a time its financial firepower is increasingly in focus after it unseated Japan as the second biggest economy in the world.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has reportedly accepted an offer of mediation from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez while an opposition group has rejected it, according to a report.

The ongoing violence in Libya will cost Russia a $4-billion payday from an arms deal it had earlier agreed to with Moammar Gaddafi, according to the Interfax news agency, quoting Sergei Chemezov, head of the state holding company that controls arms exports.

With anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks, and social media platforms Twitter and Facebook in the running, Internet dominates the race for Nobel Peace Prize 2011.

China, the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, wants rich nations to vow bigger cuts to emissions as part of a new international deal on fighting global warming, Beijing's top climate negotiator said on Tuesday.

With warships and missiles, Russia is flexing its muscles in the Far East in a bid to defend its position as an Asian power against China's growing might.

As the United States moves military ships toward the Mediterranean Sea and officials discuss the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said it was irresponsible to consider all options to resolve the situation there, including an invasion.

Google Ventures and Khosla Ventures have invested $42 million in a San Francisco-based start up WeatherBill, a provider of insurance to farmers against weather-related damages.

World Race 2011 will have about 25 cars from different countries racing to circle the globe on the same path on which the 1908-winner drove.

Rosneft (ROSN.MM) is set to take on Gazprom (GAZP.MM) when Russia puts the Kovykta gas field on the block on Tuesday as the country's top crude producer aims to muscle in on the gas export monopoly's plans to supply China.

The U.S. government owes nearly a third more money to China than previously thought, the Treasury Department said on Monday as it revised Beijing's December holdings of U.S. Treasury debt sharply higher to $1.160 trillion.

The United States is taking financial action to block Lybia's leader and his family from using $30 billion-worth of assets in the country.

Iran is believed to have told the U.N. atomic watchdog a broken pump is forcing it to remove fuel from its first nuclear power reactor, a new setback for the $1 billion (615 million pounds) project, experts familiar with the issue said on Monday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday that that the United States is reaching out different Libyans as the Obama administration calls for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to leave the country.

Investors in Canada's forestry sector have feasted of late on Chinese demand for lumber and pulp, and a few of them are likely licking their chops at the idea China will also want to buy the mills.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution to impose sanctions against the Gaddafi-led Libyan government and initiate a probe against the bloody crackdown of anti-government protesters.