VLADIMIR PUTIN

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is expected to be pressured on the Syrian crisis when he meets with European leaders in St. Petersburg on Monday.

Newly elected French President Francois Hollande on Friday called for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down to prevent continuing violence. No solution to this crisis is possible without the departure of Bashar al-Assad, Hollande said.

The Sunlight Foundation's new Politwoops tool allows users to see tweets deleted by U.S. politicians.

It?s a showdown between the government and the private owners of Domodedovo Airport, with the former trying by many accounts to pry control of Russia's most lucrative airport away from the shadowy company that runs it.

The Russian missile carried a dummy warhead and was fired from a distance of 3730 miles.

The former KGB strongman maneuvered key allies into prominent posts, including naming the heavy-handed Moscow police chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev as interior minister, who came down hard on anti-Putin protestors in recent weeks.

There are currently about 130,000 foreign troops in the country, with Americans accounting for about 90,000 of them.

Israeli leaders Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak have long taken a hawkish stance against Iran.

Among the flurry of decrees Vladimir Putin issued after returning to the presidency for a historic third term were calls for faster privatization and government-sponsored boost in capital investment and closer ties with the US, based on equality, non-interference in internal affairs and respect for one another's interests.

Italy's Eni and Russia's Rosneft announced on Wednesday a joint venture to search for oil and gas in the Russian Arctic, following a similar pact between ExxonMobil and the state-run oil firm.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that he will step down as the leader of United Russia, the nation's dominant political party, after he assumes the presidency in May.

World leaders sharpened their condemnations of the bloodshed in Syria on Thursday, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging the United Nations to adopt a resolution similar to the one that enabled the NATO operation in Libya.

Cherry-picking a mere 100 people from across the world and from across all walks of life and getting everyone to agree to it is practically impossible.

Stock index futures advanced on Monday ahead of retail sales data, indicating the S&P 500 may climb after suffering its worst weekly decline of the year.

Former KGB chief Leonid Tibilov was named the president of South Ossetia, a breakaway republic within the nation of Georgia, on Sunday.

Moscow trendsetters look set for a gloomy and conservative autumn/winter 2012/13 season if Russian Fashion Week has been any judge of the trends for menswear and womenswear.

It seems like Russia might be moving the world closer to a zombie apocalypse. Last week Anatoly Serdyukov, Russian defense minister, announced plans for a new electromagnetic weapon. Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that Russia has been working on mind-bending psychotronic guns that can effectively turn people into zombies.

In an effort to keep Russia-Chechnya conflicts from erupting on British soil, U.K. intelligence is pushing for the deportation of a Chechen man who was allegedly planning to assassinate Akhmed Zakayev, a political rival of Chechnya's President Ramzan Kadyrov.

Russian authorities closed Moscow's Red Square Sunday and detained dozens of people trying to hold a silent anti-government protest there, prompting opposition charges that they were denying Russians their right to free assembly.

In a hilarious new ad by Karl Rove linked group American Crossroads, President Obama is portrayed as a rogue James Bond type character and possible Russian double agent whose main mission is to weaken America.

Bulgaria cites a lack of funding for not pursuing a planned nuclear power plant at Belene