VLADIMIR PUTIN

Oil major BP Plc , recovering from its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, said it is in talks with Russian state-controlled oil company Rosneft about a possible deal.

China, one of the largest buyers of energy, and Russia, a leading exporter of it, are quickly cemeting their natural friendship.

Top U.S. officials raised broad and specific concerns about Russia's legal environment after the conviction on Monday of one-time oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his associate Platon Lebedev.

Russia is poised to reclaim control of computing by ditching free software but faces obstacles in implementation, says software freedom stalwart Richard Mattew Stallman.

Russia plans to change a key law regulating foreign investment in so-called strategic sectors in 2011 in a bid to bring smart money into the country, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.

In a blow to Microsoft, Russia has taken another step towards transition into complete usage of free software. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday signed an order for the transition of federal bodies and agencies to use free software.

In October 2003, Russian security agents' seized the country's richest man at gun point on the tarmac of a Siberian airport. ''Weapons on the floor or we'll shoot!'' the agents shouted. Then the man was dragged away to spend years in solitary confinement at a Soviet-era labor camp in the Chita region of eastern Siberia. His assets were seized by the state; his opulence was wiped out and his family left almost fractured.

The angry mob battling the police in their riots gear at the heart of Moscow screamed, Russia for Russians! The slogans spread to the Country's second largest city of St. Petersburg. In rather a dramatic fashion, the death of one Russian football fan sparked riots that soon engulfed the whole of the country. Local media has been reporting that city centers have been shut time and again and roads were frequently blocked, over the past couple of days, following sporadic incidents.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attacked the United States on Thursday over secret U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, saying the West had no right to preach to Russia about democracy.

Russia is widely expected to secure European Union approval to join the World Trade Organization at a summit on Tuesday, taking Moscow closer to completing membership negotiations after 17 years.

Russia won the bid to host the FIFA World Cup 2018 and the tourism industry in United Kingdom has expressed disappointment as it had expected to tap its potential as a tourist destination had it won the bid to host the international tournament

Football fans needs not worry about securing visas ahead of the 2018 World Cup in Russia as Moscow is planning to scrap the requirement all together for match ticket-holders as well as footballers from the European Union.

FIFA takes the Football World Cup 2018 and 2022 to new territories of Russia and Qatar, raising concerns over risks involved in the selection of venue.

The FIFA World Cup, the biggest tournament in soccer, will be headed to new regions as Russia won the 2018 bid on Thursday over rivals which included England and tiny emirate Qatar beat a group including the United States for the 2022 tournament.

US diplomatic cables leaked by whistle-blower site Wikileaks suggest that even as Russians are eagerly awaiting the dates of elections in 2012, the outcome is almost decided. American officials believe that Vladimir Putin, the current Prime minister would continue to influence the course of the country's politics no matter what role he plays in it.

Berlusconi in Italy laughed it away, while Ahmadinejad in Tehran yet again blamed the United States. The Russians refused to comment and Indians breathed a sigh of relief. WikiLeaks, the whistle-blower website, revealed the vigor of US espionage, leaking out more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables. The first batch of the documents leaked mentioned Saudi Arabia and other Arab states' desire to attack Iran, highly sensitive information on world leaders and US military strategy across the Worl...

The Obama administration has been left red-faced by disclosures made by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks pertaining to French president Nicholas Sarkozy that describes him as an “emperor without clothes”, Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as ‘Hitler’ and Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin as an “Alpha Dog”.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is not alone when it comes to avoiding flying. He's got a friend in Moammar Qadafi of Libya, whose staff avoid long distance travel by air over water.

The documents leaked by WikiLeaks late on Sunday showed the state department ordered a surveillance of the activities of the United Nations personnel including the secretary general and asked its agencies to collect exhaustive information on the U.N staff, including personal details.

The U.S. Department of State is working overtime sending messages to ally capitals warning the impending release of classified documents by WikiLeaks could harm relations in what is seen as a pre-emptive move of unprecedented scale to neutralize the impact of the unveiling of embarrassing and compromising details about the inner workings of the government apparatus.

China and Russia announced on Tuesday to renounce US dollar and use their domestic currencies in bilateral trade.