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Russia's energy giant Gazprom has signed a $2.5bn (£1.53bn) deal with Nigeria's state operated NNPC, to invest in a new joint venture.The new firm, to be called Nigaz, is set to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria.

The Obama administration wants to push the re-set button on its relationship with Russia, but that may be tough given significant disagreements over policy. Festering disputes over missile defense and Russia’s war last year with Georgia won’t be resolved at the Monday’s summit between President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, foreign policy experts have said over the past few days. They predict a meeting whether the two sides will smile at one another while trying to push serious disputes to the side for the time being. Andrew Kuchins, a director of the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies,...

President Dmitry Medvedev and US counterpart Barack Obama are next week planning to sign a framework declaration replacing a key Cold War-era missile treaty, Medvedev's top foreign aide said on Friday. Sergei Prikhodko also said Russia wanted to agree with the US a replacement of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) -- set to expire in early December -- by end of this year or early 2010.

VYSELKI VILLAGE (Krasnodar Territory), July 3 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is ready for effective cooperation with the new U.S. administration led by President Barack Obama, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Friday. "We are ready for effective cooperation, and we expect a lot from the new U.S administration. All signals that we have received so far from Washington have allowed us to hope for positive dialogue," Putin told reporters on the eve of Obama's visit to Russia on July 6-8. Putin said the visit will focus on the strengthening of dialogue between the two countries. "We need it and...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has urged the US to move relations forward by shelving plans for a missile defence shield in Europe. His comments come ahead of a summit between US President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dimitry Medvedev. They serve, correspondents say, as a clear sign that the powerful former president will have to be taken into account during the negotiations. Mr Obama is preparing to visit Moscow between 6 and 8 July. Reducing both countries' nuclear stockpiles, as well as Iran and North Korea, will be on the agenda when he meets Mr Medvedev. 'Two feet'Mr Obama...

A post-launch examination of the Unha-2 By David Wright and Theodore A. Postol | 29 June 2009 Article Highlights * The launch vehicle North Korea tested on April 5, the Unha-2, represents a significant advance over North Korea's previous launchers. * In particular, it would have the capability to reach the continental United States with a payload of 1 ton or more if Pyongyang modified it for use as a ballistic missile. * However, if key Unha-2's components were acquired from Russia and elsewhere, North Korea's domestic missile development program may be much more limited than commonly assumed. North Korea...

MOSCOW, July 2 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow will discuss a new arms reduction deal with Washington only in connection with U.S. plans for a missile shield in central Europe, the Russian prime minister's spokesman said on Thursday. Russia and the United States have been involved in comprehensive talks over a new nuclear arms reduction deal to replace the START 1 treaty, which expires in December. Russian and U.S. experts agreed to report the results at the Russian-U.S. summit in Moscow in July. "This link is well-grounded and we have explained our position on this issue to our American partners during...

WASHINGTON – Days from his first Moscow summit, President Barack Obama declared Thursday that former Russian President Vladimir Putin "still has a lot of sway" in his nation and needs an in-person reminder the Cold War is over. On next week's trip, Obama will meet not only with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev but with Putin, the prime minister who hand-picked Medvedev as his successor. Said Obama: "I think that it's important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev that Putin understand that the old Cold War approaches to U.S.-Russian relations is outdated. ... Putin has one foot in...

Barack Obama yesterday accused Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, of "living in the past" and indulging in Cold War thinking on the eve of his first trip to Russia as US president. Mr Obama described the former president, who remains the country's dominant political force, as someone who still has "one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new". He said one reason he will meet Mr Putin, as well as Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, during his visit next week is that he wanted Mr Putin to know that "the old Cold...

Russia not as willing to work with the Iranian Space Agency this time around Despite working with the growing Iranian space program in the past, a senior Russian space official said the country won't help Iran launch another satellite into orbit any time soon.The Russian space program helped Iran launch its Sina-1 spy satellite into orbit in 2005, which helped kick start the Iranian space program. The country had been interested in space research development for several years prior to the 2005 launch, but didn't have the necessary technology to launch its own hardware.

On the eve of a trip to Moscow, President Barack Obama chided Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday for keeping "one foot in the old ways of doing business." By contrast, he said Putin's handpicked successor as president understands that Cold War behavior is outdated.

The President of these United States recently expressed his love for "the Urdu poets," a piece of inspired BS that nobody in their right minds believed for a second. But then the P was narrowcasting to Pakistan, he thought, and Americans weren't supposed to be listening. Yet character is revealed in those little snippets of Obama's mind -- his glorious fantasy life, his everlasting hope that somebody will fall for another piece of schtick, and his essential fraudulence as a human being. Obama's biggest audience is himself, and no doubt he preened and pranced in his mind's eye when he...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has cancelled plans to visit Moscow with President Barack Obama and will send someone in her place, a State Department official said Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Adoring fans have flocked to see him on visits around the world, but Barack Obama should expect a far cooler reception in Russia next week.

Barack Obama will lobby for nuclear disarmament and a fresh start in relations with Russia during his first visit to Moscow as president next week. But little concrete progress is expected -- the hosts fear America's overtures are a trap aimed at further reducing Russia's global influence. John Beyrle, Washington's man in Moscow, would never have seen the light of day if it hadn't been for a group of decent Red Army soldiers. "My father always saw the Russians as a people that saved his life," the US ambassador recalls. "They could simply have shot him dead." Beyrle's father had...

In the past decade, American commentary on Russia has been sharply divided between "idealists," who deplore the rise of neo-authoritarianism under Vladimir Putin and urge a tough stance toward the Kremlin, and "realists," who argue that U.S. policy should emphasize practical cooperation rather than democratic ideals which ignore the specifics of Russian culture. This debate has acquired new urgency as the Obama administration seeks to craft its Russia policy and prepares for Barack Obama's trip to Moscow July 5. The realist approach is advocated in two reports presented as expert recommendations to Obama, from the Century Foundation and from the...

MOSCOW, July 1 (RIA Novosti) - A Proton-M carrier rocket put into orbit on Wednesday a U.S. telecommunications satellite, the Russian Federal Space Agency said. "The foreign satellite has successfully separated from the Breeze-M booster, and control over the satellite has been transferred to the client," the agency said. Russian-American joint venture International Launch Services (ILS) signed a contract in March to launch two Sirius satellites to expand the existing SIRIUS Satellite Radio constellation. ILS, owned by the Khrunichev Center, RSC Energia, and U.S. firm Space Transport Inc. provides spacecraft launch services on board Proton-M carrier rockets. The launch of...

A local corruption reporter in Russia died of head injuries on Monday in what police said Tuesday was a drunken fall. Colleagues, on the other hand, are sure it was a revenge attack for muckraking journalism. Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, 63, the editor of a Rostov-on-Don newspaper whose name translates as Corruption and Crime died Monday of a severe head injury sustained April 30. Police say Yaroshenko was drunk and hit his head on the stairs, but colleagues claim Yaroshenko was attacked. "I have no doubt that the attack was directly connected to Yaroshenko's writing and is payback for his journalistic work,"...

US President Barack Obama has the confidence of many publics around the world - inspiring far more confidence than any other world political leader according to a new poll of 20 nations by WorldPublicOpinion.org. A year ago, President Bush was one of the least trusted leaders in the world. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin now have the most negative confidence ratings around the world. On average across all nations about half have little or no confidence that they will "do the right thing regarding world affairs" while just a third or less do have confidence.

"Ukrainian and Russian officials commemorated the 300th anniversary of the defeat of Sweden at the battle of Poltava with the unveiling of a new memorial on Saturday. The commemoration ceremonies showed that the victory, which marked the beginning of Russian imperial dominance of eastern Europe, continues to cause controversy over how history should be remembered. High-profile delegations, including Kremlin administration chief Sergei Naryshkin and top Ukrainian presidency officials, inaugurated a memorial to soldiers killed in the battle and placed garlands in front of local monuments. "After the battle of Poltava... no-one on the European continent could ignore Russia's political will,"...

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia's plan to close gaming halls, from gaudy casinos crowned by extravagant neon structures to dingy dwellings containing a handful of slot machines, could turf a third of a million people out of work this week. "I've got 800 staff looking at me every day for inspiration and hope," said Clive Tilley, who runs the 70-tabled Casino de Paris, Moscow's largest gaming complex where gamblers play under vines in mock French courtyards. "With the economy as it is now, it's not the time to pound the streets looking for work. It breaks my heart." From July 1,...

MOSCOW. June 29 (Interfax) - Moscow authorities have turned down the request of city gays to hold a picket near the U.S. embassy during the Russian visit of U.S. President Barack Obama. "The prefecture of the Moscow central administrative district informed the organizers of the gay picket near the U.S. embassy on Monday that they were denied the action," Moscow gay pride parade organizer Nikolai Alexeyev told Interfax. He said the ban "once again confirmed that Moscow authorities would not allow any public actions of sexual minorities in the city." The gays applied for holding the picket near the U.S....

Russian forces have begun their biggest military exercise in the Caucasus since the war with Georgia last year. More than 8,000 troops are taking part in the manoeuvres near the Georgian border, which Georgia has called "a pure provocation from Russia". Military sources are also quoted as saying the exercises would help to "cool down the fantasies of some warmongers", in a clear reference to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, whom Moscow blames for starting last year's war, says our correspondent. People frightened Tensions in the region are still high: Russia maintains heavy military presences in Georgia's two breakaway regions of...

The internecine squabbling between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has left investors puzzled and the U.S. dollar affected. On June 13, Kudrin said at a meeting of the G-8 Finance Ministers in Italy that the global financial system as well as the U.S. dollar's role as the world's main reserve currency was unlikely to change in the near future. Kudrin said Russia would not alter the structure of its reserve funds, as the dollar was in "good shape," and that "it is too early to speak of an alternative" to the U.S. currency. Kudrin vowed...

Alcohol kills more than half Russian men and women in their most productive years, according to new research. The international study found three quarters of deaths among men and half of deaths among women aged 15-54 could be attributed to alcohol abuse. Such a mortality rate for this age range is five times higher for men and three times higher for women when compared to Western Europe. Professor David Zaridze, who led the research, worked out that alcohol had killed three million in the country since the failed attempt to restrict sales in 1987. Some 30,000 people - twice the...

Russia to take part in Indian diesel submarine tender ST. PETERSBURG, June 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will participate in an expected tender to supply diesel-electric submarines to the Indian navy, the Russian state arms exporter said on Friday. "We will offer India an export version of the Lada class diesel submarine - the Amur class vessel. We will take part in the Indian tender when it is announced with these submarines or vessels of another class," said Oleg Azizov, head of Rosoboronexport's delegation at the International Maritime Defense Show 2009 in St. Petersburg. "We have a bilateral cooperation agreement...

First we were mocked by Pravda. Now, if leaked reports are true, our bank bailouts will be further exposed as the morally-destructive giveaways to the banking class that you know them to be. Even the former Commies know how to conduct a bailout; you gain control of failed banks in exchange for government cash. Russia will reportedly demand board seats and veto rights from all aggrieved institutions.

Striding angrily through the aisles with a retinue of glum executives in tow, Mr Putin came to a halt in the supermarket's cold meat section and gesticulated towards a packet of sausages priced at just under £5. Rounding on Yuri Kobaladze, the chain's head of corporate relations, Mr Putin demanded: "Why do your sausages cost 240 roubles? Is that normal?" "But these are high quality sausages," Mr Kobaladze replied, looking crestfallen. With a look of relief crossing his face, the executive spotted some cheaper sausages. "Look, these ones are just 49 roubles," he said. But the prime minister was not...

Russia to lay down 2nd Graney class nuclear sub in July MOSCOW, June 25 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will start construction of a second Project 885 Yasen (Graney) class nuclear-powered multipurpose attack submarine in July, a shipbuilding industry official said on Thursday. Project 855 Yasen (Graney) class nuclear submarines combine the ability to launch a variety of long-range cruise missiles (up to 3,100 miles) with nuclear warheads, and effectively engage hostile submarines and surface warships. "A second Yasen class nuclear submarine will be laid down on July 24 at the Sevmash shipyard on the eve of Russian Navy Day," said...

Russia may export up to 40 diesel submarines by 2015 ST. PETERSBURG, June 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia could sell up to 40 fourth-generation diesel-electric submarines to foreign customers by 2015, state-run arms exporter Rosoboronexport said on Wednesday. "Russia's export potential in this market sector is very high thanks to Project 636 and Amur-1650 class submarines equipped with the Club-S integrated missile systems," Rosoboronexport said in a press release. The Project 636 Kilo-class submarine is thought to be one of the most silent submarine classes in the world. It has been specifically designed for anti-shipping and anti-submarine operations in relatively...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia was tricked by Kyrgyzstan over a deal with the United States to keep open a key air base in Central Asia, a Russian diplomat was quoted as saying by local media on Wednesday. ... The Kommersant newspaper quoted an unidentified Russian diplomat as saying Moscow viewed the U.S. move as a trick and that Russia would soon make an "adequate response" to the deal.

Russia’s strategic nuclear-powered Yury Dolgoruki submarine has finally been launched. It is the first submarine, which Russia made after the collapse of the USSR. Russian shipbuilders can be both proud and ashamed of the new cruiser: the works on the submarine began 16 years ago. The construction of the nuclear cruiser was very slow due to the lack of finance. When the submarine was finally assembled, it turned out that the Bulava rocket was not ready for it. Officials of Russia’s Defense Ministry say that the new rocket would be passed into service in 2009 or in 2010. The Yury...

Kyrgyzstan has reversed a Russian order to evict the US military from an airbase close to Afghanistan in a significant foreign policy victory for Barack Obama. After winning major financial concessions from Washington, the Kyrgyz government said it had agreed to allow the US Air Force to retain control of the Manas Airbase for at least one more year. President Kurmanbek Bakiyev The move, which comes a fortnight before Mr Obama visits Moscow, was welcomed by the United States, which has emphasised the base's importance in the campaign to defeat the Taliban. "We applaud the decision by the Kyrgyz Republic...

Kyrgyzstan has reversed a Russian order to evict the US military from an airbase close to Afghanistan in a significant foreign policy victory for Barack Obama. After winning major financial concessions from Washington, the Kyrgyz government said it had agreed to allow the US Air Force to retain control of the Manas Airbase for at least one more year. The move, which comes a fortnight before Mr Obama visits Moscow, was welcomed by the United States, which has emphasised the base's importance in the campaign to defeat the Taliban.

The Middle East peace process should result in establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, President Dmitry Medvedev has told the League of Arab States in Cairo. On Tuesday, the Russian leader made Egypt his first stop on a tour of Africa aimed at reestablishing close ties with the continent. Along with addressing the Arab League, Medvedev also met with President Hosni Mubarak. The Russian leader spoke of the need to strengthen security in the Middle East and to find a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “We understand that resolving the Palestinian conflict and halting...

MOSCOW - Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said he had been ordered by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to fight insurgents in the neighboring region of Ingushetia after its leader was gravely wounded in a bomb attack. Kadyrov's harsh tactics have brought relative stability to Chechnya since he was elected in 2007 after more than a decade of war. But fellow Kremlin appointees have failed to stem spikes in violence in neighboring Dagestan and Ingushetia. With Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov fighting for his life in hospital, Kadyrov said he had been ordered by Medvedev to run cross-border operations. "He told me to...

The Yaroslav Mudry: a forerunner of future frigates 16:0722/06/2009 MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) - On June 19, the escort ship (frigate) Yaroslav Mudry, a long-awaited addition to the Russian Navy, began its maiden cruise on the Baltic Sea. Shortly it is to become an exhibit at the International Naval Show in St. Petersburg. The Project 11540 ship was laid down in 1990, at the same time as the prototype ship of the series, the frigate Neustrashimy, known for its journey to the Gulf of Aden. However, in 1994 work on the Yaroslav Mudry was halted, even though...

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a revised anti-crisis program for 2009 last week, asserting that the previous plan had been accomplished and setting the first priority on the fulfillment of the state's social obligations for the population and the second - on preserving and developing the industrial potential (RIA Novosti, Gazeta, June 19). The fresh data on industrial production shows a decline of 17.1 percent in May compared with the same month in 2008, which bodes ill for the second priority. As for macro-economic stability, which the program designates as the seventh priority admitting that Russian GDP might decline by...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Monday it views all issues linked to Iran's presidential election as the Islamic Republic's internal affair. "According to the officially announced results of Iran's presidential election, it was won by current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "We consider all issues linked to Iran's election as this country's exclusively internal affair. We believe the discords that emerged after the election must be settled in strict conformity with the Islamic Republic's constitution and laws." Iran's opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, who was officially beaten into second place by Ahmadinejad in an election...

LISTEN ON-LINE NOW 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM June 22 http://www.thelight959.com/wmp.htm Paul's Guests For Monday June 22nd. Mike and Marina Kayser Marina was born in Leningrad, she spent the first seven years of her life in a small village in the middle of Russia. She was brought up by her grandmother who was the wife of an Orthodox priest who was killed in the early thirties during the purges of Stalin. Marina returned to Leningrad and eventually graduated from the law school of Leningrad University. She served 22 years in the Leningrad/St. Petersburg Police Department. During the last five years...

Iran's supreme leader's second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has emerged as one of the driving forces behind the government's crackdown, diplomats and observers said. Mojtaba is an ally of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the disputed president, and was credited with winning his father's endorsement for the then Tehran mayor in the 2005 elections, leading to Ahmadinejad's shock second round victory. Mojtaba is an austere figure, generally seen as more hardline than his father and has become a gatekeeper for access to the beit-e-rahbari, the supreme leader's home, and the supreme leader himself. According to some Iran analysts, Khamenei, 70, is manoeuvring to position...

Russian TV - 'Poland planned to invade USSR' 22.06.2009 15:59 Russian state television has broadcast a report in which it accuses Poland of collaboration with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. The report says that the government in Warsaw was in a secret alliance with Nazi Germany and japan to invade the Soviet Union. Today Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians celebrate National Remembrance and Mourning Day to commemorate victims of WW II, popularly known as the Great Patriotic War. To mark the occasion, as well as the 70th anniversary of the signing of Ribbentrop – Molotow pact, Russian television has broadcast...

GDANSK, Poland--When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can't be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989. Poles fought for their freedom for so many years that they hold in special esteem those who backed them in their struggle. Support was the test of friendship. President Reagan was such a friend. His policy of aiding democratic movements in Central and Eastern Europe in the dark days of the Cold War meant...

MOSCOW, June 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russia remembers on Monday the start of the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War, the term used in Russia and other ex-Soviet states to describe WWII. Nazi Germany and its allies attacked the country's west, delivering massive air strikes on key air, railroad and military facilities and advancing 250-300 km deep into Soviet territory on June 22, 1941. The war, planned to be a matter of months, lasted for four years and became the world's bloodiest conflict in history. At least 26.5 million Soviet civilians and soldiers died during the conflict, according to official statistics. Veterans,...

President Obama seems to be grappling with an approach to safely resolve the grave international problems of Iran and of North Korea.  He is floundering for the right tactics when what he needs is the right strategy.  As my friend Herb Meyer, who worked closely with Reagan in winning the Cold War, reminds us, Reagan's strategy was straightforward:  "How about this?  We win.  They lose."  Barry Goldwater put in much the same during the 1960s, when his Cold War strategy was summarized in his 1963 book title Why Not Victory? Obama, like many Leftists, confuses national security tactics with national security...

he relationship between Russia and China serve as an example of how countries can develop their cooperation, while their experience of building consensus can be used worldwide, President Dmitry Medvedev said. “Having analysed how our relations were built since 1992, I came to the conclusion that such relations can be rightfully called exemplary, and this is important not only for our countries but for the whole world,” Medvedev said on Wednesday, speaking at the Bolshoi Theatre between a gala concert marking the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and China. “I believe our experience of reaching agreements on the...

CHISINAU, June 20 (RIA Novosti) - Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin said Saturday his country has its own way of development, rather comfortable and realizable, and is not going to join NATO. "This means unification of the country through strategic partnership with Russia and on the basis of European democratic standards," Voronin told RIA Novosti. "And the path of European integration that we have chosen differs much from known patterns. Because for us it is a way to receive the basic European freedoms, liberalized visa regime and free trade zone rather than pursuit of compulsory membership in the EU," he said....

AMSTERDAM, June 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday he hopes his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in July in Moscow will promote a new nuclear disarmament treaty. "We are ready to cut our strategic delivery vehicles by several times compared to the START-1 treaty. As for warheads connected with these delivery vehicles, their number should be lower than the level envisioned by the Moscow Treaty of 2002," Medvedev told journalists. "We are for real, effective and checkable cuts," he said, adding that at the meeting with Obama they will also discuss economic and regional problems,...

Taiwan to build 3rd-generation warplane with Russia's help Europe News Jun 19, 2009, 1:44 GMT Taipei - Taiwan plans to build its third-generation warplane with Russian technology as the United States has refused to sell Taiwan F-16C/Ds, a newspaper reported Friday. The Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC), which sent personnel to Russia for instruction from Russian experts, has finished designing the third-generation warplane, the China Times quoted an unnamed military official as saying. The as-yet-unnamed third-generation warplane will have twin engines and be able to take off and land with a short airstrip, the official said. During the design process,...

The US spent more than $607 billion on defence in 2008 according to SIPRI statistics and this constitutes 41% of global expenditure on defence. This far exceeds what the next nine countries spent during the same year. The Chinese spent $85 billion, the Russians $59 billion and the Indians $30 billion. The Brazilians, the fourth member of the newly founded BRIC, spent even less. There are others who calculate that the US spends far more than this in its endeavour to maintain global primacy. America maintains about 750 military and intelligence bases world-wide and its intelligence budget exceeds India’s defence...