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Official: NKorea Developing New Missile By GEORGE GEDDA Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Officials in the Bush administration have evidence that North Korea has been using Russian technology to develop a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching targets in the continental United States, an administration official said Thursday. The official, asking not to be publicly identified, estimated the potential range at 9,400 miles. The distance from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang to San Francisco is about 5,500 miles. In theory at least, the new missile could strike any target on U.S. soil, the official said. There had...

MOSCOW, January 15. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov yesterday held talks with Shigeru Ishiba, the head of the Japanese Defence Agency. According to the Foreign Ministry's press service, Ishiba was visiting Russia at the invitation of Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov. During the meeting, the two men touched on the issue of creating a missile defence shield in the Asia-Pacific region. According to Ivanov, the creation of such a system on a bloc basis 'could arouse concern among other countries, which would complicate the situation in the region.' The participants in the meeting came to the conclusion that in order...

Buque ruso arribará con 600 mil barriles de gasolina Buques de empresas de origen estadounidense, de Trinidad y Tobago y Rusia, entre otros países, arribarán próximamente al país cargados de gasolina para paliar todas las necesidades de combustible que tiene actualmente la nación en vista del saboteo petrolero que estamos atravesando, según lo informó a Venpres en entrevista exclusiva el presidente de Petróleos de Venezuela, Alí Rodríguez Araque. Rodríguez Araque subrayó que se importará el carburante que se necesite, es más, se acaban de comprar 520 mil barriles a la empresa petrolera brasileña, Petrobras. "Compramos 400 mil barriles a...

Wed 13 Nov 2002 Putin suggests circumcision and Islam to French journalist ROBERT WIELAARD BRUSSELS RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin, in an extraordinary outburst, suggested that a French reporter who questioned the Kremlin’s policy in Chechnya convert to Islam and come to Moscow for circumcision. Mr Putin’s remarks - made at a press conference in Paris on Monday, of which a full translation only became available yesterday - came after he accused Chechen rebels of wanting to kill all non-Muslims. A reporter for the French newspaper, Le Monde, had asked him about reports that Russia used heavy weapons against Chechen civilians....

$12 Million in Fake Checks Are Seized U.S. Customs agents have arrested a Jordanian-born man who was allegedly carrying $12 million in false cashier's checks, alarming counterterrorism officials who said the suspect may have been trained in al Qaeda terrorist camps in Afghanistan.U.S. officials said the name of Omar Shishani, 47, who was detained Wednesday as he arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport from Indonesia, appears on a watch list of people trained in Afghanistan by al Qaeda. Shishani's name turned up in documents captured in Afghanistan, sources said."It has really alarmed a lot of people that al Qaeda may be...

Having summoned all of his ambassadors to Moscow, President Vladimir Putin on Friday explained his new pro-Western foreign policy and laid out his vision for a more modern and economically savvy diplomatic corps. Formally dedicated to the Foreign Ministry's 200th anniversary -- in 1802, Tsar Alexander I for the first time called the foreign service a "ministry" -- the meeting of more than 130 ambassadors at the ministry was more than just an office party. The only previous time a similar meeting was called was in 1986, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev appointed Eduard Shevardnadze as foreign minister and the...

Pipeline monopoly Transneft said Wednesday that it was ready to implement the government's decision to boost oil exports by 150,000 barrels per day from July and extend its capacity further in 2003. Transneft head Semyon Vainshtok told reporters the company, currently shipping up to 3 million bpd of Russian and transit crude, would boost export capacities by 300,000 bpd next year in response to the country's booming output. Russia, the world's second-largest oil exporter, agreed to curb its January-June exports by around 5 percent to help the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries prop up world oil prices, but effectively...

For nearly 20 years during the height of the Cold War, Boris Aleksandrovich Solomatin, oversaw most of the KGB's anti-American spy operations. The now-retired major general played a key role in the "handling" of John Walker Jr., the Navy officer who headed the most damaging spy ring ever to operate against the United States. Solomatin also recruited Glenn Michael Souther, a lesser-known Navy officer, who provided the KGB with some of America's nuclear war plans before eluding the FBI and fleeing to Moscow where he committed suicide in 1989. The Souther case is worth noting because he is considered to...

At a dinner last year at the Russian Embassy, a senior Russian official expressed deep dismay that the Bush administration was preparing to eliminate large numbers of nuclear missiles without any coordination with Russia. I was astonished. "Mr. Minister," I said, "I never thought I would live to see the day when a representative of Moscow would complain that Washington is reducing its nuclear arsenal."Most striking was the Russian's tone. It was not at all bellicose. It was plaintive. The fact that we were prepared to make unilateral arms cuts, whether or not Russia followed suit, was deeply disturbing to...

She's well-versed in weapons and hand-to-hand combat. She's charming, loves Dostoevsky, orchids and dogs, and knows how to keep state secrets. Oh, and she's the most beautiful woman in the world. Oksana Fyodorova, 24, has been crowned Miss Universe 2002 at a glitzy ceremony, sweeping away 74 other contestants to become the first Russian to win the title. The dark-haired, green-eyed St. Petersburger is also probably the first Miss Universe who's a ranking police lieutenant, with six months of detective experience under her belt. Fyodorova, wearing a flowing white evening dress, made the pageant crowd roar Wednesday night when she...

Is Saudi Arabia (KSA) trying to get more influence in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by relocating Wahhabi fundamentalists from the Caucasus to the Middle East? Besides trying to get more influence in the countries of the Caucasus it seems that according to some Russian reports that wherever the oil flows or wherever the Saudi Intelligence service (SOR) directs them to, Wahhabi fundamentalists are settling into their terrorist activities. And this time apparently the Middle Eastern conflict is the focus of their attention. According to the reports, the Wahhabis from the Caucasus are concentrated in two different Wahhabi groups in the Lebanon;...

A new element in the U.S.-Russia agenda has emerged at this Summit: energy deals. It is a subject where the two countries are basically on the same side; they can reach deals to greatly increase their success in realizing their mutual interests, if they first simply set up a framework to reconcile the secondary differences in interest. Their initial agreement is meant to do this. They have agreed to work together on energy strategy, reconciling their national energy strategies: this means they both recognize it as a strategic matter in which they are on the same side. Specifically, they will...

THE PRESIDENT: President, thank you very much for your kind introduction. And thank you for giving me this chance to be here today. President Rau, thank you very much; Chancellor Schroeder. I understand former Chancellor Kohl is here. I want to thank the members of the Bundestag. How are you, sir? I was a little nervous when the President told me that you all are on vacation. (Laughter.) I can just imagine how my Congress would react if I called them back to hear a speech of mine when they were on vacation. (Laughter.) But thank you for coming. I'm...

ST. PETERSBURG -- As Russia prepares to welcome U.S. President George W. Bush this week, the souvenir peddlers have what they think is the perfect memento for the occasion. Along with the traditional nesting dolls depicting round-faced girls with multicolored scarves, souvenir stands here and in Moscow are stocked with dolls depicting Bush, his predecessor Bill Clinton and even Osama bin Laden. Matryoshki have long been a favorite souvenir for visitors to Russia. In the last years of the Soviet Union, souvenir hawkers began selling satirical versions featuring Communist Party leaders. Today, a large matryoshka featuring President Vladimir Putin...

So long, cold war. Farewell to the Great Game. From NATO to Central Asia, it’s a new era of good feelings and U.S.-Russian cooperation __________________ For 57 years, Russians and Americans have marked the May anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. This year the day took on a special resonance. When the U.S. Defense attache at the embassy in Moscow was promoted to brigadier general, who came to help pin on his stars and epaulettes? A senior general in the Russian Army. IT’S PURE COINCIDENCE that the ceremony took place just as George W....

April 27, 2002 Russia Releases Tape as Proof of Rebel's Death By MICHAEL WINES MOSCOW, April 26 — The day after Russia said it had killed the Arab-born guerrilla known as Khattab, who has epitomized its inability to subdue its rebellious Chechnya province, the Kremlin released a videotape tonight that appeared to show him dead and being mourned by aides. In its evening news program Vesti, the state-run television network RTR said Khattab had been "liquidated" on March 19 or 20 by the Russian counterintelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, in a top-secret operation. The network said the video had...

The Cold War is out and global economic competition is in. And to be competitive on the world markets, Russia's economic growth must gain greater momentum. That was the main message of President Vladimir Putin's third annual state of the nation address, delivered Thursday to an audience of about 1,000 government ministers, parliament deputies, governors, religious leaders and other dignitaries. The speech, which was thin on rhetoric and not once interrupted by applause, honed in on economics, with only brief mentions of the government's political and military policies. It made it clear, however, that Russia's foreign policy must be firmly...

Conflict in the Middle East has added $5 per barrel to oil prices, raising profits for OPEC producers and Russia, analysts say. The sudden jump has also taken the pressure off Moscow to stand by its promise that it would cut oil exports in cooperation with the oil cartel. Boston, 5 April 2002 (RFE/RL) -- Middle East tensions may have ended a debate over Russia's cooperation with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as prices this week hit their highest levels of the year. Analysts cited security concerns for driving oil prices above $27 per barrel on the New...

Russian media report discovery of human remains in Chechen caves Fri Apr 5,12:38 PM ET MOSCOW - Russian soldiers found human bones in cliff-side caves in southern Chechnya (news - web sites), and security officers speculated that the remains belonged to servicemen who had been captured during the 1994-96 Chechen war, Russian media reported Friday. Ilya Shabalkin, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service, said that the captured soldiers had probably been used to perform slave labor for the rebels. The bones were sent to a military laboratory for analysis. Some Russian media reported that the remains were of both...