
Minsk: A gold bar weighing one kilogram was dropped into a charity collection box in the Belarussian city of Brest, a media report said on Friday The gold bar was discovered in a charity box set up in a grocery store to collect money for the Orthodox Church, the ONT television reported. The anonymous donor also slipped the $50,000 gold brick's certificate of authentication into the collection box. According to...

05:06 PM, Feb 11, 2012

Assad bolstered by Russian support, ignored appeals from world leaders to halt the carnage. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the "appalling brutality" of the operation to stamp out the revolt against Assad, and Turkey's ambassador to the European Union warned of a slide into civil war that could inflame the region. Diplomats from Western and Arab powers, lining up meetings that could mean some decisions soon, condemned Assad in...

11:13 AM, Feb 10, 2012

Beirut: Days after blocking a US-backed peace plan at the UN, senior Russian officials pushed for reforms on Tuesday during an emergency meeting with Syrian President Bashar al Assad, promoting a settlement to end the uprising without removing him from power. Thousands of flag-waving government supporters cheered the Russians in the Syrian capital of Damascus, while to the north; Assad's forces pounded the opposition city of Homs - underscoring the...

03:43 AM, Feb 08, 2012

Moscow: Russia and India on Monday started preparations for the joint INDRA-2012 military exercises scheduled to be held in Russia this summer, a Russian official said. Lt. Col. Alexander Gordeyev, spokesman for the Eastern Military District, said: "An Indian military delegation arrived on Monday in Ulan Ude (in Russia's Far East) to discuss the preparation for INDRA-2012 military drills to be held this summer." Russian and Indian military officials will...

04:17 AM, Feb 07, 2012

India has voted for an Arab and Western-backed UN resolution denouncing the violent crackdown in Syria. ...

11:32 PM, Feb 06, 2012

China and Russia have blocked a UN resolution that called for the immediate end to violence in Syria. ...

08:15 AM, Feb 05, 2012

United Nations: Russia and China have vetoed a United Nation Security Council resolution backing an Arab League peace plan that calls for Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down. The other 13 council members, including the US, France and Britain, voted on Saturday in favor of the resolution aimed at stopping the ongoing violence in Syria. The vote took place as Syrian forces pummeled the city of Homs with mortar...

10:46 PM, Feb 04, 2012

Moscow: The bill, pushed by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, was backed by 28 out of 35 deputies in Kostroma town's legislature. A similar ban is already in place in the southern Astrakhan and central Ryazan regions but it was shelved in St Petersburg, Russia's second city, last November after MPs failed to agree on its "legal definitions". The legislation effectively outlaws any gay pride events while allowing authorities to...

01:05 PM, Feb 04, 2012

Brussels: NATO's top official said on Friday that the alliance expects regional powers to contribute to a multibillion dollar fund to finance the Afghan army and police after they assume full responsibility for the war in 2014. Since Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest nations cannot foot the estimated $ 6 billion annual bill, NATO nations will have to pay the bulk of it. But austerity measures and budgetary cuts...

11:24 PM, Feb 03, 2012

Moscow: Russia said on Wednesday it would veto any UN resolution on Syria that it finds unacceptable, after demanding any measure rule out military intervention to halt the bloodshed touched off by protests against President Bashar al-Assad's rule. The political violence in Syria has killed at least 5,000 people in the past 10 months and activists say Assad's forces have stepped up operations this week on opposition strongholds, from Damascus...

04:01 AM, Feb 02, 2012

London: Tottenham signed striker Louis Saha from Premier League rivals Everton and reached a deal to offload Roman Pavlyuchenko to Lokomotiv Moscow in the final hours of the transfer window on Tuesday. Manager Harry Redknapp signed Saha despite the 33-year-old Frenchman scoring just twice in 20 appearances for Everton this season and struggling with injuries in recent years. "He's got good movement, can score goals but probably needs a change,"...

08:41 AM, Feb 01, 2012

Panaji: Around 500 Russian tourists have been stranded at Goa airport as a result of a sudden suspension of operations by Russia's biggest tour operator Lanta Tur Voyage due to its "financial collapse". The tour operator announced the stoppage of operations, airport officials said adding many tourists were stranded at the airport since Friday night while many others were staying put in various hotels. "Many tourists had arrived in the...

10:32 PM, Jan 28, 2012

Rostov-On-Don: Russian officials say an Islamist warlord, seven militants, four officers and one civilian have been killed in three separate incidents in Russia's violence-plagued southern Caucasus region. Russia's Anti-Terrorist Committee spokesman Nikolai Sintsov said the leader of Islamist separatists in the province of Ingushetia was killed in a shootout on Friday in the village of Ekazhevo along with two other militants. Also on Friday, police spokesman Vyasheslav Gasanov said four...

09:29 PM, Jan 27, 2012

Moscow: Undeterred by a Siberian court's rejection of their plea seeking a ban on a translated version of the Bhagvad Gita, Russian prosecutors are planning to file an appeal against the verdict on the holy book dubbed by them as "extremist literature". Prosecutors in the Siberian city of Tomsk argue that the Russian translation of "Bhagvad Gita As It Is" promotes "social discord" and hatred towards non-believers, an issue which...

05:43 PM, Jan 26, 2012

Washington: The US has expressed concern over reports that Syria has inked a $ 550 million contract to purchase advanced training fighter jets from Russia. "If it is accurate, it would be quite concerning," State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, told reporters when asked about reports that Russia would be supplying combat jets to Syria. A top US diplomat visiting Moscow would raise this issue with Russian authorities, Nuland said. The...

10:19 AM, Jan 24, 2012