Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama discussed the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine at their meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in China’s Hangzhou, Russian media cited the Kremlin spokesman as saying on Monday. More »
A tapestry picturing Mother Teresa hangs from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, September 1, 2016. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini When Mother Teresa is made an official saint of the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday, one city will be partic... More »
A curious radio signal picked up by a Russian telescope is probably not a transmission from an extraterrestrial civilization, but astronomers in California are taking a second look anyway, the SETI Institute said on Tuesday. More »
A fire severely damaged a set for the “Knightfall” television series at studios in Prague overnight, causing damage worth about $4 million, Czech media reported on Saturday. More »
MOSCOW Five-times grand slam winner Maria Sharapova, banned in June for two years for doping offences, may be allowed to return in January, according to Russian Tennis Federation (RTF) president Shamil Tarpishchev. “Everything will be decided in September. It ... More »
MOSCOW Russian standards agency Rosstandart said on Monday it had been informed about a voluntary recall by Honda’s (7267.T) Russian subsidiary of 55,590 Honda CR-V, Accord and Jazz cars. The recall is due to a fault with the cars’ air bags, the agency said. (... More »
SARAJEVO U.S. actor and producer Robert De Niro said on Saturday that U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump should not run for president because he was “totally nuts”. Trump, a billionaire businessman seeking his first public office, has courted ... More »
SARAJEVO Hundreds of Sarajevo taxi drivers have stuck posters of Robert De Niro on their cabs in tribute to the actor who will open the city’s film festival on Friday with a screening of “Taxi Driver”. In the movie, which has been digitally restored for its 40... More »
MOSCOW Russian President Vladimir Putin has held a meeting with his Security Council to discuss additional security measures for Crimea after the clashes on the contested peninsula, the Kremlin said on Thursday. Russia was considering tightening security at th... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Sunday that Russian intelligence services hacked into Democratic National Committee computers and she questioned Republican rival Donald Trump’s overtures to Russian President Vladimir P... More »
MOSCOW Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that U.S. accusations that Moscow was behind a hack of Democratic National Committee computers were insulting and unworthy, the Interfax news agency reported. The ministry also said that Washington had not made t... More »
MOSCOW The Kremlin says it had zero involvement in the hacking of Democratic Party emails while U.S. officials say the hack originated in Russia. We may never know who is right, but one thing is for sure – Russia had motive, capability and form. Seen through K... More »
BUDAPEST Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Saturday said Donald Trump had proposed security policies that Europe should take to heart to solve a security crisis he blames on uncontrolled immigration. Speaking at a summer university in Baile Tusnad, Roma... More »
SARAJEVO A World Heritage listing for 70,000 medieval tombstones spread across four countries that emerged from Yugoslavia’s bloody break up in the 1990s was praised on Monday as a rare example of successful cooperation between the former foes. Bosnia, Croatia... More »
VIENNA It would be unacceptable for Turkey to reintroduce the death penalty in response to Friday’s attempted coup, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said in an interview published on Monday ahead of a meeting of his European Union counterparts. Turkish... More »
LONDON She was once the ponytailed Romanian teenager excited at the thought of owning colored socks and eating bubble gum yet Nadia Comaneci went on to captivate the world by performing an Olympic feat that continues to stir the emotions four decades later. Th... More »
BEIJING European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Wednesday the EU was looking for the smoothest possible relations with Britain after it leaves the union and hopes institutional turmoil can end as soon as possible. Speaking during a visit... More »
RAMYGALA, Lithuania The Lithuanian village of Ramygala held its annual beauty pageant on Sunday, the top prize going to a 16-month-old female goat called Demyte, or “Little Spot”. Around 500 people braved the summer heat to attend the parade in honor of the go... More »
LUXEMBOURG Britain could not rejoin the European Union after leaving because membership requirements would be too onerous, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Monday. He said Thursday’s referendum on EU membership offered “no way back”. Since becoming a m... More »
ZHEZKAZGAN, Kazakhstan A soyuz capsule bringing back three astronauts from the International Space Station, including the first to represent the British government, made a safe parachute landing on the steppe near the Kazakh city of Zhezkazgan on Saturday. The... More »
BRUSSELS Britain, Germany and the United States advanced plans on Tuesday to spearhead a new NATO force on Russia’s border from next year, but some eastern allies said the alliance’s effort must go further to deter Moscow. Weeks before a critical NATO summit i... More »
MOSCOW Russian President Vladimir Putin and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will talk about sanctions and energy projects when they meet in St Petersburg this week, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters. “The subject of sanctions will be r... More »
LILLE, France Russia fans will not repeat offences which could see the team thrown out of Euro 2016, coach Leonid Slutski said after UEFA imposed a suspended disqualification on the country on Tuesday after crowd trouble against England. “We are sure that we a... More »
EVIAN, France Embarrassing footage of Germany coach Joachim Loew scratching around inside the front and back of his trousers during their Euro 2016 win over Ukraine has caused a buzz back home but for winger Lukas Podolski it is not an issue. Loew was watching... More »
SARAJEVO Italian experts are helping Bosnian colleagues preserve the collections of the Sarajevo National Museum, providing equipment and know-how to set up a center for restoration of cultural heritage in the ethnically divided country. The museum, a custodia... More »
DEBRECEN, Hungary In a graveyard in Hungary, solemn contemplation gave way to frantic sportsmanship on Friday as dozens of grave diggers battled to prove they were the fastest and best in the business. Taking their places at plots selected by pulling names out... More »
SARAJEVO A group of artists unveiled a huge mural of David Bowie in Sarajevo on Saturday to commemorate the British musician’s humanitarian work during the Bosnian war. To the sound of Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” up to 300 people attended the inauguration of the m... More »
LONDON British Prime Minister David Cameron stands by his description of Donald Trump’s proposal for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States as “divisive, stupid and wrong”, a spokesman said on Monday. Trump, when asked about Cameron’s criticism,... More »
LONDON Donald Trump said he was unlikely to have a good relationship with David Cameron because the British prime minister cast the U.S. presidential candidate as “divisive, stupid and wrong” for proposing a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.... More »
KIEV/MOSCOW Ukrainian politicians hailed their country’s surprise weekend victory in the European Song Contest as a continent-wide endorsement in their smoldering conflict with Russia, while Moscow said the competition had been hijacked by politics. Ukrainian ... More »
SOCHI, Russia An effort to show off the superiority of Russian military equipment backfired on Thursday when the door handle of a jeep fell off just as President Vladimir Putin was inspecting the vehicle. The Kremlin leader was being shown an array of military... More »
MOSCOW Russia and the United States have agreed to extend the “regime of calm” in Syria’s city of Aleppo for another 48 hours starting from May 10, RIA news agency on Tuesday quoted Russia’s Defence Ministry as saying. (Reporting by Lidia Kelly- Editing by Dmi... More »
MOSCOW Russia’s sports ministry said on Monday it was “certain” about the transparency of its doping controls during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and that independent observers had managed the testing operation daily. The ministry was responding to alleg... More »
Whistleblower Vitaly Stepanov told Reuters on Monday he nearly aborted his plan to expose widespread doping in Russian athletics when the World Anti-Doping Agency was slow to act on information he provided them. Stepanov, who previously worked for Russia’s ant... More »
MOSCOW A Russian company is trying to cash in on chilly relations between Moscow and Washington by releasing an ice cream called “Little Obama”, irritating U.S. officials. The product, called “Obamka” in Russian, is glazed with chocolate and its wrapping featu... More »
RUDA SLASKA, Poland Janusz Urbanski has a one of a kind chessboard he never plays, a personalised guitar he does not strum and a boat he cannot sail. Why? They are all made from tens of thousands of matches. For the last 40 years, the former Polish miner and i... More »
MOSCOW Russia’s Onexim group, which manages the assets of tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov, said on Sunday that it was not in talks to sell its RBC media group and power generating company Quadra. Russian online news site gazeta.ru reported earlier on Sunday, citing s... More »
HANOVER, Germany German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday that she did not favor classical “safe zones” in Syria which would need to be protected by foreign forces but believed that peace talks in Geneva could agree areas where fleeing Syrians could feel... More »
JAGODINA, Serbia Ultra-nationalists are set to return to Serbia’s parliament in an April 24 election after an absence of several years, boosted by growing discontent with Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic’s pro-European Union stance and austerity policies. They ... More »
ST PETERSBURG, Russia Russian President Vladimir Putin said a friend of his named in the “Panama Papers” leaks had done nothing wrong and spent the money he earned from business on buying expensive musical instruments which he was donating to public institutio... More »
BAKU Three Azeri servicemen were killed in fresh fighting with Armenian-backed separatists over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region on Monday, Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry said. Azerbaijan had halted its attacks but Armenia was still “aggravating the situat... More »
SOFIA Bulgarian triple jumper Gabriela Petrova has tested positive for the banned substance meldonium, joining the long list of athletes, including tennis champion Maria Sharapova, who have recorded positive tests for the drug. The 23-year-old, who won the sil... More »
MOSCOW The Moscow Arbitration court on Monday rejected an appeal from Google and upheld a ruling that the U.S. firm broke anti-monopoly laws by abusing its dominant position with its Android mobile platform, Russia’s competition watchdog said. FAS, the watchdo... More »
MOSCOW Russia is ready to coordinate its actions with the U.S.-led coalition in Syria to push the Islamic State group out of Raqqa, Interfax news agency quoted Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying. “We are ready to coordinate our actions with the ... More »
MOSCOW Russian banks may use yuan to boost their capital, Mikhail Sukhov, a deputy governor with the Russian central bank, was quoted as saying by TASS news agency. RIA news agency quoted him as saying that a number of Chinese banks are interested in buying Ru... More »
BUDAPEST The euro zone’s troubles are forcing its member states to forge closer integration and Hungary will have to decide in coming years whether to give up some sovereignty in economic policy and join the group, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Monday. O... More »
NEW DELHI/WASHINGTON India and the United States are closing in on an agreement to share military logistics after 12 years of talks, officials said, a sign of strengthening defense ties between the countries as China becomes increasingly assertive. The United ... More »
MOSCOW Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke on the phone on Sunday about closer cooperation between their countries’ militaries on the Syria ceasefire plan, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday. The conversati... More »
BRUSSELS British and EU negotiators agreed much of a reform package on Thursday to help keep Britain in the European Union, leaving Prime Minister David Cameron to settle tricky final issues, notably on migration, at a summit next week, diplomats said. After t... More »
MOSCOW As Russia wrestles with an economic crisis, more and more Porsches and Rolls-Royces are appearing on its roads. It seems something of a paradox- while mass-market car sales in the country have tumbled along with the rouble and oil prices, one area is bu... More »
BRUSSELS Proposals to protect Britain and other non-euro zone countries from deeper euro zone integration do not grant London the right of veto over decisions, European Council President Donald Tusk told EU leaders in a letter on Tuesday. Publishing the letter... More »
PARIS Syrian Kurdish officials will not be invited to peace talks in Geneva, where negotiations for the opposition will be led by a Saudi-backed opposition group, France’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. Laurent Fabius said United Nations special envoy Sta... More »
LAUSANNE, Switzerland The co-leader of the Syrian Democratic Council, Haytham Manna, on Wednesday he would not take part in peace talks in Geneva unless two Kurdish leaders, Saleh Muslim and Ilham Ahmed, were also invited to participate. “I’ll go with my frien... More »
SOFIA Bulgaria’s retired double Olympic wrestling silver medalist Stanka Zlateva said on Sunday she was once offered cash to lose a world championship final but had refused to do so. “I was offered money at a world championship but for me, it’s much more impor... More »
BUDAPEST Taxi drivers in Hungary’s capital demonstrated on Monday against ride-hailing service Uber, whose growing popularity they find unpalatable amid new regulations setting a fixed tariff for traditional taxi firms that is higher than Uber’s. Taxis blocked... More »
STOCKHOLM Swedish home appliance maker Electrolux said on Monday its CEO Keith McLoughlin would retire and be replaced by senior executive Jonas Samuelson, just a month after the biggest deal in the company’s history collapsed. McLoughlin will hand over on Feb... More »
LONDON UK Athletics (UKA) has called for world records to be wiped clean and drug cheats to be banned for at least eight years in radical proposals aimed at heralding a new unblemished era for the sport. UKA’s document “A Manifesto for Clean Athletics” was pub... More »
(The Sports Xchange) – Alex Ovechkin became the fifth-fastest player to record his 500th NHL goal and added another for good measure as the 30-year-old led the Washington Capitals to a 7-1 rout over the Ottawa Senators on Sunday. “It’s nice to be in that spot,... More »
WARSAW Poland dismissed European Commission concern on Friday that a new law on state-run media threatened media freedom, warning Brussels not to interfere in its affairs on the basis of “biased and politically-engaged” reports. Simultaneously, the government,... More »
MOSCOW/KIEV U.S. drinks firm Coca-Cola on Wednesday blamed a marketing agency for a map used in an online advertising campaign that showed Crimea to be part of Russia and which drew protests and threats of a boycott from angry Ukrainians. Russia annexed the pe... More »
BEIJING The International Monetary Fund’s decision on Ukraine’s debt to Russia did not change anything to Moscow, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak told reporters in Beijing on Thursday. The International Monetary Fund’s Executive Board decided t... More »
MOSCOW Russia will consider Afghanistan’s request for arms supply in a careful manner, but that task belongs first of all to the United States, RIA news agency cited Kremlin’s special envoy to Afghanistan as saying on Monday. Zamir Kabulov told the agency that... More »
BERLIN Hamburg’s bid to host the 2024 Olympics collapsed on Sunday after the majority of the city’s residents voted against the multi-billion euro project in a referendum, killing off the candidacy and leaving officials in shock. Hamburg’s withdrawal reshuffle... More »
KRAKOW, Poland A Polish court’s decision to deny the extradition of film-maker Roman Polanski to the United States over a 1977 child sex conviction became legally binding on Friday after an appellate prosecutor’s office said it found no justification to appeal... More »
LONDON Swiss maestro Roger Federer will have an early chance to disprove the notion that Novak Djokovic is untouchable when they meet in their second round-robin match at the ATP World Tour Finals on Tuesday. Federer outclassed Tomas Berdych 6-4 6-2 to kicksta... More »
MOSCOW Russia’s biggest search site Yandex said on Friday it had asked the European Commission to investigate Google’s practices in relation to its Android mobile operating system in the European Union. The new complaint could strengthen the case against Googl... More »
MOSCOWRussia and Iran have signed a contract for Moscow to supply Tehran with S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, Sergei Chemezov, the chief executive of Russian state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec, was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying on Monday. ... More »
ST PETERSBURG The first bodies from a plane crash in Egypt in which all 224 passengers, most of them Russians, died over the weekend arrived in St Petersburg early on Monday morning aboard a Russian government plane. The crashed Airbus A321 plane, operated by ... More »
KRAKOW, Poland Oscar-winning film-maker Roman Polanski said on Friday he was grateful and relieved after a Polish court rejected a U.S. request for his extradition over a 1977 child sex conviction. The case of the Polish-born Polanski, now 82, remains an inter... More »
LONDON Britain is seeking an “emergency brake” to allow countries which are in the European Union but outside the euro zone to delay decisions that could threaten their interests, the Financial Times reported. Britain, which is not a member of the 19-member si... More »
BRUSSELS Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, who has been sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail for insulting Islam and for cyber crime, was awarded the European Union’s prize for human rights and freedom of thought on Thursday. Badawi received the first of hi... More »
WARSAW Poland’s eurosceptic Law and Justice party (PiS) claimed victory on Sunday in a watershed election that risks putting the ex-communist state on a collision course with key European Union allies. Run by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the twin brother of Poland’s la... More »
WARSAW Poland’s Law and Justice party (PiS) would consider a partnership with rock star Pawel Kukiz and his anti-establishment grouping if they fall short of a clear majority in the final results of Sunday’s election, the party’s likely candidate for defense m... More »
BERKASOVO, Serbia Thousands of migrants clamored to enter European Union member Croatia from Serbia on Monday after a night spent in the cold and mud of no-man’s land, their passage west slowed by a Slovenian effort to impose limits on the flow to western Euro... More »
Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton has dismissed as wide of the mark reports that he sprayed Russian President Vladimir Putin with the winner’s champagne after Sunday’s grand prix in Sochi. “I actually didn’t. I didn’t actually spray him. I think there’... More »
MOSCOW Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet the United Nations’ special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, on Tuesday, RIA news agency quoted the ministry’s press department as saying. RIA said the information came in response to a question on wh... More »
MINSK The Belarussian recipient of the Nobel prize for literature charged Russia on Thursday with carrying out an “invasion” of Ukraine by backing separatists in its eastern regions. Author Svetlana Alexievich, who was awarded the prize for her portrayal of li... More »
BERLIN The head of the European Parliament said on Monday that he expects European Union interior ministers to agree on a voluntary scheme to relocate 160,000 migrants at their meeting on Tuesday. “There will be some discussions, but at the end there will be a... More »
Companies and organizations are pledging to provide funds, goods and services to help thousands of migrants arriving in Europe from war-torn and impoverished countries. Companies are helping through both corporate and employee schemes. Following are some examp... More »
MOSCOW/WARSAW Russia summoned Poland’s ambassador on Thursday to protest at the removal of a Soviet-era statue in a Polish town on the 76th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland, highlighting increased tensions between the neighbors. Katarzyna Pelczynsk... More »
SARAJEVO Bosnia’s National Museum, a custodian of culture for a region torn by ethnic divisions, re-opened on Tuesday after a three-year closure, displaying treasures including a medieval Jewish book of Passover rites. After Bosnia’s divided authorities finall... More »
VIENNA/MUNICH Austria said on Sunday it planned to end emergency measures that have allowed thousands of refugees stranded in Hungary into Austria and Germany since Saturday and move step by step “towards normality”. Austria had suspended its random border che... More »
ALMATY A Russian Soyuz spaceship safely delivered a three-man international crew, including Denmark’s first astronaut, to the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, a day after having had to maneuver to avoid colliding with space debris. The Soyuz TMA-18... More »
WARSAW U.S. media group Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI.N) bought nearly all remaining shares in Polish broadcaster TVN TVN.WA, planning to delist the company from the Warsaw bourse GPW.WA, a brokerage running the deal said on Thursday. SNI, which already ow... More »
VIENNA The European Union might have had a better start, but in the end it was the Balkan countries who brought the game home in this unlikely diplomatic soccer match on Wednesday to kick off the Western Balkan summit in Vienna. Team “FC EU”, made up of Austri... More »
NEW YORK A Russian art dealer accused by Polish authorities of illegally acquiring an 18th-century painting stolen during World War II by the Nazis cannot be extradited from the United States, a Manhattan federal judge ruled on Monday. U.S. District Judge Jed ... More »
KUALA LUMPUR The head of world athletics vigorously defended the IAAF’s anti-doping record on Monday, as global sporting bodies called for a thorough probe of the latest allegations to plunge international sport into crisis. Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper an... More »
KUALA LUMPUR The head of world athletics said on Monday that any suggestion his organization had been negligent in drug testing of athletes was “laughable”. “There are allegations made, no evidence,” IAAF president Lamine Diack told Reuters in the Malaysian ca... More »
BRATISLAVA Slovakia will be among the first to ask Greece to leave the euro zone if it fails to adhere to agreed conditions of further, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Tuesday. Fico told reporters that Slovakia was fundamentally against allowing any ... More »
LONDON After three hours and two minutes of combat, Novak Djokovic and Kevin Anderson were forced off court in the twilight with their last 16 clash tantalizingly poised at two sets all and their Wimbledon audience begging for more. The match was halted as dus... More »
LONDON Unbeaten British boxer Tyson Fury will get a shot at the world heavyweight title in October after agreeing terms for a meeting with champion Wladimir Klitschko. The 39-year-old Ukrainian’s WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO crowns will be on the line when the pair m... More »
ATHENS Tens of thousands of Greeks rallied on Monday to back their leftwing government’s rejection of a tough international bailout after a clash with foreign lenders pushed Greece close to financial chaos and forced a shutdown of its banking system. With a po... More »
ASHGABAT Turkmenistan, which rights groups view as one of the most repressive countries in the world, celebrated President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s 58th birthday on Monday by opening a park in the capital Ashgabat bearing his name. It was the latest tribut... More »
