The U.S. automaker’s board of directors voted late Tuesday in Detroit to scrap the sale following seven months of heated negotiations in Europe and the United States, a decision that provoked 'surprise' from Russia.

Medvedev and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa signed a $22 million deal in Moscow on Thursday that sees Russia provide Ecuador with two Mi-17 transport helicopters.

When asked by a reporter why he did not use force to halt the 1989 demonstrations that preceded the Berlin Wall's fall, Gorbachev said Tuesday that it would have sparked a catastrophic set of events and even a world war.

In previous years, nationalist young people left the government red-faced by marching through central Moscow while chanting racist slogans and raising their arms in Nazi-style salutes.

The president said he had signed amendments to the Criminal Code that envisioned up to life in prison for gangster ringleaders and increased prison terms for people convicted of participating in organized crime.

The government may allow Renault to take control of the struggling automaker as part of a broader development plan.

On the whole, the Kremlin has little to worry about since the threat from protests is very low, which may explain why the training that riot police received last week was focused on rounding up a bunch of frail pensioners.

Grigol Vashadze held dual Russian and Georgian citizenship, a fact that did not go unnoticed in Tbilisi when President Mikheil Saakashvili appointed him as foreign minister in the wake of the war with Russia.

The region has registered eight swine flu deaths, more than half of the dozen swine flu deaths registered across the country.

But the new center-right cabinet has put on review Bulgaria’s commitments to Russian-backed energy projects to see whether they matched national interests and were environmentally friendly.