Complete coverage of the U.S.-Russia summit, being held July 6-8 in Moscow.

It's a slow start to the year when half the country is still on vacation. Two weeks after the ushering in of a new year, there is still a skeleton staff at many Moscow investment banks. The bosses are away, the traders are silent, and the phones barely ringing.

The Moscow-based foundation also plans to monitor human rights.

Just as it has every January for the past 13 years, the British Council in St. Petersburg was to start the new year with a normal working day Monday.

A Ukrainian man convicted in a kidnapping scheme that resulted in the deaths of five people who were dumped in a Northern California reservoir was sentenced to life in prison.

Austrian right-wing politician Joerg Haider called on Saturday for an immediate moratorium on granting asylum to immigrants from Chechnya, blaming some already in the alpine country for violence and sex crimes.

A court on Monday is to review a prosecutor's request that a group of Beslan survivors and their relatives be outlawed as extremist.

More than 70 percent of Georgians who took part in a nationwide referendum said they wanted the country to join NATO, according to results released Friday.

Tens of thousands of opposition supporters rallied Sunday across Tbilisi to protest what they denounced as massive vote fraud that helped Mikheil Saakashvili win a second presidential term.

Dmitry Medvedev, President Vladimir Putin's likely successor, said Friday that Russia must restore its sea power, saying the Soviet Union's naval might commanded respect.