Ukraine's Prime Minister Mykola Azarov reiterated that his country wouldn't join a Russia-led customs union after the two countries failed to review their natural gas agreement and Russia banned imports of some Ukrainian cheese. KIEV — Ukraine's Prime Minister Mykola Azarov reiterated that his country wouldn't join a Russia-led...

Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov said Friday that Kiev is still considering joining the customs union between Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Friday that Kiev is still considering joining the customs union between Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, Interfax reported. "We are tracking how it's working...

Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Friday that Kiev is still considering joining the customs union between Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, Interfax reported. "We are tracking how it's working very closely, and we have practically all the information about what has a positive effect and what has a negative...

Lawmakers in Moscow have expressed alarm at Customs Union rules that could lift a Russia-wide ban on reusing bottles for vodka and other drinks. Lawmakers in Moscow have expressed alarm at Customs Union rules that could lift a Russia-wide ban on reusing bottles for vodka and other...

... but challenges remain in taking advantage of the new status, industry experts agreed during the Food Business Summit in Moscow on Thursday. "We were preparing to enter the WTO for 18 years and still are not ready for it," said Russian Food Union chairman Maxim Protasov. "We have no training manual how to make use of the WTO." Product safety is one aspect that should improve under the WTO, Protasov said, and the Russian Food Union is working on its quality standards. "We...

... the same day as a sanctioned opposition march and rally in the city center. Plans for teachers to take part in the pro-Putin rally were also announced by blogger taki_net, who wrote Saturday on his LiveJournal page that the head of a teachers' trade union promised to send educators to the event. "Today, speaking on a conference call of the Moscow Education Department, the chairwoman of a teachers' trade union announced that the union will bring out 30,000 of its members Feb. 4 to Poklonnaya...

... Kremlin website reported, as the long-serving minister moves to take the position of head of the Eurasian Economic Commission. Medvedev awarded Khristenko the Order of Merit for his services. The resignation has been expected since December, when Customs Union partners Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan agreed on Khristenko's chairmanship of the new body. Khristenko, who has served as head of the ministry since 2004, is married to Health and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova. Both faced accusations...

... the bridge in their respective delegations. Once the agents' identities were confirmed, the signal was given and the prisoners walked across the "Bridge of Spies" to their respective freedom. Abel was welcomed home as a hero to the Soviet Union. But Powers returned home to controversy surrounding the U-2 incident because of inaccurate articles and commentaries in the media. Many questioned the role Powers played in the intrigue between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet...

... triggering another angry response from Kiev. Russia accounted for 80 percent of Ukrainian cheese exports last year, or $350 million in revenues, according to Ukrainian business weekly Delovaya Stolitsa. Moscow has long urged Kiev to join the Customs Union it has established together with ex-Soviet allies Belarus and Kazakhstan. But Ukraine has refused, pursuing a free trade deal with the European Union instead, which it hopes to sign this year. "This cheese war fits within the overall theme...

... membership in the World Trade Organization discourages investment in the industry. Pork imports into Russia may triple as the country's membership in the World Trade Organization discourages investment in the industry, the National Pig Breeders' Union said. Inbound shipments of the meat last year were about 620,000 tons, or 20 percent of local consumption, a presentation by the union at an agricultural conference in Moscow on Tuesday showed. Imports will increase to about 1.8 million tons in...

... debt crisis worsened. "Bonds and the ruble have benefited this year from the relatively quiet political situation in Russia at the moment," Sergei Dergachev, who helps oversee $8.5 billion in emerging market funds including ruble bonds at Union Investment Privatfonds in Frankfurt, said late last week. "We have also had high oil and commodity prices and, of course, the positive global risk picture." Union Investment plans to invest in Russia's domestic government debt this year...

... lawyers are now seeing an opportunity to win back money for companies by challenging the way Russian courts treat foreign companies operating here. What's more, there have been tax cases among European countries in the past year, including European Union cases during the last four months, that are encouraging lawyers in Russia to press their cases. Corporate law firm CMS is researching "whether there would be Russian companies or investors in Russia who would be interested in bringing some...

... combination of the elites' encroaching disgust with themselves and a realization that the regime is exhausted. The illness resembles a political version of Jean-Paul Sartre's existential nausea and led to both the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the Soviet Union's demise with Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika. Today, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's regime is afflicted with the same terminal disease, despite — or because of — the seemingly impermeable political wall that it spent years constructing...

Thousands of university students across Russia didn't get their January scholarships because of red tape. Thousands of university students across Russia didn't get their January scholarships because of red tape, the head of the Russian Students Union told The Moscow Times on Wednesday. Artyom Khromov said complaints had been lodged throughout the month by students from Moscow State University, the Russian State Humanitarian University, the National Nuclear Research Institute and other universities...

When Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev stepped down 20 years ago, on Dec. 25, 1991, it ended the 70-year history of the Soviet Union and began Russia's transition to a market economy. Government control on the prices of consumer goods were lifted on Jan. 2, 1992, and within a matter of weeks, the planned economy, long lines and deficits...

... Employment:</b></td><td>Administration / Office, Banks / Investments / Insurance, Education / Training</td></tr> <tr><td valign="top"><b>Employment history:</b></td><td><p><b>Research Assistant</b><br>Union College/ Dr. Dallas<br>Commodities research on Grain and Copper production chains.<p><b>Periodicals Assistant</b><br>Union College Schaffer Library<br>Cataloged, maintained an electronic database, organized and...

... limited compared with many other countries, particularly in Europe, and families in Moscow can wait up to 10 years for apartments, according to city officials. There are 414 apartments per 1,000 people in Russia, which is significantly below the European Union figure of 450 per 1,000 people, said Wolfgang Amann, a member of the Real Estate Market Advisory Group of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, at the round table last week. On average, Russians have 22.4 square meters of living space...

... President Almazbek Atambayev said at a ceremony attended by Kyrgyz border troops and the head of Russia's border service, Vladimir Pronichev. "We know our history. We know our fathers and grandfathers fought for our shared motherland, the Soviet Union. I myself am the son of a front-line soldier who protected the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War," Atambayev said. Mainly Muslim Kyrgyzstan lies on a drug-trafficking route out of Afghanistan. Like Russia, it is also concerned about a...

... interview with The Muppets. They should be coming here for the premiere of the new Muppets movie in April, but Disney, for reasons hard to fathom, is not stumping up a private jet for the two. Back in the old days things were different. As the Soviet Union wound down, the two superpowers began a series of cultural exchanges, telecasts between the countries and one episode cruelly wiped from memory, a Muppet detente, which saw Kermit and Miss Piggy head for a summit with Khrushya the pig from Spokonoi...

... Russian winters because of decreased access to sources of unfrozen water and food. Birds such as bullfinches, tits, sparrows and kinglets are most at risk of perishing according to Yelena Chernova, a bird specialist from the Russian Bird Conservation Union. "Smaller birds have faster metabolisms and higher body temperatures, which need to be maintained by eating a lot and often. It gets very difficult for them when there isn't enough food," Chernova explained. Simple measures can be taken...