Seventh seed Marat Safin had to come from a break down in the third set to overcome Austria's Stefan Koubek 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 in the first round of the Pacific Life Open ATP event on Monday.

The maiming or killing of a single Iraqi civilian in an attack by the United States would constitute a war crime, as well as a profound violation of the Christian notion of just war.

When the war in Iraq begins sometime soon, one of the messiest and most dangerous battles may be in northern Iraq. And it won't even involve the Iraqi Army.

The Finance Ministry has proposed converting up to 10 percent of Russia's Soviet-era debt to the Paris Club nations into securities.

Growing up in a bilingual household, I'm fairly certain the first Hungarian words I learned were the ones for ""wooden spoon.""

MTS Eyes Asia, Africa MOSCOW (Vedomosti) -- GSM operator MobileTeleSystems is eyeing expansion into India, Iran, Pakistan and Libya as it looks to move beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union. Russian telecoms' experience abroad has been limited. MTS was grated a license to operate in Belarus in 2001 and recently launched operations in Ukraine. No. 3 operator Megafon joined the Tajikistan market two years ago. ""[MTS] wants to remain a growth company and is ready to pay substantial sums to do so,"" Deutsche Bank analyst Yuly Matevosov said. Top executives from MTS's parent company Sistema recently visited India. U.S. Sales for Gazprom MOSCOW (Vedomosti) -- Following Russia's oil companies, Gazprom is moving toward the U.S. market. The gas monopoly wants to supply the United States with liquefied natural gas in partnership with U.S.-based ConocoPhillips. Gazprom plans to build a facility to cool natural gas into liquid form for easy transportation to the U.S. market at its Yamal field in Siberia.