RusAl has appointed Konstantin Olefir as director of the company's legal department.

The carefully crocodile-clipped bundles of business cards on one side of a tidy desk are an apt metaphor for Mathew Murray's approach to business in Russia.

42nd Fire Death MOSCOW (MT) -- The death toll from last month's dormitory fire at the People's Friendship University rose to 42 on Wednesday after a 19-year-old Chinese student died, Interfax reported. More than 180 students were hospitalized after the Nov. 24 blaze in the dormitory, which housed students from dozens of countries, mainly from Asia, Africa and Latin America. A second fire Tuesday in another dormitory at the university sparked fears of a repeat tragedy, but officials said there were no injuries. The 1960s building, a quarantine facility for recently arrived students, lacked a fire alarm system and there was no evacuation plan for its residents. Dmitry Bilibin, the university's rector at the time of the fire who has since resigned, faces prosecution for abuse of fire safety rules.

With a bright patchwork jacket from Guatemala covering his broad shoulders, the graying lion of Russian letters, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, paced and shouted as he read some of his poems that once shook the world.

Two U.S. citizens have won the go-ahead to become the next tourists in space, and two more spots for a Russian rocket trip to the International Space Station are now on the market, the U.S. firm selling the spots said on Tuesday.

Leaders of the liberal and communist opposition said Wednesday that they may form a rather unusual alliance to boycott the March presidential election, which incumbent President Vladimir Putin is widely expected to win in a first round.