For nearly three weeks, the local media have gorged themselves on the war of words between the glamorous ballerina Anastasia Volochkova and the Bolshoi Theater and, since Tuesday of last week, on the circumstances of her dismissal from the theater's ballet troupe.

President George W. Bush can again look deeply into the eyes of President Vladimir Putin at their summit later this week.

President George W. Bush on Tuesday called for more decisive collective action by the UN to curb WMD in the future.

Terrorism and loose weapons of mass destruction are the worst nightmare of the modern world.

8 Killed in Gazel Crash MOSCOW (AP) -- A Gazel minibus packed with people collided with a truck on a road near St. Petersburg, killing eight people Wednesday in the latest of a spate of accidents that have raised public concerns about the vehicle's safety. The circumstances of the collision were not immediately clear. NATO Pledge to Tajiks DUSHANBE, Tajikistan (AP) -- NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson pledged Wednesday to help Tajikistan modernize its armed forces as the security alliance aims to boost its presence in Central Asia, a region on the ""front line"" in the war on terror. ""This country ... is on the front line in the region and has critical importance,"" Robertson told journalists. Robertson met Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov earlier in the day and said the war on terror had been at the top of their agenda. Radioactive Parcel KIEV (Reuters) -- A radioactive package addressed to the United States has been seized at Ukraine's main airport in Kiev, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.

Major General Viktor Maslov hunted down security risks at Smolensk's nuclear power plant for the KGB. He spent years in the KGB's successor agency, the Federal Security Service, chasing gangland-style murderers in the chaotic 1990s. He calls himself and men like him ""soldiers of the tsar.""