The Russian capital's rich experience of hosting international sporting events coupled with the overwhelmingly positive attitude of its population are Moscow's greatest assets in its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games, city and sporting officials said while unveiling their plans Friday.

A suicide bomber blew up his car outside the U.S.-led coalition's headquarters compound Sunday, killing at least 20 in the deadliest attack since the capture of Saddam Hussein last month.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon praised his government's ambassador to Sweden on Sunday for wrecking a Stockholm art exhibit depicting a Palestinian suicide bomber and said the envoy had struck a blow against anti-Semitism.

Despite a Pentagon probe into alleged overcharging for fuel delivered to Iraq, the U.S. Army awarded Vice President Dick Cheney's former company a contract Friday to rebuild Iraq's oil industry.

On Christmas Eve, the FBI issued a terrorism bulletin to some 18,000 police organizations across the United States. The message: Be on the lookout for anyone carrying an almanac.

A while back I got together with some old Navy buddies, all of them pensioners like me now, and we swapped stories about the old days, when taking a trip abroad was a major event in the life of any Soviet citizen. You couldn't leave the country without permission from the authorities, and there was no point in appealing a rejected application.