Russia blitzed Luxembourg 5-1 in its penultimate World Cup qualifier on Saturday to keep alive its hopes of reaching next year's finals in Germany.

World No. 1 Maria Sharapova will make her first professional appearance in Russia this week at the 16th Kremlin Cup, topping the field ahead of closest seeds Amelie Mauresmo of France (2), U.S. Open finalist Mary Pierce (3) and Russia's Yelena Dementyeva (4).

Almost five months after Uzbekistan's president, Islam Karimov, ordered his security forces to massacre hundreds of mostly unarmed demonstrators in the city of Andijan, European governments are finally taking steps to punish his regime.

One of the benefits of being Russian is that there is never a lack of constructive advice on sensitive social matters like immigration and ethnic and religious tolerance -- not only from Russia's own liberals, but from friendly foreign countries and international nongovernmental organizations that are glad to instruct Russia on its duty to move toward the democratic standards of an open society.

The campaign for Ukraine's parliamentary elections next March is developing with such speed that even carefully worked-out media talking points are so numerous as to be drowning each other out.

One day, Vladimir Vladimirovich™ Putin phoned the Matrosskaya Tishina detention facility.

5% Inflation Expected in '08 Russia's government expects the annual inflation rate to fall to 8.5 percent next year and to 5 percent by 2008, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said Friday, Interfax reported. President Vladimir Putin has said inflation is the main threat to the economy. The government's goal this year of keeping prices from rising more than 10 percent probably will not be met, Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said in September. (Bloomberg) $13.1Bln Credit to Gazprom Gazprom will borrow $13.1 billion to pay for control of billionaire Roman Abramovich's Sibneft, Vedomosti reported Friday, citing unidentified bankers. ABN Amro Holding and Dresdner Bank are leading a group of banks giving the loan that also includes Citigroup, Credit Suisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley, the newspaper said. The financing package will be split into three portions, the newspaper said.