Montessori schools, where children learn through experience, offer a time-tested alternative to the Russian education system.

Leonard Cernko, from Austria, is chef de cuisine at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

Yorsh is not your run-of-the-mill beer restaurant. Unlike most, it avoids German and Czech themes. Its menu doesn't even center on steaks, sausages or other meaty treats.

The entire issue of who will succeed President Vladimir Putin is a fascinating story, and its possible plot twists will no doubt provide even more entertainment for the remaining months leading up to March.

President Vladimir Putin's recent visit to Belarus was rather strange. First, Putin arrived with a huge retinue that included Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov and Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov.

It is futile to attempt to sell an idea or to prepare the ground for a product that is basically unsound,"" wrote Edward Bernays, the father of public relations, in his 1928 book ""Propaganda.""

The Turkish army sent soldiers about three kilometers into northern Iraq in an overnight operation on Tuesday, Kurdish officials said.

The European Central Bank on Tuesday set its credit tap wide open, pumping a whopping 350 billion euros -- the equivalent of more than half a trillion dollars -- into money markets to keep banks from Finland to France flush with the cash they need to operate.

The Japanese military destroyed a midrange ballistic missile in space with an interceptor fired from a ship off Hawaii in a test Monday.

A conference of international donors pledged $7.4 billion in aid to Palestinians on the eve of a deadly strike by Israel that took out the leadership of the Islamic Jihad organization.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lost his appeal against the rejection of his nomination for next month's parliamentary elections, an official said Tuesday, eliminating one of Pakistan's key opposition leaders from the crucial vote.

President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Greece wanted to double imports of Russian gas, and he praised progress in a project to send Russian oil from Bulgaria to Greece. ""Greece is interested in signing new contracts after 2016 that will last up to 2040 with volumes rising almost twofold,"" Putin said at a news conference with Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis.