A German man charged with selling sensitive technology information to Russia is a key figure in a mysterious spy case involving a former Federal Space Agency official that jarred Russian-Austrian relations last year.

President Vladimir Putin has ordered the government to establish closer ties with the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday, prompting sharp criticism from Georgia and the West.

The standoff between Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov and an influential Chechen clan entered the third day Wednesday as both sides traded accusations of murder and abuse of power.

President Vladimir Putin plans to oversee the signing of deals worth more than $10 billion on a trip to Libya aimed at grabbing a slice of a market opening up to the world after years of sanctions, his spokesman said.

Magnit, the country's second-largest supermarket chain, said Wednesday that it expected to raise more than $480 million in a share sale to pay for additional grocery stores.

The winners of the great globalization push of the 1990s were small states, such as New Zealand, Chile, Dubai, Finland, Ireland, the Baltic countries, Slovenia and Slovakia. The East Asian tigers that pushed themselves onto the world economy's center stage were small units, and in some cases -- Singapore, Taiwan, or Hong Kong -- were not even treated as states. Even South Korea, which is a giant in comparison, was only half a country.