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President Barack Obama wants Russia to be friends. Since he and former president Dmitry Medvedev, now the country’s Prime Minister, discussed a “reset” of relations, the Cold War’s Punch & Judy have been more like frenemies than friends.

Appalling as the Benghazi, AP, and IRS scandals are, this dwarfs them all. This puts US national survival, and hundreds of millions of lives at stake. The head of Russia’s National Security Council has arrived in the US on a two-day visit for top-level talks on key stumbling blocks in bilateral relations. He will also deliver President Putin’s response to a letter President Obama sent in April. Putin aide Yury Ushakov confirmed on Tuesday that Patrushev is carrying the presidential letter and is scheduled to meet Obama. Among the US officials Nikolay Patrushev will meet during his trip is National...

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 17 (UPI) -- Nobel Energy of Houston, which discovered Israel's big natural gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean, is pressing the government to decide on an energy export policy as the prospect of an undersea pipeline to Turkey gains credibility. Israel's deep-water Tamar field, found in 2009 and containing an estimated 9 trillion-10 trillion cubic feet of gas, began production March 31. But Nobel and Israeli partner Delek Energy, the team that discovered Tamar and other fields off Israel, is reluctant to develop the much bigger Leviathan field, found in 2010, until it the government makes...

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won't step down before elections and that the United States has no right to interfere in his country's politics, raising new doubts about a U.S-Russian effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country's civil war. In the capital Damascus, a car bomb killed at least three people and wounded five, according to Syrian state TV. It said bomb experts dismantled other explosives in the area. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, said eight people were killed,...

CIA director John Brennan arrived in Israel Thursday evening and held consultations on the situation in Syria, amid fears that Israel could get drawn into the fighting there. Upon landing in the country, Brennan, whose visit was not announced ahead of time, went directly to the army’s headquarters in Tel Aviv for a meeting with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Channel 10 reported. During the meeting, the two shared intelligence assessments, and Ya’alon reiterated Israel’s refusal to let advanced weapons make their way from Syria to Hezbollah, vowing to continue carrying out strikes against arms shipments. According to Israel Radio, the...

RUSH: This Obama comparison to Nixon, you hear it now and then. In fact, it was asked about at the press conference this afternoon with the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason said, "How do you feel about comparisons by some of your critics of this week's scandals to those that happened under the Nixon administration?" OBAMA: I'll let you guys engage in those comparisons, and you can go ahead and read the history, I think, and -- and draw your own conclusions. My concern is making sure that if there's a problem in...

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is to hold talks on Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the conflict in Syria, the Kremlin said, amid concerns Moscow plans to deliver advanced missiles to the Damascus regime. --snip-- The weapons would significantly strengthen Syria's defenses... --snip-- Russia last week refused to rule out supplying weapons to Syria, saying it has to honor existing contracts. --snip-- "Vladimir Putin [said] that the S-300 complexes will be delivered to Syria for sure," wrote the Kommersant daily on Monday, according to AFP.

The freedom not to condemn Stalin's atrocities under Putin has given new strains to the cult of personality that dictated Soviet life. A group of Communist supporters on Wednesday even unveiled a bust of the wartime leader in the Far Eastern city of Yakutsk. Putin's military plan has put pressure on other sectors of Putin's budget and on outdated Soviet-era military factories that are unable to cope with the sudden surge in demand for a new generation of weaponry. Putin has expressed repeated frustration at the military churning out products such as tanks and weapons systems that cost more than...

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama will meet British Prime Minister David Cameron at the White House on Monday to discuss Syria and the G8 summit next month in Northern Ireland, officials said. "The prime minister's visit underscores the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom that has been crucial in advancing our shared security and prosperity," a White House statement said. The statement said that in addition to Syria and the G8, the talks would include discussion on trade and economic cooperation and counterterrorism measures. The Cameron visit will take place as Washington seeks to build momentum...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The U.S. secretary of state sought Russian help in ending Syria's civil war on Tuesday, telling President Vladimir Putin in Moscow that common interest in a stable Middle East could bridge divisions among the big powers. Putin, however, kept John Kerry waiting three hours before their meeting at the Kremlin, fiddled with a pen while his guest spoke and made no mention in his own public remarks of the conflict in Syria, which has generated some of the frostiest exchanges between Washington and Moscow since the Cold War.

PUTIN KEEPS KERRY WAITING HOURS

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on May 7 at the start of Kerry's two-day trip to Moscow. Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov announced the meeting as Kerry departed for his first trip to Russia since assuming the top U.S. diplomatic post in January. The visit comes with the United States and Russia divided over issues including Syria's civil war, foreign adoption, and Washington’s so-called Magnitsky sanctions targeting Russian officials accused of rights abuses. Kerry is expected to press Moscow to drop its support for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad amid mounting concerns about...

Vladimir Putin is more than a year into his third term as president of Russia, and he is likely to dominate the country's next decade as he dominated the last—just as Joseph Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev dominated their own times in the Kremlin. Like Putin or loathe him, he embodies an era. But centuries from now, the history books will barely remember the human rights abuses or oil pipelines in today's coverage of Russia. Mr. Putin will be remembered for one thing only: missing the chance to save his nation from a lingering decline. The United Nations predicts that, by...

Russian President Vladimir Putin “opposes gun sales for self defense,” UPI reported yesterday. "I do not support the idea of free arms distribution in Russia," the report quotes from comments the federation head of state made to a Russian television station. "It is dangerous to artificially stimulate this process." Putin’s remarks were in response to a shooting in Belogrod on Monday by a convicted criminal who allegedly stole his gamekeeper father’s rifle and opened fire outside a hunting store that had refused to sell him ammunition, killing six people, including two girls. That was done in spite of Russia’s gun...

Russian law enforcement officers have detained 140 people at a Muslim prayer room in the capital, Moscow, as part of a search for extremist groups, Russian news agencies have quoted federal officials as saying. A statement on Friday from the Federal Security Bureau (FSB), reported by Russian news agencies, said among those detained were 30 citizens of unspecified foreign countries. Russian Information Agency said the detainees were taken to police stations for identification and questioning, and there was no immediate word on whether any would be charged. State television showed men lining up and boarding a police bus after being...

The Magnitsky law and the black-list is a mistake and will damage Russian-US relations despite the recent 'reset' policy, Aleksey Pushkov, head of foreign affairs committee of Russian State Duma, told RT. Obama is hostage to Congress, yet he will feel the negative effects of the law, Pushkov believes. RT: How big of a blow is this spat for relations between Russia and the United States? Aleksey Pushkov: I think it is quite a blow. The Magnitsky Law when adopted by the US Congress and signed by the US president - it was already a blow. And we warned the...

MOSCOW, April 27 (UPI) -- Russian citizens should not be allowed to freely own guns for purposes of self-defense, says President Vladimir Putin. His comments were made after a gunman with a rifle killed six people in southwest Russia Monday, RIA Novosti reported Saturday. "I do not support the idea of free arms distribution in Russia," Putin told a Russian television station. "It is dangerous to artificially stimulate this process." snip

ALMATY (Reuters) - NATO member Turkey signed up on Friday to became a "dialogue partner" of a security bloc dominated by China and Russia, and declared that its destiny is in Asia. "This is really a historic day for us," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in Kazakhstan's commercial capital Almaty after signing a memorandum of understanding with Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Secretary General Dmitry Mezentsev. "Now, with this choice, Turkey is declaring that our destiny is the same as the destiny of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) countries." China, Russia and four Central Asian nations - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and...

President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that, “to our great regret,” Russian security services lacked any operative information on the Tsarnaev brothers that they could have shared with their American counterparts. Russian officials had raised concerns about Tamerlan Tsarnaev with the FBI in 2011 and later that year also with the CIA. But analysts here doubt that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) was warning the Americans; more likely, they say, it was acting out of worry that Tsarnaev might join an underground group in the strife-torn Russian region of Dagestan during a visit there. The FSB did not respond when the...

by John HillStand With ArizonaWebsite | Facebook | Twitter The failure of this Administration to protect our homeland from jihadist threats - despite clear warnings before the Boston attacks - continues to be exposed. And it also calls into serious question how the FBI and DHS can be trusted to handle the increased numbers of asylum visas called for under the 'Gang of 8' immigration bill. As we reported on April 19, the FBI was warned by a "foreign government" - reportedly Russia - that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a "follower of radical Islam" with a potential for "terrorist activities". The...

Vladamir Putin lectured Obama this weekend on Islamist extremism during their phone conversation on the Boston Marathon bombings. Russia warned the US back in 2011 that bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a follower of radical Islam. CSM via Yahoo reported: The revelation that the main suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings were two Russian citizens of half-Chechen, half-Avar (Dagestani) ethnicity, has prompted Kremlin leaders to dust off a longstanding argument that the US should listen to Moscow’s warnings about extreme Islamist terrorists, whether they hail from Chechnya, or Syria, or anywhere else. The Russians say the US should turn away from...

Putin said last Friday, "The Russian Orthodox Church together with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad are on a very special mission in Russia and across the world." A "special mission" in the West means KGB, nuclear strikes or Cold War. In reality, last February 1st, Putin met with the Church in this video to say:(Link to Video at this point) It 's certain as the sun rises that Friday's meeting between Russian Christians leaders and Putin will be ignored by the Western media. Putin has real world power, which causes the liberal media to fearfully ignore or warp his image....

While the American media provide cover for the Constitutionally ineligible Barack Hussein Obama, Vladimir Putin and the nation of Russia are reaping a treasure trove of defense secrets and missile technology by threatening to reveal the true history of the Manchurian Candidate. Obama has spent millions to prevent his personal story being revealed to the American public. Records have been destroyed, information hidden, false claims advanced, potential whistleblowers threatened and official documents forged. Enabled by a complicit media and the craven cowardice of political opponents, the most egregious felonies in the nation’s history have served to make the American people...

For centuries, the small Muslim country has been subject to a series of Russian occupations. Expect Vladimir Putin to use the marathon bombing to further rationalize Moscow's brutal rule. Breaking reports indicate that the alleged perpetrators of the horrific Boston Marathon terrorist attack were born in Chechnya. This Russian-occupied, landlocked Muslim nation of 1.3 million is the center of a Russian war that has taken the lives of more than 200,000 people over the last two decades. It is also one of the world's most poorly understood conflict zones. On social networking profiles, the Boston bombers reveal themselves as supporters...

President Barack Obama spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday evening and thanked the Russian leader for unspecified cooperation in the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings. As law enforcement officials surrounded the Watertown location where 19 year old suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was suspected to be hiding, the White House released a read out of the Obama-Putin phone call, which referenced the United States and Russia working together on the Boston bombing issue.

The revelation that the two brothers suspected to be behind the Boston Marathon attack are ethnic Chechens has led the US establishment to perform a rapid volte-face towards the previously sympathetically-viewed region and cause. Through the two separatist wars fought by Chechen militants in the 1990s, the standard US portrayal of the restive region focused on the David and Goliath scale of the adversaries, the ‘denial’ to Chechens of their right to self-determination, and the abuse of human rights. In the wake of Monday’s attack, a new sinister international image of Chechnya has emerged. “Chechnya region is cauldron of Islamic...

Perhaps no region in the world can claim a history so tragic and violent as Chechnya and the rest of the northern Caucuses.

In January, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev set a goal of 5 percent growth for the Russian economy, one of the central promises of Vladimir Putin’s campaign — but not only is that proving to be too wildly optimistic a target; now they’re scrambling just to avoid recession. No neighboring economy is safe, it seems, from the ravages of the all-destabilizing and never-ending European debt crisis. Says their economic minister: “We are not in recession for now, but we may get there – there is such a risk,” Mr Belousov told reporters during a trip to eastern Siberia. “I think that,...

Russia does not discriminate against homosexuals, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters in Amsterdam on Monday where he was greeted by gay rights and other activists critical of Russia's track record. "In the Russian Federation - so that it is clear to everybody - there is no infringement on the rights of sexual minorities," Putin told a press conference. "These people...enjoy all the same rights and freedoms as everyone else."

Korean nuke conflict may make Chernobyl look like ‘fairytale’ – Putin Published time: April 08, 2013 00:41 Edited time: April 08, 2013 12:28 If a nuclear conflict erupts on the Korean Peninsula, Chernobyl would look like a “kids’ fairytale,” Russia’s president said. Tensions have been escalating rapidly, with last week seeing conflicting reports about North Korean nuclear activity. Speaking at the annual industrial fair in Hannover, Vladimir Putin compared the possible nuclear brawl between Seoul and Pyongyang with the worst nuclear disaster in history - the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. According to Putin, the consequences of the...

Topless female demonstrators shouted at Russian President Vladimir Putin as he toured an industrial fair with German Chancellor Angela Merkel Monday, media reported. Putin and Merkel were taking in a presentation of a new car model at the Volkswagen stand by the company's chief executive, Martin Winterkorn, when the four bare-breasted women started chanting "dictator". At least one of the women seen on rolling news channel NTV had words painted in black ink across her torso. The protesters were eventually overpowered by security personnel, an NTV correspondent said. Merkel and Putin were attending the Hanover Messe in northern Germany where...

Russia The mentality of Russian-Soviet leadership is much different than that of their Western counterparts. The Soviets are long range strategists and in spite of any surface changes in leadership, they always maintain continuity in their long-term goal and objective. American politicians, on the other hand, think and operate based on short-term goals. In general, American politicians are so obsessed with personnel career objectives that they don’t focus much of their concern on what might happen in the future after their term of office is over. In March 1994, just before his death, Richard Nixon said, "Those who suggest that...

MOSCOW, April 2, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Homosexual couples from abroad will not be allowed to adopt Russian children under new rules backed by President Vladimir Putin. The move follows the implementation of a new law on January 1st preventing adoption of Russian children by American couples. Putin has asked for amendments to be drafted to the current adoption laws by the Ministry of Education and Science and Supreme Court, Izvestia newspaper reports. The draft legislation is expected by July 1st. Vladimir Putin The move is supported by children’s rights commissioner Pavel Astakhov who recently said he would do all he...

Vladimir Putin MOSCOW, April 2, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Homosexual couples from abroad will not be allowed to adopt Russian children under new rules backed by President Vladimir Putin. The move follows the implementation of a new law on January 1st preventing adoption of Russian children by American couples. Putin has asked for amendments to be drafted to the current adoption laws by the Ministry of Education and Science and Supreme Court, Izvestia newspaper reports. The draft legislation is expected by July 1st. The move is supported by children’s rights commissioner Pavel Astakhov who recently said he would do all he...

Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch found lying on his bathroom floor with a ligature around his neck, was in good spirits the night before his died and was looking forward to a holiday to Israel, according to his girlfriend. Katerina Sabirova, 23, said she did not believe he had killed himself and said that he sounded “better than usual” when she spoke to him. She said they were due to go to the Dead Sea three days later. A post-mortem conducted last month found that Mr Berezovsky's death was "consistent with hanging" and that there were no signs of violence...

President Putin is against the adoption of Russian orphans by foreign same-sex couples, Russian media reveal. The government and the Supreme Court have reportedly been requested to come up with amendments to the law by July 1. Most likely the order will be fulfilled by the Ministry of Education and Science, which deals with issues concerning orphans and adoptions, according to Izvestia daily. But the ministry says it has not yet received instructions on the matter. Tensions over the issue arose in mid-February, after the French National Assembly approved a sweeping bill to legalize gay marriage and allow same-sex couples...

The Russian president has opposed the adoption of Russian orphans by LGBT foreign couples, and has instructed the government and the Supreme Court to prepare changes to existing law before July 1. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order will most likely be fulfilled by the Ministry of Education and Science, which is currently dealing with issues concerning orphans and adoptions, Izvestia daily reported. The ministry has not yet commented on the news, saying that Putin’s instructions had not yet reached their office. Tensions over the issue arose in mid-February, after the French National Assembly voted to legalize adoptions by same-sex couples....

MOSCOW, March 29 (RIA Novosti) – President Vladimir Putin has met with activists who served in his presidential campaign a year ago and promised to revive a Soviet-era award by the end of Friday. “In the Soviet Union, we had the ‘Hero of Socialist Labor’ title, and in my opinion, it was justified,” Putin said on Friday morning in Rostov-on-Don while meeting with the staffers of the All-Russia People’s Front, who successfully campaigned for his re-election for a third term. He said that the necessary orders would be in place by the end of the day to revive the title,...

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered surprise military exercises in the Black Sea region involving 7,000 troops and dozens of ships to test the army's battle readiness, the Kremlin said. In typical Putin style, the order was presented to the Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in a sealed envelope in the middle of the night at 4:00 am (2400 GMT), with the drills to start immediately. ... Peskov said 36 ships from the Russian Black Sea Fleet's base in the Ukrainian Crimean city of Sevastopol and the Russian port of Novorossiisk would be involved in the exercises. Aviation,...

Mistaking Syria for Chechya Summary: Vladimir Putin's unwavering support for the Assad regime in Syria is best explained by his dread of fracturing states and Sunni Islamism -- fears he confronted most directly while brutally suppressing Chechnya's attempted secession from Russia. Few issues better illustrate the limits of the Obama administration’s “reset” with Russia than the crisis in Syria. For more than a year, the United States has tried, and failed, to work with Russia to find a solution to end the violence. Moscow has firmly opposed international intervention to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power, arguing that the...

He was a powerful Russian businessman whose falling-out with his government left him self-exiled in England. He blamed the Kremlin for the death of a former Russian spy who was poisoned by radioactive material. Now, Boris Berezovsky himself is dead. Police scouring the scene Sunday have found no sign so far of "third party involvement," a detective said. But details surrounding Berezovsky's death remain a mystery. Police say they haven't determined the cause. After a paramedic's radiation detector went off at the scene, investigators declared the area "safe and clear to work in," the Thames Valley Police said in a...

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has enlisted Hollywood action man Steven Seagal to help him promote a return to Soviet-era fitness. The unlikely pair opened a new martial arts center outside Moscow on Wednesday, reports Reuters, to kick off Putin’s attempt to bring back a mass physical training program first introduced in the 1930s under Joseph Stalin. The revival of the GTO system (an acronym in Russian which translates as “Ready for Work and Defense”) could bring major benefits to the country, said Putin, according to a transcript published on the Kremlin’s official website: ... “Putin and Seagal have long been...

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin has signed a government-sponsored law banning foreign banks from opening branches in Russia, PRIME reported on Friday, citing a post on the government legal information website.

Venezuela will set up a formal inquiry into claims that the late President Hugo Chavez's cancer was the result of poisoning by his enemies abroad, the government said. Foes of the government view the accusation as a typical Chavez-style conspiracy theory intended to feed fears of "imperialist" threats to Venezuela's socialist system and distract people from daily problems. Still, acting President Nicolas Maduro vowed to open an investigation into the claims, first raised by Chavez himself after he was diagnosed with the disease in 2011. "We will seek the truth," Maduro told regional TV network Telesur. "We have the intuition...

A few years ago Russian president Dmitri Medvedev decided he wanted officials to be chauffeured in Russian limousines, not the German executive sedans everyone had become accustomed to (such as the Mercedes-Benz pictured above). Naturally, that meant turning to Russia's own ZiL to create a litter worthy of a plutocrat and glorious Russian history. The plan had two big problems, the first being that ZiL stopped making limos in 1991 and was only producing trucks and armored military vehicles. But that didn't stop the party. The orders to ZiL were to create something powered by a V8 that was able...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country needs an immediate and massive military upgrade by 2016 and has called on his top brass to put the wheels in motion. On Wednesday, he told top defense ministry and military officials that Russia is seeing “insistent attempts” from world powers, and the United States in particular, to upset the balance of missile defense, The Associated Press reported. He said the United States was trying to take the lead in world power and establish a new missile defense system, AP said. His statements come at a time when Israel and the United States...

24/12/2006 - 2:18:23 PM Italian who met spy Litvinenko arrested  :: latest Police today arrested an Italian security expert who met former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko the day he fell ill from poisoning. Mario Scaramella was arrested in Naples, where he landed on his way back from London, Italian news agencies reported. Rome prosecutors have been investigating Scaramella for violating secrets of his office and possible arms trafficking. Scaramella met Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on November 1, the day the former spy fell ill. On his deathbed on November 23, Litvinenko - a former KGB agent and harsh...

...Litvinenko "was giving Scaramella lots of information about Russian and criminal infiltrations in Italy, but most of it was very difficult to verify and crosscheck. It was a little bit out on a limb." In the old days, Litvinenko had been familiar with criminal clans in Russia, now he was making risky approaches to the Italian mafia. Scaramella believed if they could get inside this network, they would be able to leverage much more damaging intelligence about Italian politicians. They spread their net wider. The Litvinenko dossier lists a dizzying roll call of names investigated by the pair, among them...

The British government sought on Tuesday to limit the information it would disclose at a planned inquest into the death of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former officer in the K.G.B. who succumbed to radiation poisoning in London more than six years ago. The coroner hearing the case said that it may now be postponed. “Due to the complexity of the investigation which necessarily precedes the hearings,” the coroner, Sir Robert Owen, said, “it may not be possible to adhere” to the planned May 1 start date for the hearings. The inquest would be the first — and probably the only...