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TRIPOLI, Libya — Three Russian warships — including a nuclear-powered missile cruiser — have called on the Libyan port of Tripoli for a two-day stop on their way to the Caribbean.

Somehow, I doubt that Russia’s latest diplomatic project will gain much traction with its closest European neighbors, but it does at least expose the Russians as something other than allies to the US. Dmitry Medvedev has called on France and other European nations to form an anti-American front. Nicolas Sarkozy declined direct comment: THE President of Russia has called on Europe’s leaders to create a new world order that would minimise the role of the United States. Confident that a row with Europe prompted by Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August was over, Dmitry Medvedev arrived in the French spa...

Odd Box: The week's weird videosThe Lingerie Football League, lawnmower racing, a giant cow and a stupid car thief. It's Newsbeat's Odd Box with Dominic Byrne.

MOSCOW (AP) — There's no doubt what Vladimir Putin's favorite birthday present is this year — a rare Ussuri tiger cub. State television showed the Russian prime minister affectionately petting the two-month-old female cub on Friday. The tiger weighs only about 20 pounds and sleeps in a wicker basket at Putin's residence outside Moscow. . . . Putin refuses to say who gave him the cub for his 56th birthday, which was Tuesday. The Ussuri tiger is also known as the Siberian, Amur or Manchurian tiger. Fewer than 400 are believed to survive in the wild.

MOSCOW (AP) — The financial crisis has irreparably damaged the image of the U.S. as the leader of the free world and the global economy, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday. Putin's remarks during a Communist Party meeting were the latest Russian attack singling out the U.S. as the chief culprit in the global financial turmoil. "Trust in the United States as the leader of the free world and the free economy, and confidence in Wall Street as the center of that trust, has been damaged, I believe, forever," Putin said. "There will be no return to the previous...

Macho Putin in yet ANOTHER display of masculinity as he releases 'Let's learn judo with Vladimir' DVD By Mail Foreign Service Last updated at 5:51 PM on 07th October 2008 First we saw him shirtless while fishing. Then he was pictured at the wheel of a massive racing truck and shooting a tiger in the Siberian forest with a tranquiliser. He has also appeared operating a train, sailing on a submarine and co-piloting a fighter jet. Now Vladimir Putin - the world's most manly leader - has released yet another display of his own masculinity: a DVD entitled 'Let's learn...

No more streets in my name, pleads Russia's Putin Mon Oct 6, 2008 12:43pm EDT ZASLAVL, Belarus (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wishes officials would stop naming streets after him and erecting statues of him, his spokesman said on Monday. Putin, who was president for two terms until he stepped down in May, is immensely popular in Russia but his critics accuse officials of trying to create a Soviet-style cult of personality around him. Authorities in the Chechnya region, now largely calm after Putin sent in troops to crush a separatist rebellion in 1999, on Sunday named a...

Now that the Republic of Georgia has been moved off the front pages, it is time to assess what was really behind Russia's heavy-handed invasion of that pro-Western fledgling democratic country. Clearly Russia precipitated the war by using its proxy thugs in South Ossetia to force a confrontation through repeated provocations with Tbilisi. Aside from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's hatred of President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, was this payback for Kosovo or a signal to those border states from the Baltic to the Black Sea to reverse their pro-Western trend? Perhaps, but if it was, it didn't work. Poland,...

Clear thinking people know two things about the recent incursion of Russian troops and armor into Georgia: 1. It was a setup. Russia pre-positioned troops and supplies and readied a battle plan weeks or months before they struck. In no way could the massive Russian invasion have been an ad hoc response to Georgian actions. The Russians set the trap, and then manufactured incidents to draw in the Georgians. 2. There will be other such attempts on the part of Russia to regain control of former members of the old Soviet Union, either by direct force or by subversion. Georgia...

Not since 1984, just before the fall of the Soviet Union, has Russia ventured to launch dozens of nuclear bombers for an exercise in which Tu-95 Bear bombers will fire live cruise missiles. Exercise Stability 2008 will take place Oct.-6-12 over sub-Arctic Russia uncomfortably close to the US state of Alaska, and Belarus. DEBKAfile's military sources report that the exercise is part of a month-long war game described by Russian air force spokesman Col. Vladimir Drik as "practicing the strategic deployment of the armed forces including the nuclear triad." As part of the exercise, our sources reported exclusively on Oct.1,...

MOSCOW — A car bomb in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali killed seven Russian peacekeepers and two others on Friday, raising tensions in the separatist enclave days before a scheduled pullback of Russian troops from Georgian territory. President Eduard Kokoity of South Ossetia said he had “no doubt” that Georgian special forces were behind the explosion. The acts, he said, “undermine international efforts to stabilize the situation and torpedo the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan.” The blast comes six days before a Russian deadline to pull back from the so-called buffer zone outside South Ossetia, returning a large swath of land to...

Their progress watched closely by increasingly jittery western militaries, dozens of nuclear bombers will take part in the exercise. Tu-95 Bear bombers will fire cruise missiles at targets in sub-Arctic Russia for the first time since 1984. While Russia insists that the war games are not meant as a gesture of aggression, the West is growing increasingly uneasy about the scale of the manoeuvres. The aerial exercises, which will take place close to American airspace in Alaska, are part of a month-long war game known as Stability 2008 that Russia claims is the biggest for 20 years.

MOSCOW (AFP) — The "irresponsibility" of the US financial system is to blame for the global economic crisis, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Wednesday as Washington struggled to calm markets. "Everything happening now in the economic and financial sphere began in the United States," Putin told a televised government meeting. "This is not the irresponsibility of specific individuals but the irresponsibility of the system which claims leadership," he said. Global stock markets have dived in recent months as a credit crunch sparked by the collapse of the US mortgage market spread through the global economy, leading to the bankruptcy...

September 30, 2008 Putin Wants to Follow Peter the Great By Carlos Alberto Montaner Russian ships no longer carry the names of heroic comrades but rather of figures from imperial history. As I write this column, the nuclear cruiser Peter the Great is sailing toward Latin America heading a flotilla of four imposing vessels. Some ships from the Venezuelan Navy will meet up with them to conduct joint maneuvers. Moscow wants to send a bill to Washington for the latter's support of Georgia, as well as for the independence of Kosovo. The Peter the Great is the largest cruiser in...

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy — a move likely to raise U.S. concerns over increasingly close cooperation between Caracas and Moscow. Chavez said he accepted an offer from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for assistance in building a nuclear reactor. "Russia is ready to support Venezuela in the development of nuclear energy with peaceful purposes and we already have a commission working on it," Chavez said. "We are interested in developing nuclear energy." Putin offered Chavez assistance in developing nuclear energy during a meeting in the Russian city of...

Russia offers Chavez nuclear help amid US tensions Sep 26 02:05 AM US/Easter Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was to meet Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Friday after Russia risked Washington's wrath by offering the fierce US foe help developing nuclear energy. The two were to meet in the city of Orenburg after hawkish Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Chavez in Moscow on Thursday that Russia was "ready to consider the possibility of cooperation in nuclear energy." The countries have boosted ties in recent weeks following sharp US criticism of Russia's incursion into Georgia, with Moscow dispatching long-range bombers and warships...

The move came as Russia's broadcast watchdog began hearings on whether or not to revoke the license of a cartoon network as punishment for transmitting episodes of South Park, The Simpsons and Family Guy. The American cartoons, all of which have adult themes, have been fallen foul of recently tightened extremism laws that critics say have been used to muzzle opponents of the Kremlin. The State Duma, Russia's parliament, said that the frequency given to the 2x2 cartoon channel would instead be given to new government network that "reflects the state position in the area of youth policy". In place...

Having devastated vast areas of its own lands in the Caucasus, such as Chechnya and Ingushetia, in order to "protect" them from instability, Moscow's obliterating shadow has settled deep over Georgia -- with the usual consequences. The full barbarism of Russian actions in Georgia may not emerge for years; much of the evidence lies behind the lines in terrain newly annexed by Russia. But some details are now beyond dispute. Alongside the various human atrocities, such as the bombing and purging of civilian areas, the invaders looted and destroyed numerous historical sites, some of which were profoundly revered by the...

OTTAWA: Canada is stepping up its military alertness along its northern frontier in response to Russia’s “testing” of its boundaries and recent Arctic grab, the prime minister said yesterday. “We are concerned about not just Russia’s claims through the international process, but Russia’s testing of Canadian airspace and other indications ... (of) some desire to work outside of the international framework,” said Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “That is obviously why we are taking a range of measures, including military measures, to strengthen our sovereignty in the North,” he said, highlighting a new sensor net, navy patrols and a military training...

Excerpt - The Northern Fleet heading to Venezuela Order warships Northern Fleet went to the ocean trip, which will take place ships in ports of entry of Venezuela. The military stressed that this action was not politically motivated Moscow. September 22. INTERFAX.RU - Russia is determined to step up military cooperation with Caracas: Monday detachment of Russian Northern Fleet warships went to the ocean trip, which will take place ships in ports of entry and Venezuela held in conjunction with a fleet of the country's teachings. "The squad is to ship nuclear missile cruiser" Pyotr Veliky ", a large anti-submarine...

<p>Russia made clear Saturday that it opposes a Western push for new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.</p> <p>Russia spoke out against a fourth round of UN sanctions against Teheran at a meeting of the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany in Washington on Friday, the Foreign Ministry said.</p>

Excerpt.......In 1982-'83, as a rookie in Congress, John McCain publicly opposed President Reagan sending U.S. forces to Beirut. Shortly thereafter, Hezbollah destroyed their barracks, killing more than 240 Marines. Reagan withdrew from Lebanon and McCain, to his dismay, was proven right. In the early 1990s, McCain stood alone against isolationist Republicans and implored President Clinton to intervene to stop ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo. Years later, with McCain's lonely support, Clinton finally took the advice and brought stability to the Balkans. During the 2000 Republican primaries, McCain spoke about "rogue state rollback," and warned of upcoming belligerency from autocratic...

Since tomorrow is my birthday, and I can't draw, I ask that someone who can draw these cartoons: Putin's Nightmare -- Putin receives a phone call in his bed (Kremlin spires in the window): "This is SARAH. Get your troops back over on YOUR SIDE of the border NOW!" A picture of Obama in a business suit, followed by an equal sign, followed by a picture of the business suit in the same pose without Obama.

While U.S. financial turmoil has seeped into virtually every global market, Russia has been devastated, as the country’s largest stock exchanges, the MICEX and RTS, have suffered their biggest losses since the 1998 financial crisis. However, Moscow only has itself to blame after heavy-handed economic, political, and military tactics scared away the foreign investments it didn’t oust directly. Regulators suspended trading on both the MICEX and RTS for the second day in a row Wednesday, after the nation’s two biggest exchanges suffered their worst losses in nearly a decade. The benchmark MICEX index tumbled 10% Wednesday morning, extending a three-day...

Russian shares suffered their steepest one-day fall in more than a decade on Tuesday, losing up to 20 per cent, as a sharp slide in oil prices and difficult money market conditions triggered a rush to sell. The heads of the Russian central bank, the finance ministry and the financial market regulator met on Tuesday night for an emergency discussion on ways to halt the crisis. Earlier, trading had been suspended on both the Micex and RTS stock exchanges as investors ignored assurances by Russian officials and a cycle of distrust set in amid liquidity fears. Margin calls forced domestic...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's defence spending will grow by 27 percent in 2009, Interfax news agency quoted Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as saying on Tuesday. "Nearly 2.4 trillion roubles ($94.12 billion) will be allocated for the needs of national defence and security (in 2009)," Interfax quoted Putin as saying. "This is an increase of 27 percent."

Getting to the bottom of the shadowy depths of Kremlin decision-making is tricky. Machiavellian power struggles, dark paranoia of security chiefs and long fingers of corruption can turn seemingly rational and transparent explanations inside out. But even public signals are instructive, and in the wake of the Georgia crisis, Russia's leadership is taking stock and has several messages for the West. The first key question about Russia is - who is really in charge? The standard answer is President Medvedev as Commander in Chief. He, and only he, ordered Russian troops across the border to hit back when Georgia attacked...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a champion judoka, could soon be flooring France's Nicolas Sarkozy with some of his famous throws after agreeing to pass on some of his black belt skills to the French president. "He (Sarkozy) is interested in martial arts and we have decided to do some training together," Putin was quoted as saying in an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro published on Saturday.

The Russian stock market plunged to its lowest level since mid-June 2006 on Monday as global liquidity concerns and falling oil prices blew away President Dmitry Medvedev's effort to project confidence in the economy. U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers' filing for bankruptcy protection has added to market concerns, after souring relations with the West over a conflict in Georgia has already driven capital out of Russia. On a day of forced selling, falling bank stocks dragged Russia's RTS index down 4.8 percent to 1277.6 points, a two-year low, taking its losses for 2008 so far to 44 percent. ...snip Russia's...

MOSCOW — Rattled by falling oil prices and the war in Georgia, Russia’s stock market has slumped so severely that it now threatens the country’s oil-fueled boom of recent years, economists say. The benchmark RTS index has lost 46 percent of its value since its peak in May, representing a paper loss of about $700 billion for Russian companies. Much of that decline has come since the war in Georgia and the subsequent war of words with the United States and Europe that unsettled foreign investors, who began withdrawing capital. On Friday the RTS, which peaked in May at 2,487,...

Ever since Russia planted a flag under the North Pole last year, the issue of sovereign rights under an increasingly slushy arctic has tensed. In a race to claim ownership of some of the arctic seabed, a two-ship caravan of Canadian and U.S. scientists is sailing around the Arctic Ocean right now. Their mission, which will last from September 6th to October 1st, is to measure the seabed and the continental margins in an attempt to solidify our possible rights over the far north—an area that will become accessible to oil drilling and mining as the earth warms and arctic...

Vladimir Putin to Teach Nicolas Sarkozy Judo Saturday, September 13, 2008 Rivals for sexiest statesman status, Vladimir Putin and Nicolas Sarkozy may soon fight it out tete-a-tete. The black-belt Russian prime minister agreed to show the French president his martial arts moves, Putin told the French newspaper Le Figaro. The former Russian president, a champion judoka, said Sarkozy "is interested in martial arts and we have decided to do some training together," according to Reuters.

MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he expects the next U.S. administration to improve the two countries' strained relations and urged Washington to remember that "mutual interests outweigh some disagreements" during global crises. "This was so in World War I and World War II. We in Russia have never forgotten this. We would like our American partners to remember this as well," Putin was quoted as saying in an interview published Saturday in the French daily Le Figaro. A Russian transcript was posted on the government's Web site. "During (Abraham) Lincoln's time, a U.S. statesman who was secretary...

AP jerks, link http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9359O4O0&show_article=1

In May 2007, Vladimir Yetylin, a Russian politician from the province of Chukotka, met in Anchorage with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. They talked about the struggles of the Arctic's native people and the possibility of Palin visiting the other side of the Bering Strait. "She seemed very modern and forward-thinking and was open to the idea," Yetylin said in a telephone interview. "Absolutely, I think she should come." Yetylin's invitation reflects the kind of grass-roots diplomacy that has marked Alaska-Russian relations, even in a time of growing tension between the Bush administration and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. But so...

Link:Hitpiece on Palin Part 2. Palin=Goldwater 1964

MOSCOW — For three and a half hours on Thursday, in tones that were alternately pugilistic and needy, Vladimir V. Putin tried to explain himself. More than a month has passed since Russia sent columns of armor into Georgia, asserting its sphere of influence with a confidence not seen since the days of the Soviet Union. But since the first hours of this crisis, Russian leaders have been asking the same question with mounting frustration: Why is everyone blaming us for this? Mr. Putin, Russia’s prime minister, made his case on Thursday in Sochi, Russia, before the Valdai Discussion Club,...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would triumph over President Dmitry Medvedev if presidential polls were held this weekend, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday. A separate survey showed that if Russians were allowed to vote in U.S. polls, they would prefer Democrat Barack Obama to Republican John McCain. The polls follow Russia's intervention in Georgia last month to crush Tbilisi's attempt to retake a pro-Moscow separatist region of South Ossetia.

In a thinly veiled dig at George Bush, Vladimir Putin today suggested that the US President was not in charge of American affairs, saying that it was “the court that makes the king”. Amid heightened tensions with the US in the wake of the war in Georgia, the Russian Prime Minister insisted that the US leader was a man of honour and integrity, but blamed members of the administration for the sharp deterioration of relations with Russia. ”I still hope we will maintain good relations, but it is the court that makes the king,” he told a group of foreign...

"Missile Offense" in today's Wall Street Journal (September 10, A14) reports that Poland, at considerable risk to its own safety, has agreed to the installation of ten American interceptor missiles whose purpose is to shoot down Iranian weapons of mass destruction. Vladimir Putin's new Russian Empire has fabricated a complaint that these missiles somehow threaten Russia, even though they are totally defensive and cannot even stop more than a fraction of Russia's still formidable strategic nuclear arsenal. The Poles have nonetheless stuck to their decision, and it is now up to us to show whether we are worthy of their...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would triumph over President Dmitry Medvedev if presidential polls were held this weekend, an opinion poll showed on Wednesday. A separate survey showed that if Russians were allowed to vote in U.S. polls, they would prefer Democrat Barack Obama to Republican John McCain. The polls follow Russia's intervention in Georgia last month to crush Tbilisi's attempt to retake a pro-Moscow separatist region of South Ossetia.

Russian stocks went into a freefall Tuesday, as investors continued to pull money out of the local markets on concerns over declining commodity prices and global risk aversion. In Moscow, the ruble-denominated MICEX stock index tumbled 9.08% ... The dollar-denominated RTS stock index fell 7.5% to end at 1,395 points. It is down 39% this year. More than $9.6 billion of the RTS index's market capitalization was wiped out Tuesday...

A cheeky Russian who was arrested after breaking into a designer label shop in Italy had a fake passport that he used to try to pass himself off as Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin. The man was detained in the tourist area of Riccione after police caught him in the act with a fake passport using the name Vladimir Putin.

Hemisphere: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is known to use oil to exert power, but he's proving more ambitious. His new push for a Russian presence in the Caribbean is about control of sea lanes — where the U.S. is vulnerable.On Monday, Russia accepted Chavez's invitation for a first-ever joint naval exercise with Venezuela. In its first major maneuvers off U.S. waters since the Cold War, Russia will send a heavily armed nuclear cruiser to the Caribbean. Just how critical the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico are to U.S. interests isn't widely recognized. But in the years since Congress barred offshore drilling...

Russia’s Restless Muslim Republics By Uwe Klussmann Although Russia is celebrating the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it still has its own problems in the region as its Muslim republics are drifting toward a partisan war. Last Monday, an eerie funeral procession passed through the center of Nazran in the Russian republic of Ingushetia. Hundreds of people silently crowded around the coffin of Magomed Yevloyev. The 37-year-old lawyer and founder of a Web site ( www.ingushetiya.ru) that was critical of the government was killed in police custody. The authorities said that he was shot in a police car “inadvertently”...

Putin set to bait US with nuclear aid for Tehran Times Online, UK - Sep 6, 2008 Russia is considering increasing its assistance to Iran’s nuclear programme in response to America’s calls for Nato expansion eastwards and the presence of US Navy vessels in the Black Sea delivering aid to Georgia. The Kremlin is discussing sending teams of Russian nuclear experts to Tehran and inviting Iranian nuclear scientists to Moscow for training, according to sources close to the Russian military. Moscow has been angered by Washington’s promise to give Georgia £564m in aid following the Russian invasion of parts of...

We’re going to spend $1 billion to fix the Georgia between Russia and Turkey, not the one between South Carolina and Florida. Sorry, but the thought of us spending $1 billion to repair a country whose president, though a democrat, recklessly provoked a war with a brutish Russia, which was itching to bash its neighbor, makes no sense to me. Yes, we should diplomatically squeeze Russia until it withdraws its troops; no one should be invading neighbors. But where are our priorities? How many wars can we fight at once without finishing even one? Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and now...

Mr. Putin has conclusively demonstrated he is willing to sacrifice economic for political goals. He, like V.I. Lenin and Stalin before him, regard the economy's "commanding heights" as an essential instrument of domestic and international policy. Gazprom is nothing more than a Soviet-style industrial ministry that carries out the state policies of intimidating Eastern and Western Europe and Ukraine and ensuring that satisfied domestic consumers receive electricity below the cost of production. The same can be said of Russia's pipeline monopoly Transneft. ... Mr. Putin liquidated Russia's most efficient oil company (Yukos) without batting an eye, turning its assets over...

He single-handedly saved a TV crew from the jaws of a tiger. He flexed his muscles in front of the cameras in Siberia. He cuts a dash on the ski slopes. He is Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — but not quite Russia's sexiest politician. At least, that is, according to the Sex & The City magazine. In its September Sexy Rating list, the glamour magazine ranks who it considers the 20 sexiest politicians. At the top is Boris Nemtsov, a former leader of opposition party Union of Right Forces, now viewed by many as a spent force. It is rare...

Russia is considering increasing its assistance to Iran’s nuclear programme in response to America’s calls for Nato expansion eastwards and the presence of US Navy vessels in the Black Sea delivering aid to Georgia. The Kremlin is discussing sending teams of Russian nuclear experts to Tehran and inviting Iranian nuclear scientists to Moscow for training, according to sources close to the Russian military. ----snip----- Increasing nuclear assistance to Iran would sharply escalate tensions between Moscow and Washington. Over the past 10 years Russia has helped Iran build its first nuclear power station in Bushehr. Iran claims the plant is for...