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The Indian Air Force (IAF) has grounded its entire fleet of Sukhoi fighter jets after one crashed during a routine training exercise in Rajasthan state. > Monday's crash was the second such incident involving a Sukhoi fighter jet this year. >

The United States is about to lose a key arms-control tool from the closing days of the Cold War -- the right to station American observers in Russia to count the long-range missiles leaving its assembly line. The end of full-time, on-site access will likely ignite complaints in Congress, with insiders from both parties arguing over whether the George W. Bush or the Obama administration is responsible.

Second Russian Stealth Frigate In Works Posted by Bill Sweetman at 12/1/2009 4:20 AM CST Maxim Pyadushkin writes: The Severnaya Verf shipyard in St Petersburg officially laid down the second Project 22350 frigate for the Russian Navy on November 26. The ship was named Admiral Flota Kasatonov. The first frigate of the class - Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Gorshkov – has been under construction at Severnaya Verf since 2006. Kasatonov laid down on November 26 (UIC) The Gorshkov class will be the first fully stealthy Russian frigates, with their superstructures shaped to reduce radar cross-section. The 130 m-long frigates will...

Over the last week, Russia was again at the center of two important and contentious issues – both making headlines. One involves an increasingly chilly relationship between Russia and the United Kingdom, as the latter continues to press the former for information about the assassination of a British Citizen – Alexander Litvinenko, which by all accounts was likely carried out by Russians using a poison that was obtained in Russia – Polonium 210 (Po210). Which Russians committed the act, under the authority of whom and for what purpose, remain shrouded in mystery. The name Vladimir Putin is inextricably linked in...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Russia is building arms plants in Venezuela to produce AK-103 automatic rifles and cartridges and is finalizing contracts to send 53 military helicopters to the Andean nation, Moscow's envoy to Venezuela saidMonday. Ambassador Vladmir Zaemskiy told a news conference that Russian engineers and Venezuelan construction firms were building the rifle and cartridge plants which, when operational, would employ more than 1,500 workers. He gave no completion date for the plants under construction in the central state of Aragua. Details about Moscow's military shipments and projects have been scarce since socialist President Hugo Chavez's government began signing military...

VLADIVOSTOK. November 30. VOSTOK-MEDIA – Russian Minister of Interior Rashid Nurgaliyev has noted at the meeting with students that it is legitimate to hit back a police officer in self-defense. According to Pravda.ru daily, the statement came as a reply to the question asked by a student, which runs as follows: “Police officers’ assaults on citizens became more frequent lately. Don’t you think that it’s time to deprive the police of immunity?” The Minister clarified that if the individual to be detained is not a criminal or offender, then he has every right to go on the defensive. “We are...

BELGRADE -- The governments of Russia and Serbia are in negotiations to build a nuclear power plant in Serbia, the Russian ambassador to Belgrade says. "The construction of a nuclear power plant in Serbia is being given serious consideration," Aleksandr Konuzin was quoted as saying this Monday. He stated that Serbia wishes to export electricity, and added that the country has the resources to do so. "Russia is prepared to help Serbia with this intention through partnership and joint investments," the Radio-Television of Vojvodina (RTV) reported. Konuzin reminded that Serbia had recently reached agreements to build hydro plants with Germany...

(RFE/RL) -- Moscow has released a draft of a proposal for a new European security agreement the Kremlin says should replace outdated institutions such as NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The text, posted on the Kremlin's website on November 29, comes more than a year after President Dmitry Medvedev first formally raised the issue. Speaking in Berlin in June 2008, Medvedev said the new pact was necessary to finally update Cold War-era arrangements. "I'm convinced that Europe's problems won't be solved until its unity is established, an organic wholeness of all its integral parts,...

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The head of Russia's Orthodox Church Sunday called on authorities to give a "powerful reply" to the people behind a train bombing that killed 25 people, as police probed whether Islamist rebels were involved. A blast derailed a high-speed Russian train Friday night on the main line between Moscow and Russia's second city, St Petersburg, raising fears of a new wave of attacks five years after a bombing campaign in Moscow by Chechen rebels. "We believe the reply will be effective and powerful enough to show these shameful, terrible people that ... when the hand of an...

Russian President, Dmitry Medvdev, has sent a security proposal to European security agencies, including NATO and the EU. The draft calls for all nations that agree, to the final writing, will follow the principle “indivisible, equal and undiminished security”. The proposal includes these few ideas of joint security. “That parties do not undertake, support or participate in actions that can jeopardize the security of another party to the treaty". The sides also agree not to allow the use of its territory with the purpose of attacking their partners. The draft suggests that every party to the agreement is entitled to...

Wagons brimming with logs accumulate in the Siberian railway station of Dalnerechensk, more than 8,000km (4,971 miles) east of Moscow. They are waiting to cross the nearby Chinese border. > Small logging brigades of some four men, with the help of trucks, are behind most illegal felling. The head of one of these brigades, a burly young former policeman calling himself Yevgeni, agreed to tell me how the system operated from the inside, on condition his identity was not revealed. "Quick, jump in the car! I'll be shot if I'm seen with a journalist," he orders as I arrive in...

YEREVAN -- Two leaders of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation party (Dashnaktsutyun) have criticized Russian policy toward Turkey and Azerbaijan, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports. Vahan Hovannisian, a senior Dashnaktsutyun lawyer, said that Russian policy toward the South Caucasus is "dangerous" for Armenia. Hovannisian did not elaborate on his statement. Another Dashnaktsutyun leader, Hrayr Karapetian, who heads the parliament's defense and security committee, said Russia's deepening military cooperation with Turkey and Azerbaijan runs counter to its military alliance with Armenia. Karapetian said a 2010 plan for joint military exercises signed by Azerbaijani and Russian defense ministers is "at the least, strange and...

World powers united in condemnation of Iran's nuclear activities yesterday in a rare show of international consensus on the threat posed by Tehran's continued nuclear defiance. China and Russia joined the United States, Britain, France and Germany in backing an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution censuring Iran and ordering it to halt construction of a secret uranium enrichment plant. The resolution, the first since February 2006, passed with 25 votes and six abstentions. Only Malaysia, Venezuela and Cuba supported Iran. ...China, which has shared Moscow's reluctance to take a hard line with Tehran, was reportedly persuaded to support the resolution...

"Another symptom of the U.S.' political collapse, [also linked] to our burning region... "Abu Mazen counted on his friendship with the U.S. when he [tried to] persuade its leaders to pressure Israel to at least freeze the Zionist settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories... "Another collapse was in Somalia... The Somali president, whom the U.S. considers [politically] desirable, promised that he would regain control of the capital Mogadishu from the armed Islamic movements. This is a news item that should be noticed, because it is a man-bites-dog situation. It makes sense to see the end of the attacks by these...

AP story

While the blogosphere remains a'fire on the global warming/faulty science debate, and the MSM appears reluctant to step into the debate other than to diss the CRU/NIWA scandals, it appears the media outlet unfraid of throwing a couple of science types together, living at extreme ends of the spectrum, comes from Moscow. Subject at hand? A segment titled “Heating Cheating”, and hosted by Bill Dod out of the RT Moscow studio. THE FIGHTERS ~~~ On one side of the ring is Aleksey Kokorin, Head of the Climate Change Programme at the World Wildlife Fund in Russia. Per their website: WWF's...

It's the kind of information that fuels conspiracy theorists everywhere... Danish journalists claim several World Health Organisation advisers are on the payroll of leading pharmaceutical companies that make swine flu vaccines. RT talks to Louise Volle, a journalist at the Danish Daily Information newspaper and a co-author of the report...

RUSSIAN investigators have confirmed that the derailment of a passenger train which killed dozens of people was caused by a "terrorist attack", the Interfax news agency reported. "We are indeed talking about a terrorist attack," Vladimir Markin, spokesman for Russia's federal investigative committee... Investigators have found "elements of an explosive device" at the site...

An express train carrying hundreds of passengers from Moscow to St. Petersburg derailed, killing dozens of people and injuring scores of others in what an official says "appears to be an act of terrorism." "We have the blast remains; a crater. There is little doubt this is terrorism," a source in Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's office told Fox News. Who was responsible for the derailment or why it occurred "remains unclear," the source said. Thirty people were killed in the accident and scores injured after the last three cars of the 14-car Nevsky Express left the tracks in the...

At least 29 passengers were killed and about 75 were injured when the Nevsky Express train from Moscow to St. Petersburg derailed, an emergencies ministry source said Saturday. It was not immediately clear what caused the accident. Just prior to the accident, the train driver had applied the brakes. The last four cars out of thirteen were involved from train #166 at 18:34 GMT Moscow time. A mobile field hospital was being flown to the accident site, near Bologoye, 200 miles from Moscow, to render assistance to injured passengers. Ambulances, Federal Security Service officers, law enforcement, emergency services and railroad...

Russia has ensured that it will honor a deal providing Iran with the S-300 sophisticated anti-aircraft system, Tehran's envoy to Moscow says.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The crash of a luxury train in Russia killed 25 people and injured up to 63 more, an official said on Saturday, and sources suggested it may have been an act of terrorism. "Twenty-five people died in the accident," an official reported to Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu during a meeting televised by Vesti-25 television, hours after the crash. Several carriages of the Nevsky Express traveling from Moscow to St Petersburg were derailed at 9:30 p.m. (1830 GMT) on Friday near the town of Bologoye, 350 km (200 miles) from Moscow. Estimates of the number of injured ranged...

MINSK (Reuters) – The United States and Russia will sign a deal this year to cut vast Cold War arsenals of nuclear weapons but may miss an early December deadline, a Kremlin source told Reuters on Friday. Diplomats from the two biggest nuclear powers are trying to prepare a new agreement on cutting atomic weapons before the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expires on December 5. The new accord will be signed "in a European country" in December, the Kremlin source told Reuters in Minsk, where President Dmitry Medvedev was meeting regional leaders. "We may not be able to do...

Russian oligarchs and bigwigs who buoyed, then fled, the local art market, are gingerly stepping back in. But rather than embracing the latest contemporary artists, they're chasing the collections of an earlier elite class—before the Revolution. London's chief auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's International plan to sell at least $36 million worth of Russian art, including a rediscovered trove of Fabergé cigarette cases owned by the younger son of Czar Alexander II. The series of sales, called Russia Week, begins Monday. Like many collecting categories, the Russian art market was gutted by the recession, but price levels for top artists...

Indian president becomes first woman leader to fly fighter jet Indian President Pratibha Patil on Wednesday became the first woman leader in history to fly in an Air Force fighter jet. Patil, 74, left the Lohegaon Air Force base near Pune in western India on a two-seat Su-30MKI for a 30-minute flight, where she was decked out in a G-force grey suit for her 0.9 Mac (700-800 km/hr) flight. Patil's fighter jet was escorted by two additional fighters so she could get a feel of how the planes fly and look in tactical operations. Her flight was broadcast live over...

Goldmine of black market in Russian data By Charles Clover in Moscow Published: November 24 2009 17:59 | Last updated: November 24 2009 17:59 Gorbushka Market, just outside central Moscow, does a thriving trade in any electronics good you could want: mobile phones, plasma television sets, the latest DVDs, and, if you ask to see them, software peddlers will show potential clients a list of “databases”. These consist of CDs with names such as “Ministry of Interior – Federal Road Safety Service”, “Tax Service” and “Federal Anti-Narcotics Service” and cost about $100 apiece. Each contains confidential information gathered by Russian...

Obama’s decision not to build the Missile Defense System in Poland and the Czech Republic and his Noble Prize have not yet been comprehended from a philosophical viewpoint. It’s time to do it. Power of Money against Power of Spirit The last turning point similar to the current one happened approximately 400 years ago. The Western European society discovered a new hierarchy of values. Feudalism that valued service and chivalry was replaced with capitalism. Wealth became the measure of success, and everyone was to care about his own pocket only. The cult of money replaced all other values, including religious....

Disillusionment with Woodrow Wilson changed the American Left forever. In 1916, German saboteurs destroyed Black Tom Island in New York Harbor.Click for Bettmann/Corbis pic. Today’s state-oriented liberalism, we are often told, was the inevitable extension of the pre–World War I tradition of progressivism. The progressives, led by President Woodrow Wilson, placed their faith in reason and the better nature of the American people. Expanded government would serve as an engine of popular goodwill to soften the harsh rigors of industrial capitalism. Describing the condition of his fellow intellectuals prior to World War I, Lewis Mumford exclaimed that “there was scarcely...

Pro-Darwin consensus doesn't rule out intelligent design --snip-- (CNN) -- While we officially celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" on November 24, celebrations of Darwin's legacy have actually been building in intensity for several years. Darwin is not just an important 19th century scientific thinker. Increasingly, he is a cultural icon. Darwin is the subject of adulation that teeters on the edge of hero worship, expressed in everything from scholarly seminars and lecture series to best-selling new atheist tracts like those by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. The atheists claim that...

Russia and China have joined four Western powers in readying a resolution critical of Iran's nuclear program, diplomats said Tuesday, as Teheran pushed forward its own alternatives to a UN-backed plan aimed at preventing it from developing nuclear weapons. The development is significant because it groups Russia and China with the four other powers - the US, Britain, France and Germany - in unified criticism of Iran's nuclear program. Russia and China have acted as a drag on Western calls for tougher action against Iran. While the board passed an IAEA resolution critical of Iran in 2006 that had the...

The government has decided to undertake a major replacement of aging military equipment. In many cases, this is essential, because buying new gear basically halted (with a few exceptions, like ballistic missiles) during the 1990s. So most of the armed forces are using Cold War era gear manufactured in the 1970s and 80s. Fortunately, even older equipment was junked as the armed forces shrank 80 percent in the 1990s. According to the new government plan, in the next decade, at least a third of current gear will be replaced, and in some categories (usually high tech), over 80 percent. President...

A Russian military delegation is inspecting airfields before Moscow sends 10 MiG-29 fighter jets to bolster Lebanon's almost non-existent air force, a challenge to U.S. efforts to build up the Mediterranean country's state institutions to counter Hezbollah. Under a deal announced in December by Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr during a visit to Moscow, Russia will provide the MiG-29s from its air force inventory free of charge, including upgrades, under a military assistance program. The Americans have supplied second- and third-hand military equipment including M-60A3 main battle tanks (ex-Jordanian) and M-198 155mm artillery guns, worth $400 million to Lebanon since...

AG Eric Holder's statement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will remain in custody no matter what the verdict in his upcoming Manhattan trial, coupled with Obama's instructions to the jury that KSM be "convicted and executed", reveals the entire exercise as a show trial, a ritual effort intended not to achieve justice, but to make a public political point. The question is, what could that point possibly be? Show trials had a long and ignoble history in the last century. Pioneered in the USSR by the Stalin regime, they were used as method of instilling terror into the vozhd's enemies, ensuring...

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – A cutting-edge French warship sailed into St. Petersburg Monday to show off its capabilities to potential buyers in the Russian navy, whose pursuit of an amphibious assault capacity is frightening some neighboring countries. Russia's once-mighty navy was severely degraded after the fall of the Soviet Union and it currently has no big ship with the power to anchor in coastal waters and deploy troops onto land. Russian officials announced this year that they were planning to make their first arms deal with a NATO country by buying a French vessel like the Mistral, a 23,700-ton (21,500-metric...

Russian Victoria Radochinskaya has won the Mrs World 2009 beauty pageant, which took place in the Vietnamese city of Vung Tau. Seventy-eight participants, aged between 19 and 41, competed for the title of the world's most beautiful married woman. Vietnam, the host country, was represented by two contenders. The final round of the competition took place on Sunday. Victoria Radochinskaya, 31, became the 15th winner of the contest since it was first held in 1985. The PR specialist received the $150,000 jewel-studded crown from last year's winner, Ukrainian Natalya Shmarenkova. First runner-up was Mrs America Andrea Robertson, a professional model....

So, the lack of reproducibility doesn't mean there's a conspiracy or malfeasance, but it does mean that the science isn't settled as Al Gore claims . It cannot be settled until critics have had a chance to rebut the claims. The lack of reproducibility gives the skeptics too much credibility if they are wrong , or not enough credibility if they are right . At the center of the reproducibility debate is Stephen McIntyre and his website ClimateAudit. McIntyre documents his struggles to obtain the raw data and reproduce the results of famous temperature reconstructions. When he finally gets his...

A Russian Orthodox priest, Fr. Daniel Sysoyev, who carried out missionary work among immigrants from ex-Soviet republics, many of them Muslims, received over a dozen death threats before his murder on Thursday, a Russian paper said. Fr. Daniel of St. Thomas Church in Moscow foresaw his death, writing in his internet diary that he had received telephone threats from Muslims. Fr. Daniel’s evening ‘talks’ for inquirers included several especially designed for Muslims.

A Russian Orthodox priest known for his outspoken criticism of Islam and attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity has been assassinated in his Moscow church. A masked gunman shot Father Daniil Sysoyev in the head and chest after asking for him by name, police said. The choirmaster, Vladimir Strelbinsky, was seriously wounded in the attack at St Thomas Church in southern Moscow. Father Daniil, 35, died of his wounds in hospital late last night. A Russian newspaper reported that he had recently told its journalists of 14 death threats by telephone and e-mail, which he had received as a result...

RZD President Vladimir Yakunin gave United States Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood a presentation on the program to develop high-speed rail transport in Russia. The presentation took place at the RZD Science and Technical Information Centre at Rizhsky Station, and was attended by the US ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle. The RZD president showed the high-speed Sapsan train to the delegation from the US Department of Transportation, and described the program to develop high-speed rail transport in Russia up to 2030. The US transportation secretary said he was impressed by the first Russian high-speed train, built jointly by German and Russian...

British scientists suspect that swine flu virus has mutated in Ukraine. Some doctors say that flu in the country has shown unprecedented symptoms, creating the effect of burnt lungs

The diaries of a British reporter who risked his reputation to expose the horrors of Stalin's murderous famine in Ukraine were put on public display for the first time Friday. Welsh journalist Gareth Jones sneaked into Ukraine in March of 1933, at the height of a famine engineered by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Millions of people starved to death between 1932 and 1933 as the Soviet secret police emptied the countryside of grain and livestock as part of a campaign to force peasants into collective farms.Jones' reporting was one of the first attempts to bring the disaster to the world's...

November 19, 2009, 0:00 a.m. Circling Sharks Smell American BloodAmerica should keep quieter abroad — and try finding a bigger stick. By Victor Davis Hanson On his recent trip to Asia, President Obama found China, Japan, and South Korea — like many nations these days — in no mood to hear more American lectures. Beijing is worried about owning so much American debt. Tokyo is tiring of an American military base in Okinawa, and wants to redefine its relationship with us. Seoul is starting to doubt American commitment to keep it safe from North Korea. Why all the sudden...

Russia's KBM has been briefing Middle East and other militaries on the Igla man-portable air defense system. The Igla-S, an enhanced version of Igla-9K38, was touted as effective against fighter-jets, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and cruise missiles. Iran and Syria have received a legacy variant of Igla-S. The Igla-S has been touted as capable of downing a range of U.S. UAVs deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. "It also has night-firing capability," KBM said. "Igla-S MANPADS is a new-generation system featuring considerably extended firing range and enhanced kill probability against aerial targets and possessing a new quality for this class of...

Russia has provided an "unprecedented" 970 billion roubles (22.6 billion euros, 33.8 billion dollars) to its defence industry this year, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Wednesday. State support for the sector had helped it grow by 3.8 percent since the start of the year despite the economic downturn, Putin said in comments reported by Russian news agencies. "During the recession we have allocated enough money to the military-industrial sector, which is a priority for government support. In 2009 funding reached an unprecedented level for our country: almost 970 billion roubles," Putin said. State aid had taken the form of reduced-rate...

BRUSSELS, Nov 18 (Reuters) - NATO countries voiced concern on Wednesday at Russian and Belarusian exercises held near the Polish border in September, saying they were at odds with improved relations with Moscow. Ambassadors from the 28 NATO states meeting in Brussels expressed concerns about the large scale of the exercises and a scenario that envisioned an attack from the West, NATO spokesman James Appathurai said. "There was the general sense that the political message of the exercise was incongruous with the general improvement in political relations and practical cooperation which is under way between NATO and Russia," Appathurai said....

Health Ministry: Flu, respiratory diseases claim 344 lives in Ukraine Yesterday at 20:36 | Interfax-Ukraine The current flu epidemic and other acute respiratory diseases in Ukraine has claimed 344 lives by Wednesday evening, the Health Ministry said. It said 18 people had died of such diseases in the previous 24 hours. The ministry said 1.502 million people had contracted such illnesses since the epidemic broke out and that 44,781 had fallen ill in the past 24 hours. A total of 83,904 people have been hospitalized since the start of the epidemic, and 54,407 of them have been discharged from the...

MOSCOW (AP) - A simmering confrontation between far-right youths and ant-racist activists has erupted into Moscow's streets after the fatal shooting of an anti-racist activist known as the Bonebreaker. The violence stems from deep animus between two aggressive camps with starkly different visions of Russia's future—neo-Nazi skinheads who rank in the tens of thousands and militant anti-racist groups that call themselves Antifa, short for anti-fascist. Former punk rocker Ivan Khutorskoi, 26, provided security for meetings of antifascists. He also was known for organizing underground bare-knuckle boxing matches among them, and taking part in violent attacks on ultranationalists.

Russian crime gangs are making millions by selling counterfeit Tamiflu online to Britons woried about swine flu, an internet security firm has claimed. Anxious residents who fear they may not be able to obtain the drug through the NHS could be funding organised crime abroad as well as putting themselves at risk of identity fraud when they buy the potentially useless drugs.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has often described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest tragedy” of the 20th century, has now said that the “reunification” of Georgia has “already been decided,” a suggestion some of his listeners believe was a call for restoring Moscow’s control over Georgia and even the former USSR as a whole. In an intriguing commentary published in yesterday’s “Gazeta,” Bozhena Rynska describes both the celebration of the 80th birthday of longtime Soviet and Russian official Yevgeny Primakov and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s two very different toasts on that occasion (www.gazeta.ru/column/rynska/3287611.shtml). The celebration took...

Russia is to build up its navy over the coming decade, President Dmitry Medvedev announced on Monday, as he visited a Russian guided missile cruiser in Singapore. Speaking to sailors on board the Russian Pacific Fleet's Varyag, Medvedev said around half of Russia's military hardware would have to be renewed by 2020. "Yes, an expansion of our naval presence is planned. Russia can only consider itself a full naval power if it has a full fleet that carries out training and combat tasks," he said, according to official Russian news agencies. The Varyag, built in the 1980s under the Soviet...