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St. Petersburg, February 14, Interfax - An Orthodox church of the Holy Trinity located at the Russian Antarctic station Bellingshausen will be sanctified on Friday, the press service for the Research Institute for the Arctic and Antarctic has reported. The church turns 10 on February 14, the press service reported. The polar explorers from the Russian Antarctic expedition suggested the creation of an Orthodox chapel back in the late 1990s. That offer was upheld and an Orthodox church was build at the station. The construction of the church began in fall 2001 in Altai. The main materials used in its...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A gunman opened fire in a cathedral on the Russian island of Sakhalin, off the country's eastern coast, on Sunday, killing a nun and a churchgoer and wounding six other people, state-run news agency RIA reported.

U.S. intelligence agencies last week urged the Obama administration to check its new healthcare network for malicious software after learning that developers linked to the Belarus government helped produce the website, raising fresh concerns that private data posted by millions of Americans will be compromised. The intelligence agencies notified the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency in charge of the Healthcare.gov network, about their concerns last week. Specifically, officials warned that programmers in Belarus, a former Soviet republic closely allied with Russia, were suspected of inserting malicious code that could be used for cyber attacks, according to U.S....

Russian teen charged with possessing weapon of mass destruction, Pennsylvania authorities say By Todd StarnesPublished January 25, 2014FoxNews.com UNDATED: Vladislav Miftakhov, 19, was arrested on suspicion of possessing a weapon of mass destruction, authorities in Pennsylvania said. (Altoona Police Department) A teenage Russian national was arrested late Friday on charges of possessing a weapon of mass destruction, police in Altoona, Pa. said. Blair County Prison confirmed to Fox News that Vladislav Miftakhov, 19, is in custody. He is charged with possessing a weapon of mass destruction, risking a catastrophe, possessing instruments of crime, prohibited offensive weapons, incendiary devices, recklessly endangering...

FULL TITLE: Fancy an (icy) dip? Hundreds of Russian Orthodox Christians plunge into freezing water to 'purify their souls' as temperatures drop to -17C Hundreds of Russian Orthodox Christians have plunged into icy water around Eastern Europe to mark the feast of Epiphany. In temperatures as low as -17C, the believers wore little more than basic swimming costumes as they leapt into lakes and plunge pools to confirm their willingness to follow Jesus, who is said to have been baptised in the River Jordon. With snow piled high around the water, it’s no wonder many of the Christians grimace as...

A law in Russia banning "homosexual propaganda" has been condemned by critics, who say it incites hatred. But a day hunting and relaxing in the forest - and hearing some extreme views - suggests it has plenty of support. Saunas are supposed to be relaxing but the prospect of this one filled me with dread. I was to share it with two heavily armed Russian hunters - Yuri, a steely-eyed veteran of Russia's bloody war in Afghanistan, and Georgy, a burly businessmen who cut his teeth during the violent chaos that consumed Russia after the fall of communism. That afternoon,...

Two new stealth fighter prototypes. A new long-range airlifter. New drones, attack helicopters, radar planes and spy planes. The pace of Chinese air power advancements in the last three years far outstrips aerospace developments in other countries. Now add to the list the J-16, a new twin-engine, twin-seat jet fighter-bomber based on the Russian Su-30MK. Big and powerful, with a heavy weapons load and a combat range of hundreds of miles, the J-16 could become a main front-line combatant of the Chinese Air Force and Navy, possibly bridging the gap between China’s older jets and whatever stealth models eventually enter...

I have called you to warning on your selfishness, but you ignored me. I have called you to account about your guns, that seems to have faired a bit better. I have called you several times to account about God's wraith, but that has been wholly ignored. Now I will give you the most blunt warning I know how to give. This is a call to arms to defend the one thing that still separates you from the Hell on Earth you are creating for yourselves and it is the one thing that you, as a wicked and decadent society,...

Republican California Rep. Ed Royce is pressing the Obama administration on how it will deal with dozens of high-living Russian diplomats who lied about their incomes to collect healthcare money meant for the poor. Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Monday he wants a briefing on the alleged Medicaid fraud, and wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry asking how officials will handle "the law enforcement and diplomatic aspects" of the case, The Hill reported. In a complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan last Thursday, 49 former and current diplomats are charged with defrauding Medicaid of...

Federal law enforcement authorities have charged nearly 50 past or present Russian diplomats and their spouses in a $1.5 million Medicaid fraud scheme, an unusual twist in what has become a familiar criminal story line in New York. An F.B.I. investigation revealed “the systemic fraudulent submission of falsified applications for Medicaid benefits” by the diplomats and their spouses, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday in United States District Court in Manhattan. The diplomats and their spouses obtained the benefits for pregnancies, births and first-year-of-life medical needs, generally applying at the same New York hospital, which was not identified,...

India’s navy is training over 500 Vietnamese submariners... India (will) issue Vietnam a US$100 million line of credit for the purposes of enabling the latter to acquire four naval patrol vessels from the former, the report said. The Indian Navy's extensive experience in operating Russian Kilo-class submarines, which dates back to the mid-1980s, will be invaluable to Vietnam as its navy learns how to handle their new underwater vessels, according to the In December 2009, Vietnam signed a $2 billion deal to buy six submarines from Russia, which is due to deliver them all by 2016.

Last Good Friday, two Russian Tu-22M3 bombers, escorted by four Su-27 fighter aircraft, simulated an aerial assault on two military targets in Sweden— the first near the capital Stockholm and the second in a southern part of the country. This was then followed in September by Zapad-13 (“Zapad” means “West”), Russia’s biannual military exercise, which this year was jointly held with Belarusian forces variously in Belarus, along the borders of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and in Kaliningrad, Russia’s non-contiguous seaport territory that lies between Poland and Lithuania. Though initially billed as a counterterrorism operation targeting “illegal armed groups,” Zapad-13 was very...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has met with the foreign minister of the Russian Orthodox Church ahead of a Nov. 25 visit to the Vatican by President Vladimir Putin. The Vatican released no details of Tuesday’s meeting with Metropolitan Hilarion, in Rome for a Catholic-Orthodox conference on family values. Simultaneously in Moscow, a top Italian cardinal involved in Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, Cardinal Angelo Scola, met with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.

My sustainment of my children comes through INTENSE INTIMACY not just lament and prayer for there is a difference between Mary at my feet and those that knew me from a distance . Do you see I AM your lap of Pure Joy and Breakthrough and it is in my presence that you receive your breakthrough. So see that you break through all distractions to me for they are a wall of resistance to all the blessings already laid at my feet for you to discern and receive. Luke 10:38-42 38 Now while they were on their way, it occurred...

Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, November 7, 2013, 4:20 PM     Lining up the dead children in Beslan.In September 2004 Muslim terrorists stormed the grade school in Beslan, North Ossetia taking over 1,000 children and their parents hostage. Over 380 people, mostly children, died in the Islamist attack.The Russian parliament passed a law this month requiring family members to pay for the damages caused by Islamic terrorist attacks. Via the Counter Jihad Report: Russian parliament’s lower house on Friday approved new legislation that toughens punishment for terrorism and requires terrorists’ relatives to pay for the damages caused...

This is what I think we’re seeing: The president has backed away from a military strike in Syria. But he can’t acknowledge this or act as if it is true. He is acting and talking as if he’s coolly, analytically, even warily contemplating the Russian proposal and the Syrian response. The proposal, he must know, is absurd. Bashar Assad isn’t going to give up all his hidden weapons in wartime, in the middle of a conflict so bitter and severe that his forces this morning reportedly bombed parts of Damascus, the city in which he lives.

(Headline only) Breaking News: Syria accepts Russian proposal to put chemical weapons under international control - Interfax

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I am writing a novel set in Russia and need some help with airplanes. Does anyone you know the make of any Russian plane that would regularly fly into the coldest regions? I flew into Enta (Komi Republic) one time and landed on skis. (rear loading, about 15-20 pax) It was surreal. And cool, I mean cold! :-) Thanks for any help.

US officials say Israel targeted advanced anti-ship cruise missiles near Syria's principal port city, Latakia, in an air attack this month, the New York Times reported. The officials say the attack on 5 July near Latakia targeted a type of Russian-made missile called the Yakhont that Russia had sold to the Syrian government, the paper's website reported. Russia is a key political ally and arms supplier of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's regime. The officials provided no details on the strike, including the extent of the damage and how many missiles were used. The Times reported that the officials declined to...