Viktor Yushchenko was determined to pursue closer ties with the West

Russia is to send an ambassador to Kiev for the first time in five months, following the electoral defeat of Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko.
President Dmitry Medvedev had appointed Mikhail Zurabov last year, but refused to send him to Ukraine, accusing Mr Yushchenko of “anti-Russian” policies.
Mr Medvedev said he hoped relations [...]

 
 By ELLEN BARRY
 January 15, 2010
MOSCOW — The Russian Parliament on Friday reversed its longstanding opposition to reforms in the European Court of Human Rights, as part of a new push to smooth over differences with the country’s European partners.
Legislators in the lower house voted 392 to 56 to ratify the reforms, news agencies reported.
The international human rights court, based in [...]

Russia and China have questioned the future dominance of the dollar

The world’s newest economic grouping has ended its first major summit by calling for a more diversified international monetary system.
But the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China stopped short of criticising the world’s dominant currency, the US dollar.
The group also repeated calls for greater representation at major institutions, such [...]

By Steven Eke
BBC’s Russian affairs analyst

Russia hopes to emulate some of China’s success in investing in Africa

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev leads a large trade delegation to Africa this week.
It is Mr Medvedev’s first official visit to Africa, and the first by a Russian head of state for more than three years.
The president arrives in Egypt on Tuesday, and [...]

Analysts say the meeting will help to ease tensions

The leaders of India and Pakistan have met for the first time since last November’s Mumbai (Bombay) attacks.
Indian PM Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari held talks on the sidelines of a summit in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
Mr Singh said he had to tell Mr Zardari that Pakistani territory [...]

North Korea has stepped up its missile programme in recent weeks

The US is “in a good position” to protect its territory from a potential North Korean missile strike, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said.
His comments came in response to a report that North Korea was considering launching a missile towards Hawaii.
“We do have some concerns if they were to [...]

North Korea recently tested a nuclear device, defying the Security Council

Key Security Council members have agreed on the wording of a draft UN resolution to expand sanctions against North Korea, diplomats say.
The move is a response to Pyongyang’s recent nuclear and missile testing.
The agreement was reached by the five permanent council members, along with Japan and South Korea. The US’s [...]

By Gary Duffy
BBC News, Sao Paulo

Russia will welcome the Bric countries to Moscow again next week

Brazil says it is to offer $10bn in financing to the IMF to help improve the availability of credit in developing countries.
It is the first time that South America’s biggest economy has ever made a loan of this kind.
Brazil’s Finance Minister Guido Mantega [...]

U.S. Gave $1 Billion as Part of Effort to Dispose of Huge Stockpile of Munitions
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 30, 2009
MOSCOW, May 29 — Russia and the United States formally opened on Friday a plant in Siberia to destroy a huge stockpile of artillery shells filled with deadly nerve agents, more than a decade after alarmed U.S. [...]

 Moscow – Tue May 26, 2009.
Months of infighting between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev over Russia’s budget ended on Monday – with Medvedev on top. At a meeting with senior government officials, the President announced a strikingly pessimistic set of spending priorities until 2012, based on conservative estimates suggesting that Russia will remain hampered by the [...]