UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi headed for Damascus to seek support for a Syria peace conference, as Russia slammed rebels for threatening those planning to attend the so-called Geneva II talks.
An ally of billionaire Georgian PM Bidzina Ivanishvili on Monday basked in an overwhelming win at presidential polls in the ex-Soviet state to replace larger-than-life moderniser Mikheil Saakashvili.
A Greenpeace activist Saturday staged a protest in a tent suspended from the second floor of the Eiffel Tower against Russia's detention of 30 members of the environmental lobby group.
The Russian government has dismissed the head of the consumer protection agency, a notorious official best known for waging apparent trade wars against the country's neighbours.
A suspected female suicide bomber set off a blast on a bus packed with students in southern Russia, killing at least five people and raising security fears.
A stunningly well-preserved skull from 1.8 million years ago offers new evidence that early man was a single species with a vast array of different looks.
US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden says he did not bring any secret documents with him to Russia when he fled there, ensuring Moscow had no access to the files.
A senior Dutch diplomat at the Netherlands embassy in Moscow was beaten up at his home in the Russian capital by unknown individuals who scrawled the letters "LGBT" on a mirror.