Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop expressed concern to Russia about an Australian crew member of a Greenpeace ship facing a "very serious" piracy charge over an Arctic oil exploration protest.
The United States hit out Wednesday at Russian troops' efforts to build a de facto border in the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Dozens of angry protesters tried to storm Russia's embassy in Tripoli on Wednesday after reports that a Russian woman had killed a Libyan army officer.
The arrival in Damascus of a chemical disarmament team on Tuesday is the result of an unprecedented, gruelling US-Russian deal that averted regional war.
Syria's stockpile of chemical agents is largely "unweaponized" and could be eradicated more quickly than initially thought, the Washington Post reported Thursday citing a confidential US and Russian assessment.
The United States and Russia agreed a draft UN Security Council resolution Thursday on destroying Syria's chemical weapons, breaking a prolonged deadlock over the country's bitter conflict.
An American and two Russians blasted off Thursday for the International Space Station atop a Soyuz rocket that will slash more than a day off the usual travel time.
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday demanded the UN Security Council take tough action against Syria, as Russia wrangled with the West over how to strip Bashar al-Assad of chemical arms.
Russia-US wrangling over a resolution to enforce the destruction of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons cast a shadow Monday over the start of the United Nations General Assembly.