BUDAPEST --- Here and there in downtown Budapest, the bullet holes remain. It was more than a half-century ago when Hungarian freedom fighters dared to take to the streets and do battle with the Soviet Union. Expecting help – apparently promised but never delivered – from the United States, the Hungarians were quickly outmatched and paid a terrible price at the hands of the Soviet military.

Leonardo DiCaprio braved scary skies to get to a summit devoted to saving the worlds' tigers, donating $1 million to the cause and earning high praise from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The ongoing "Chinese Language Year in Russia" program has deepened mutual understanding and friendship between the two peoples, and injected fresh momentum into the all-round bilateral cooperation, said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov.

The NATO summit that convenes in Lisbon is not a celebration. The Alliance is overextended, overburdened and apprehensive. Yet its relationship with Russia is improving.

Russian cultural days will be held in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City from November 14 to 22, 2010 as part of a cooperative, two-year cultural exchange between the two countries.

The Russian political class cringed last Wednesday morning on learning that U.S. President Barack Obama had suffered a humiliating political defeat in the mid-term elections, losing Democrat control in the House and barely hanging onto a razor-thin Democrat majority in the Senate.

Moscow’s sushi obsession is set to survive the current dispute between Russia and Japan over the remote Kuril Islands. While the authorities squabble of the wind-swept rocks, the ever-growing passion for Japanese cuisine continues apace.

Russian counternarcotics agents teamed up with U.S. and Afghan forces in an unprecedented joint raid that destroyed nearly $56 million worth of heroin near the Pakistani border, officials said Friday.