A Russian Antonov military cargo plane crashed on the border between Russia’s Tula and Oryol regions, killing all 11 crew members aboard, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

UKRAINE’S Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko plans to legally challenge the results of the presidential runoff that opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych appears to have won, her campaign said yesterday.

An explosion and fire apparently caused by pyrotechnics tore through a nightclub in the Russian city of Perm early today, killing 101 people, according to news reports.

At least 15 people have been killed and dozens wounded in a nightclub explosion in the Russian city of Perm tonight.

A secret cargo and not just timber may be on board a missing ship whose last known radio contact was with British Coastguards, it was suggested today.

A CAR exploded outside the Russian military’s headquarters in South Ossetia yesterday, killing six people and wounding four, the government of the Moscow-backed separatist region in Georgia said.

A passenger jet travelling from Moscow to the Ural Mountains city of Perm crashed while preparing to land early today, killing all 88 people aboard, officials said.

Some Russian troops are withdrawing from the separatist-held Georgian region of South Ossetia, according to reports from the Itar-Tass news agen

A helicopter has crashed into the Black Sea, killing 19 people, a Ukrainian official said today.

Two deep-diving Russian miniature submarines today descended more than two and a half miles to the ocean floor beneath the North Pole, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, making his first trip to Russia since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, planned to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov today.

An armed Uzbek man today took eight hostages at the Russian Embassy in Costa Rica, federal police said.

The US Navy is launching an investigation into how a nuclear-powered submarine hit a Japanese merchant ship near the busy shipping lanes of the Straits of Hormuz.

Russian state gas monopoly Gazprom will halt supplies to Belarus on January 1 if no new contract is signed to end a price dispute, warning European countries that their deliveries could be affected, the company’s chief said today.

Interpol has joined the investigation into the killing of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, the Interfax news agency reported today.

A fire has broken out in a women’s ward of a Moscow drug treatment hospital, filling the ward with heavy smoke and killing 45 women who became trapped between the fire and a locked gate, officials said.

RESULTS from an initial air sampling after North Korea’s announced nuclear test showed no evidence of radioactive particles that would be expected from a successful nuclear detonation, a US government intelligence official said last night.

A top Russian envoy said today, from the North Korean capital Pyongyang, that North Korea had expressed the desire for a swift, negotiated resolution of the growing dispute over its nuclear programme, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

North Korea today boasted that it successfully tested a nuclear weapon, sparking a barrage of global condemnation and threats of harsh sanctions over an underground blast that appeared to thrust the volatile communist state into the elite club of nuclear-armed nations.

A top Russian military officer today confirmed that the device tested by North Korea was a nuclear weapon, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

A methane explosion tore through a Kazakh coal mine today, killing 18 miners.

The head of Russia’s Federal Security Service today said that Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev has been killed, Russian news agencies reported.

A Russian passenger plane crashed on landing in the Siberian city of Irkutsk early today, killing around 150 passengers, Russian news agencies reported.

A train collided with a bus at a level crossing in a southern Russian region today, killing six people and injuring several others, an emergency official said.

A powerful car-bomb blast apparently set off by a suicide attacker killed a high-level police official, two of his bodyguards and four civilians in southern Russia’s Ingushetia region today.

A Briton and an American who walked into Russia from Alaska and were sentenced to deportation are awaiting an appeal hearing in their case.

Russia today said the Iranian nuclear crisis must be solved under the direction of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, and it called on Iran to co-operate more fully with the organisation.

Russia is repeating its request to Britain to extradite self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky in connection with his alleged call for a coup in Russia, a top prosecutor confirmed today.

Russia today dampened hopes of a deal with Iran that would ease concerns about its suspected nuclear weapons programme, reminding Tehran that it must first freeze its domestic uranium enrichment.

Cold weather so painful that even winter-hardened Russians complained about it has gripped Moscow and much of the rest of the country.

President Vladimir Putin today called on Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov to develop a plan to prevent bird flu in Russia, Russian news agencies reported.

An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane with 18 people on board went missing after takeoff from the airport in the capital Baku tonight, an airport dispatcher said.

Chechnya is holding the latest in a series of elections today as part of a continuing effort to bring stability and peace.

A new square in the Baltic city of Kaliningrad will be named after Vladimir Lenin, complete with a restored statue of Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution leader.

A new square in the Russian city of Kaliningrad will be named after Vladimir Lenin, complete with a restored statue of the Bolshevik Revolution leader, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported today.

Russian Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov today became the first prominent politician to throw his hat in the ring for the 2008 presidential election, a poll in which President Vladimir Putin is constitutionally barred from running.

An influential Russian governor seen as being close to President Vladimir Putin today called for Vladimir Lenin’s body to be removed from its Red Square mausoleum and buried, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Security forces today freed seven hostages held by alleged Islamic extremists in a police station and a store, trying to clear the remaining rebels who simultaneously attacked police and government buildings across the southern Russian town of Nalchik yesterday.

Security forces today freed an unspecified number of police officers from a police station where they had been caught in a battle with Islamic extremists, while security forces stormed a store held by the last rebel holdouts in Nalchik, the regional president’s press service said.

SCORES of Islamic militants yesterday launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings in Nalchik in Russia’s turbulent Caucasus region, sparking battles that killed at least 63 people.

Militants launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings in one of the main cities in Russia’s turbulent Caucasus region today, sparking battles involving heavy-arms fire and explosions that forced the evacuation of schools and left bodies in the streets.

RESCUE teams and aid pledges poured into Pakistan from around the world yesterday.

Nations sent help today to for quake-devastated Pakistan, with China and Japan dispatching emergency teams of rescuers and relief officials while Australia pledged cash toward recovery efforts.

The head of Iran’s nuclear programme reiterated today that his country wouldn’t drop its uranium enrichment programme and said Tehran would welcome other nations to join its talks with European negotiators.