THE head of Russia’s deep cover US spying operations has betrayed the network and defected, a Russian paper said, potentially giving the West one of its biggest intelligence coups since the end of the Cold War.

Another blessing for the Government is the fact that what you might call the moderate, pro-European but anti-Lisbon camp is largely leaderless. For all his egomania, Declan Ganley was a key factor in swaying undecided voters not to give their assent to a document they either felt they didn’t understand or suspected was deliberately obscure.

IT is just hours after the 2008 Champions League final and Roman Abramovich, the Siberian oil tycoon, owner of Chelsea FC and the new face of political and financial power in post-communist Russia, is drifting through the impossibly plush suites of Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton, the hotel he has booked for his club’s post-match soiree.

Russia will not extradite possible suspects in the poisoning of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko to Britain, the prosecutor general said today.

British police investigating the poisoning death of a former KGB agent have officially requested assistance from their Russian counterparts, prosecutors said, as officers arrived in Moscow amid rising diplomatic tensions.

CONTROVERSIAL Dublin-born artist Francis Bacon used gruesome images in medical books for inspiration for some of his most shocking paintings, it was revealed yesterday.

Controversial Dublin-born artist Francis Bacon used gruesome images in medical books for inspiration for some of his most shocking paintings, it was revealed today.

One of history’s most famous murder weapons, the icepick used to kill Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, has resurfaced, just weeks before the 65th anniversary of his assassination on August 20, 1940.

Madonna is lending London's Tate Modern art gallery two of her favourite pictures.