Russia has forces in Syria to show the world that it is still an influence, but any losses can be attributed to ‘private operators’, says Nina L. Khrushcheva

A 44-year-old housewife who was embroiled in a divorce court fight with her estranged businessman husband in England should pocket £453 million, a judge has ruled.

It costs almost €2,800 per day to detain a juvenile offender in Ireland — almost 10 times as much as the European average — according to a Council of Europe report.

The EU’s dream of building “a ring of friends” from the Caucasus to the Sahara has turned into a nightmare as conflicts beyond its borders send refugees teeming into Europe.

E UROPE, the second smallest of the seven continents, covers seven per cent of the world’s landmass and has about 742m citizens. More than two billion pairs of birds, of some 530 species, nest here.

The European Games is just one sporting plank in a project aimed at building Azerbaijan’s international profile, writes Brendan O’Brien.

THE howling of wolves has been heard in Denmark. The species became extinct there in 1813 but, two centuries later, footprints have been found in Jutland. According to the Timber Wolf Information Network, at least four individuals visited the country recently.

Ever since the Winter Olympics were awarded to Russia, fears were raised about potential terrorist attacks, which have plagued the country since the collapse of the Soviet Union, writes Dmitri Trenin.

Yards from its improbable palm-fringed seafront and attended by a president whose seven-year, £31bn dream was starting to unfold before his steely eyes, Sochi welcomed the Winter Olympics with an opening ceremony of fittingly exorbitant scale in the Fisht Stadium last night.

A passenger on board an Istanbul-bound flight claimed there was a bomb on board and tried to hijack the plane to Sochi, Russia, where the Winter Olympics are kicking off, an official says.

Police detained dozens of people yesterday in sweeps through the Russian city of Volgograd after two deadly attacks in less than 24 hours raised security fears ahead of the Winter Olympics.

A suicide bomber struck a busy railway station in southern Russia yesterday, killing herself and at least 15 others and wounding scores more, officials said, in a stark reminder of the threat Russia is facing as it prepares to host February’s Olympics in Sochi.

The Boston Marathon bombings could have been prevented if US officials had followed through on Russian intelligence, a senior Moscow official has said.

A female suicide bomber has injured at least 11 police officers and civilians in the southern Russian region of Dagestan, police said.

ON April 11, European bison were released to the wild in Germany.

The mother of the two Boston bombing suspects says she now regrets moving her family to the US and believes they would have been better off in a village in Dagestan.

The CIA has confirmed it wanted one of the Boston bombing suspects placed on a terrorist database 18 months ago.

New details have emerged about how the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects may have been swayed by a radical, anti-American strain of Islam.

The parents of Tamerlan Tsarnaev have insisted that he went to Dagestan and Chechnya last year to visit relatives and had nothing to do with militants operating in the volatile part of Russia.

AUTUMN’S glorious colour arrives later on Irish trees than in most countries because of our mild climate.

ON New Year’s Day, Ireland will begin a year-long term as chair of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. This week’s visit to Dublin by Secretary General Lamberto Zannier is part of the quickening of pace of diplomatic preparation.

A LONG-HELD conviction that Neanderthals and modern man co-existed for thousands of years has been discounted in a study led by scientists at University College Cork (UCC).

RUSSIAN authorities have named a man suspected over last month’s suicide bomb attack on Moscow’s airport, and arrested his teenage brother and sister.

Russian authorities have named a man suspected over last month’s suicide bomb attack on Moscow’s airport, and arrested his teenage brother and sister.

A website affiliated with Chechen rebels has released a video in which insurgent leader Doku Umarov claims responsibility for last month's deadly suicide bombing at Russia's largest airport and threatens more bloodshed if Russia does not leave the region.

Another victim of the Moscow airport suicide bombing has died in hospital, taking the death toll to 36, Russian officials said.

The suicide bomber who killed 35 people at Moscow’s busiest airport was deliberately targeting foreigners, investigators said today.

Russian investigators have said a suicide bomber who killed 35 people and wounded 180 at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport was a 20-year-old man from the volatile southern Caucasus region.

Investigators probing the deadly bombing at a Moscow airport are looking at up to 10 people from the Caucasus region as possible suspects.

WINE wears its history proudly.

Around 1,000 people were arrested in central Moscow today in an attempt to prevent ethnic clashes.

Tolstoy: A Russian Life

NEXT Monday is November 1 and it will be a noisy day in the countryside.

A SUICIDE car bomber hit the central market of a major city in Russia’s North Caucasus yesterday, killing at least 17 and wounding more than 130 people in one of the worst attacks in the volatile region in years, officials said.

At least 15 people are now dead after a suicide car bomber targeted a city marker in Russia’s north Caucasus today.

A suicide car-bomber killed three soldiers and wounded 32 others in an attack on a military base in Russia’s violence-plagued republic of Dagestan today, officials said.

IN the last few weeks the baby that brings the population of the EU to half a billion was born.

Assailants launched an attack on a hydroelectric station in southern Russia today, killing two workers and setting off bombs.

RUSSIA has identified a 17-year-old widow of a Caucasus militant as one of the Moscow suicide bombers, while the country remained on high alert after the attacks.

Flags flew at half-mast on government buildings and at the Kremlin as a day of national mourning for the victims of the Moscow tube blasts began.

Two women suicide bombers killed at least 38 people and wounded dozens more in rush-hour attacks on Moscow’s subway today.

A suicide bomber blew up an explosives-packed car at a police station in Russia’s troubled North Caucasus today, killing at least six officers and wounding 16, police said.