News Highlights

Russian opposition and human rights activists are holding a protest march in Moscow in support of what the opposition calls victims of political persecution.

Russian Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov has supported the need for a new bill, which is currently being debated, to provide a wider range of grounds permitting inspections of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the country.

Protests outside the Russian parliament building turned violent on Tuesday as clashes broke out between activists for and against two proposed bills – one restricting the “promotion” of homosexuality, the other “to protect religious believers’ feelings.”

President Vladimir Putin is expected to take the reins of the All-Russia People’s Front on Tuesday at the organization’s founding congress in a move some experts say is aimed at distancing himself from United Russia.

Russia would consider granting asylum to the American who has exposed top-secret U.S. surveillance programs, if he were to ask for it, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said on Tuesday.

Lawyers for Marina Litvinenko said her confidence in the inquest’s ability to get to the truth was “near complete collapse” and only a public inquiry could fully investigate whether the Russian state was involved in her husband’s death.

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday accused U.S. diplomats of interfering in Russian politics by supporting opposition demonstrators, a day before a planned protest march in Moscow.

Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of parliament, passed a controversial bill on Tuesday making insulting somebody’s religion a crime punishable by three years in prison.

No large company in the world has been so spectacularly mismanaged as Russia’s state-dominated natural-gas corporation Gazprom OAO. (GAZP) In the last decade, its management has made every conceivable mistake.

Russian officials banned from entering the US on accusations of corruption and conspiracy to murder are frequent visitors in EU cities, leaked information shows.