Russian President Dmitry Medvedev

The United States and Russia have agreed to a new nuclear arms treaty that will be signed April 8 in Prague, Czech Republic, President Obama announced Friday after speaking with his Russian counterpart. The treaty substantially cuts the nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia will deploy and will significantly reduce missiles and launchers, Obama said. It follows a 1991 treaty that expired in December and about which the United States and Russia have been negotiating. "In many ways, nuclear weapons represent both the darkest days of the Cold War, and the most troubling threats of our time," Obama said.

CHICAGO — Batteries made in America for America and backed by America. That's how politicians hailed Ener1. The company tapped the country's top scientists at Argonne National Lab in Illinois, and U.S. taxpayers pledged up to $118 million in federal stimulus funds and $80 million in state and local incentives to help Ener1 produce cutting-edge battery technology for electric cars and the U.S. military. "This is about the future. And the question is which nation is going to seize the future.

President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed Wednesday to open negotiations on a treaty that could slash their nuclear arsenals by a third, part of what they described as a step "to move beyond Cold War mentalities" in relations between Washington and Moscow. The agreement to undertake significant arms control talks emerged from the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders, and included a promise by Obama to visit the Russian capital this summer to pursue the talks.

MOSCOW - The only thing missing from the scene was one of those heroic images of Lenin peering from a shop window, or perhaps a glimpse of the Soviet hammer and sickle fluttering over the nearby Kremlin. When the new U.S. ambassador to Russia arrived this week for a private meeting with a prominent human rights activist, he was confronted by a crew from a Kremlin-controlled television station that blocked his path and peppered him with questions. Uniformed men, tall wool military hats on their heads, were there too. And a burly civilian held up a sign with a pointed question for Ambassador Michael McFaul's host: "What is the price of the motherland today?"

President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reached final agreement Friday on a nuclear arms treaty that would cut the nuclear arsenals of the onetime rivals to the lowest levels since the 1960s. With a morning phone call, the two leaders settled the final details of an eight-month negotiation, and they are to meet April 8 in Prague, Czech Republic, to sign the pact, which replaces the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991. Announcing the accord at the White House, Obama acknowledged that the talks, which were slowed by differences over the sensitive issues of verification and missile defense, were tough.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev submitted a bill to extend Russia's presidential term from four years to six. If approved, the legislation means that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Medvedev's predecessor, would be eligible for 12 more years in a second presidential stint. Putin was constitutionally barred from seeking a third straight term as president.

Russian oil companies could soon begin searching for oil in deep Gulf of Mexico waters off Cuba, a top diplomat said, days before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visits the island. Mijail Kamynin, Russia's ambassador to Cuba, also told the state-run business magazine Opciones that Russian companies would like to help build storage tanks and modernize pipelines. Washington's embargo prohibits U.S. companies from investing. But Cuba's state-run oil concern has signed agreements with companies from several countries to explore waters that Cuban scientists say could contain up to 20 billion barrels of oil.

Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for talks expected to focus on arms purchases and the possible opening of a Russian naval base in Libya to counterbalance U.S. interests in Africa. It is Kadafi's first visit to Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union and coincides with an improvement in Libya's relations with the United States after years of enmity. "I hope my visit will be useful for our relations," Kadafi told Medvedev at the start of talks at the president's official residence outside Moscow.

When Russian businessman Yevgeny Ostrovsky decided to name his kebab joint Anti-Soviet Shashlik, he thought of it as black humor. It was a little tongue-in-cheek, a little retro, a little nod to the old-timers who still remembered when the meat grill, across the street from the famed Sovietsky hotel, was known by just that nickname. But it was also, in that ambiguous, extrajudicial way so common in today's Russia, a little bit illegal. Three applications for an "anti-Soviet" sign were rejected by the city without explanation.

NATO and Russia on Saturday resumed formal cooperation on broad security threats but failed to bridge differences over Georgia in their first high-level talks since last year's war in the Caucasus region. NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the two sides had recognized that it was time to press joint efforts against Afghan insurgents and drug trafficking, Somali piracy, terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong Il met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in remote eastern Siberia on Wednesday, reportedly to discuss such issues as a natural gas pipeline, economic aid and nuclear disarmament. Kim, on his first trip to Russia in nearly a decade, is desperate for economic aid for his starving country, and Medvedev is seeking to bolster Russia's economic involvement in Northeast Asia. Moscow wants to build a pipeline through the Korean peninsula to sell Siberian natural gas to North Korea, Japan and South Korea.

Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong Il traveled to Russia for the first time in nearly a decade, holding rare talks Wednesday with President Dmitry Medvedev that made progress on such issues as an energy deal and nuclear disarmament, according to Russian media reports. Meeting in remote eastern Siberia, the two leaders brought varying agendas, experts say: Kim is desperate for economic aid for his starving country while Medvedev seeks to bolster Russia's role in northeast Asia and promote its rapidly expanding economy.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday announced a deal calling for Russia to build the Latin American country's first nuclear power plant with both leaders emphasizing the plan involves only peaceful energy uses. Medvedev and Chavez, who was on his ninth visit to Russia in eight years, oversaw the signing of an agreement for the nuclear power plant as well as for Russia to invest $1.6 billion in Venezuela's oil industry and smaller deals in areas such as natural gas and auto exports.

Calling his host "a great visionary," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger heaped praise Monday on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and urged new economic partnerships with Soviet, er, Russian, businessmen during a visit to a western suburb of Moscow that is slated to become a Silicon Valley-style innovation hub. With 23 potential American investors in tow, Schwarzenegger is visiting Moscow at the invitation of Medvedev, who toured the United States in...

In a high-stakes trade reminiscent of the Cold War, 10 men and women accused of spying for Russia abruptly pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in New York and were traded to the Russian government for four prisoners convicted there of espionage. The 10 defendants, who were arrested late last month, pleaded to the relatively minor charges of failing to register as foreign agents and were sentenced to time served — the equivalent of about 12 days or less. In a courtroom in Lower Manhattan, they were marched in wearing jail garb or street clothes, some in handcuffs.

Three years ago, in the waning months of the Bush administration, Russian leader Vladimir Putin denounced the United States in a fiery speech at Red Square that compared U.S. policies to those of the Third Reich. Last month, Russia invited U.S. and allied troops to Red Square for the first time to march in honor of their victorious alliance in World War II. As the Obama administration prepares for the visit Thursday of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, officials are citing improved relations with Russia as one of their big foreign policy successes.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited old Cold War ally Cuba on Thursday on the last stop of a Latin American tour aimed at reviving relationships that have frayed since the Soviet Union's collapse. Medvedev arrived in Havana from Venezuela, where he met with socialist President Hugo Chavez and agreed to help the oil-rich country start a nuclear energy program. Russian officials deny that Medvedev's trip to Latin America -- traditionally considered in the U.S.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin today praised Washington's "very right and brave decision" to drop plans for missile shield installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Widely regarded as Russia's most powerful leader, Putin tempered his exuberance by suggesting that the revision of U.S. missile defense plans should be the first in a series of concessions to soothe ruffled relations with Moscow. "The latest decision by President Obama . . . has positive implications," Putin said in remarks carried on state media.

The presidents of Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement Wednesday that would leave Russia's Black Sea Fleet in its historical base on the coast of neighboring Ukraine for decades to come. The deal is a blunt signal of Ukraine's return to Moscow's good graces since the inauguration in February of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, squashing the longtime rallying cry of the country's pro-Western politicians to evict the Russian naval base. "This document symbolizes our friendship," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told reporters after meeting Yanukovich in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

The United States and Russia have agreed to a new nuclear arms treaty that will be signed April 8 in Prague, Czech Republic, President Obama announced Friday after speaking with his Russian counterpart. The treaty substantially cuts the nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia will deploy and will significantly reduce missiles and launchers, Obama said. It follows a 1991 treaty that expired in December and about which the United States and Russia have been negotiating. "In many ways, nuclear weapons represent both the darkest days of the Cold War, and the most troubling threats of our time," Obama said.