* President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on anti-terrorism measures

// Feb. 17, 2006 - 05:22 GMT

TURIN, February 17 (RIA Novosti) – Figure skating fans all over Russia Friday were celebrating a magnificent performance from Yevgeny Plushchenko in the men's free program, which saw him claim his debut Olympic gold and continue the country's domination of the event.

// Feb. 17, 2006 - 06:17 GMT

MOSCOW, February 17 (RIA Novosti) – Russia's lower chamber of parliament will debate Friday a draft document condemning a recent resolution of the Georgian parliament on the role of Russia's peacekeepers in the zone of a conflict with South Ossetia, a self-proclaimed republic in Georgia.

// Feb. 17, 2006 - 06:54 GMT

HANOI, February 17 (RIA Novosti) – Russia's prime minister will visit a Russian-Vietnamese joint oil and gas venture Friday as part of his official visit to the Asian country, the government said Friday.

// Feb. 17, 2006 - 06:58 GMT

BISHKEK, February 17 (RIA Novosti, Yuliya Orlova) – Four pupils from a high school in Kyrgyzstan are in intensive care after a teenage girl decided to test a self-defense tear gas spray during a break between lessons, a local Emergency Situation Ministry spokesman said.

// Feb. 17, 2006 - 07:07 GMT

Russia's illegal drugs trade has topped $15 billion a year as criminal groups flood the country with heroin from Afghanistan. Drug use has soared since the fall of the Soviet Union, with Russians becoming major consumers of illegal drugs trafficked by well-organized gangs, including synthetic drugs from Europe as well as heroin from Afghanistan.

// Feb. 17, 2006 - 07:53 GMT

Businessman Boris Berezovsky who is currently living in exile in the U.K. will sell the rest of his business, first of all the Kommersant publishing house famous for the daily opposition newspaper of the same name.

// Feb. 17, 2006 - 07:57 GMT

The environmental organization Greenpeace accused Russia of putting the brakes on the Kyoto treaty and called on Moscow to back new technologies that will allow it to conserve energy.

// Feb. 17, 2006 - 08:10 GMT

Space Adventures, a company that has sent three space tourists into orbit, Russian Space Agency Roskosmos and the venture capital firm Prodea have signed an agreement to develop rocket ships for suborbital flights. Vehicles will be designed and built by the Russian aerospace firm Myasishchev Design Bureau.

// Feb. 17, 2006 - 08:11 GMT

BAKU, February 17 (RIA Novosti, Gerai Dadashev) – An Azerbaijani nongovernmental organization has launched a wide-ranging campaign for the international recognition of the massacre in the small town of Khojaly in 1992 that reportedly left more than 600 people dead, the NGO said on its Web site Friday.

// Feb. 17, 2006 - 08:44 GMT