* Investigators said an overnight fire in a drug treatment hospital in southern Moscow, which killed 45 patients and staff and injured ten others, was most probably caused by arson

// Dec. 10, 2006 - 08:04 GMT

KEMEROVO, December 10 (RIA Novosti) – A fire in a psychiatric and neurological clinic in the Kemerovo Region in Russia's southwestern Siberia has killed nine and injured 16 people, the regional emergencies center said Sunday.

// Dec. 10, 2006 - 09:00 GMT

TIRASPOL, December 10 (RIA Novosti) – Moldova's breakaway province of Transdnestr is holding presidential elections Sunday.

// Dec. 10, 2006 - 09:59 GMT

ROSTOV-ON-DON, December 10 (RIA Novosti) – Five people, including a child, were killed after a car collided with a truck on a motorway in the Rostov Region in Russia's south, the regional emergencies center said Sunday.

// Dec. 10, 2006 - 10:12 GMT

In a letter obtained by journalists in UK an imprisoned Russian dissident and rights activist Mikhail Trepashkin made a revealing testimony in which he named a serving security colonel as a key figure in the plot to poison ex-security agent Alexander Litvinenko, leading British paper wrote Sunday.

// Dec. 10, 2006 - 10:18 GMT

A fire at a Russian psychiatric hospital killed nine people and wounded 16, local media reported on Sunday, just over a day after a blaze at a hospital in Moscow killed 45 women.

// Dec. 10, 2006 - 10:21 GMT

In an interview to the Mail on Sunday, widow of poisoned former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko said she believed the Russian authorities could be behind his death, as it emerged that two British police officers investigating the case had been contaminated with polonium 210.

// Dec. 10, 2006 - 10:27 GMT

The Russian parliament on Friday extended a 10-year moratorium on the death penalty to 2010, an extension of three years, by delaying the introduction of juries in court cases in the rebellious republic of Chechnya. On Sunday, the Council of Europe again urged Moscow to fully abolish capital punishment.

// Dec. 10, 2006 - 10:39 GMT

TEHRAN, December 10 (RIA Novosti) – Iran could review its cooperation with the international nuclear watchdog, if the UN adopted sanctions against the Islamic Republic, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Sunday.

// Dec. 10, 2006 - 10:41 GMT

KEMEROVO, December 10 (RIA Novosti) – The administration of the Kemerovo region in Russia's southwestern Siberia refuted Sunday reports about an allegedly delayed signal of a fire in a local clinic, which killed nine and injured 15 people.

// Dec. 10, 2006 - 11:18 GMT