Moscow  - Russia will slash financing toward preparing for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi by near two-thirds this year as it feels the heat of the market crunch, a senior official was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying Tuesday.

Regional development minister Viktor Basargin said 33.2 billion rubles (923 million dollars) would be stripped from the 49.8-billion--rubles construction budget for the firm Olympstroi in 2009.

He made the comments to Russian Prime Minster Vladimir Putin during a meeting on sports.

Moscow - French retailer Carrefour will bid for a majority stake in Russian supermarket chain Seventh Continent, a Russian newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed banker close to the deal.

Moscow - A Russian judge Friday ordered state investigators to reopen the probe into the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, after prosecutors failed to convince a jury that four men accused had a part in her killing, Russian news agencies reported.

"The criminal investigation will be sent back to the Russian Prosecutors' Investigative Committee to find the individuals who committed this crime," the presiding judge at the Moscow military court, Yevgeny Zubov, was quoted by Interfax as saying.

Bishkek/Moscow - Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev on Friday signed a decree giving the United States 180 days clear out of its only air base in Central Asia.

The decree terminating the base, which is crucial to supplying US and NATO operations in nearby Afghanistan, was overwhelmingly approved by the country's parliament on Thursday.

The US Embassy in Bishkek it had not received an official notice on the base closure.

Moscow - Russia opened its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant Wednesday on the Pacific coast in a bid to reach new clients in Asia and the continental United States.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the plant based on Russia's Sakhalin Island only about 160 kilometres from Japan's northern island of Hokkaido.

"It's a wonderful day, we have launched a large-scale project," Medvedev was quoted by Interfax as saying boisterously. "For us, especially, this is a new direction in our country's eastern policy."

Moscow - Russia and China signed a 25-billion-dollar energy deal in Beijing on Tuesday under which Russia will pump oil to its energy-hungry neighbour for the next
20 years in return for loans, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said.

Sechin, who overseas energy, secured the deal in a meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in the Chinese capital.

The agreement provides for the completion of a pipeline linking Siberian oil fields to northern China, agreed to in talks between the two countries' premiers in October.