Moscow - Tens of thousands of Russian Orthodox Church followers paid their last respects Monday to Patriarch Alexi II who died on Friday at the age of 79.

People, many carrying white roses - Alexi's favourite flower - spent hours standing in line in the rain for a chance to file past the the patriarch's body lying in state at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

The funeral is scheduled for Tuesday, when Alexi's remains will be buried in the Ephiphany Cathedral in Moscow.

Moscow/Tbilisi - The government of Georgia sees room for restoring diplomatic relations with Russia despite the war the two nations fought in August, says Georgia's new foreign minister, according to a Russian newspaper.

"We are open to negotiations," said Grigol Vasadze, quoted in the Monday edition of Kommersant, a Moscow daily.

Commentators say Vasadze's appointment is a positive sign for relations between Russia and Georgia. Vasadze lived in Russia for 30 years and still holds Russian citizenship.

London, Dec 8 : A British historian has accused the Russian authorities of attempting to hide from the world the dastardly deeds that were done in Soviet Russia under Stalin.

According to a report in the Guardian, eminent British historian Orlando Figes has accused the Russian authorities of trying to ‘rehabilitate the Stalinist regime’ after armed police seized an entire archive last week detailing repression in the Soviet Union.

Figes, professor of history at Birkbeck, a London University college, condemned the raid on Memorial, a Russian human rights organisation.

Panama City  - Panamanian media reports Saturday said that a Russian naval vessel has passed through the Panal Canal for the first time since 1944.

The reports cited the Russian embassy in Panama City in disclosing that the anti-submarine destroyer Admiral Chabanenko had passed through the canal after having taken part in recent naval manoeuvres with Venezuela.

The Russian ship, commissioned in 1999, is 164 metres long and has a crew of about 300.

In 1944, during World War Two, four Soviet submarines had passed through the canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific after undergoing repairs.

India is all set to avail optimum use of the civil nuclear cooperation agreements with Russia, France and United States.  The country has already crossed the nuclear isolation era after necessary approvals from countries of nuclear supplier group. It can now import nuclear fuel and sophisticated technology from around the world for peaceful use of nuclear energy.
 

MOSCOW, Dec. 5 -- Russian archaeologists say they've uncovered a group of Stone Age art objects that appear to have been part of an ancient hunting ritual.

The items, which were buried in pits and covered with mammoth bones, are 21,000 to 22,000 years old, CNN reported Friday.

Hizri Amirkhanov and Sergey Lev of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences said the art objects, carved on mammoth ivory plaques, include representations of women and large mammals.

The items were uncovered in 2005 at a site called Zaraysk, about 100 miles southeast of Moscow. Zaraysk is the northernmost known location for a style of Stone Age artwork called Kostenski-Avdeevo, CNN said. Researchers have been excavating the site since 1995.