Moscow  - The son and daughter of slain investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya took the stand in her murder trial Thursday, talking about their mother's growing sense of threat in the days before her death, news agency Interfax reported.

"She warned me she had seen strange people hanging outside the entrance of the apartment building that weren't there earlier, and told me to be cautious," said Politkovskaya's daughter Vera, who moved in with her mother about one week before she was killed.

Washington  - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed suggestions Wednesday that Russian naval exercises in the Caribbean Sea posed a threat to the US military hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.

"I just don't think there's any question about who has the preponderance of power in the Western Hemisphere," Rice said.

Two Russian warships, a destroyer and a cruiser along with support vessels, arrived in Venezuela on Tuesday to carry out joint naval exercises next week. They are the first Russian naval activities in the Western Hemisphere since the end of the Cold War.

Moscow  - Russia's upper house of parliament on Wednesday approved a Kremlin bill to lengthen the presidential term from four to six years.

The bill to amend the constitution was backed by 144 senators, a majority in the Federation Council. Only one senator voted against.

The Kremlin-sponsored reform was near-unanimously voted through Russia's lower house, the State Duma, on Friday.

The proposal now faces one last vote, where it must be approved by two thirds of Russia's regional legislatures - most of are dominated by pro-Kremlin party United Russia - to become law.

If passed, it would be the first change to Russia's constitution since the document was drafted 15 years ago after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Rio de Janeiro - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, to debate ways to increase cooperation and mutual investment between the countries.

Brazilian governmental advisors said that the talks were also set to include the international financial crisis, which is already having negative effects on both countries, though Medvedev said both Russia and Brazil are in a position to get over it.

"We are leaders in economic growth. No obstacle can prevent that setting. Brazil and Russia will get over the crisis," Medvedev said.

Moscow - Russia on Wednesday test-fired its new RS-24 intercontinental multiple-warhead ballistic missile designed to counter air-missile defence systems like the planned US shield in eastern Europe, the military said.

The RS-24 was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia's northern region of Arkhangelsk at 16:20 local time (1320 GMT), a spokesman for the military' Strategic Missile Forces told news agency Interfax.

"It's the third launch of the RS-24 missile in the last two years. The previous launches in May and December 2007 were successful," the spokesman Alexander Vovk was quoted as saying.

Moscow  - A controversial judge in the trial of three men charged with murdering investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya will stay on Wednesday after the Moscow Military Court rejected prosecutors demands to dismiss him for bias.

Court spokesman Alexander Minchanovsky called the accusations against Judge Evgeny Zubov "baseless" and said the trial would resume Wednesday.

Proceedings have had a confused start in trial of slain reporter Politkovskaya, gunned down in a contract killing in front of her Moscow flat in 2006.