Russia

BUFFALO — One video clip was all Curtis Hamilton and his Canadian teammates needed to see for motivation to beat the United States in the semifinals of the World Junior Hockey Championships. The clip, used by Canadian cable channel The Sports Network to promote its coverage, featured the United States winning the gold medal in overtime against Canada last year. There was no way the Canadians would let it happen again. “It lit a little fire under us,’’ Canada captain Ryan Ellis said.

MOSCOW - Russia's military reported a successful test Wednesday of a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile that generals said was designed to overpower the US missile defense system. Russian generals told news agencies that the missile's technological development was a direct response to the US plans for a shield. The rocket, one unidentified military source told Interfax, uses a new type of fuel to shorten the time it needs to launch into space, increasing its ability to evade interceptors.

NEW YORK - Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin defended her remark that the close proximity of Russia to her home state of Alaska gives her foreign policy experience, explaining in a CBS interview yesterday that "we have trade missions back and forth. " Palin has never visited Russia, and until last year the 44-year-old first-term Alaska governor had never traveled outside North America. She also had never met a foreign leader until her trip this week to New York. Palin's foreign policy experience came up when she gave her first major interview, on Sept.

Russia's foreign minister says that the conflict in Syria could spread to neighboring Lebanon. Speaking in a televised news conference on Wednesday, Sergei Lavrov said that there is "a tangible threat" of the Syrian uprising spilling over to Lebanon which "could end very badly. He warned about "an artificial escalation" of tensions between two main branches of Islam, Shiites and Sunnis. Russia has been Syria's most powerful ally over the course of the uprising. Russia, along with China, has used its veto power to shield Damascus from U.N. sanctions.

MOSCOW - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said yesterday that Russia will respond calmly to an increase in NATO ships in the Black Sea in the aftermath of the short war with Georgia, but promised that "there will be an answer. " Meanwhile, President Dmitry Medvedev sternly warned the West that it would lose more than Moscow would if it tried to punish Russia with sanctions over the war with Georgia. Russia has repeatedly complained that NATO has too many warships in the Black Sea. Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said yesterday that currently there are two American, one Polish,...

MOSCOW - Russia's influential finance minister was forced out yesterday after a televised confrontation with President Dmitry Medvedev, who had angrily demanded that Alexei Kudrin immediately explain his criticism of Medvedev's policies or resign. The open conflict within Russia's leadership follows the announcement over the weekend that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin plans to return to the presidency next year and Medvedev would then take his old job as prime minister. Russia will have a presidential vote in March, but Putin is sure to win. The...

TALLINN, Estonia - An Estonian court convicted a former top security official of treason yesterday for passing domestic and NATO secrets to Russia in the Baltic country's biggest espionage scandal since the Cold War. Herman Simm, the former head of security at the Estonian Defense Ministry, was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison in a trial that was kept secret until the verdict was announced yesterday. It also ordered him to pay $1.7 million in damages to the Estonian Defense Ministry.

ST. PETERSBURG - President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday accused the United States of "economic egotism," saying it has fueled global troubles, and portrayed Russia's growing economic might as a force for worldwide stabilization. Recklessness by big banks and what he called "the aggressive financial policies of the biggest economy in the world" have not just hurt corporations, Medvedev said. "Unfortunately, most people on the planet have become poorer," he said. Medvedev made his comments to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, a gathering of thousands of businessmen,...

WASHINGTON — President Obama declared yesterday that he and President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia have “succeeded in resetting’’ the relationship between the former Cold War adversaries that had dipped to a dangerous low in recent years. Obama directly acknowledged differences in some areas, such as Moscow’s tensions with neighboring Georgia, but said “we addressed those differences candidly.’’ And he announced that the United States and Russia had agreed to expand cooperation on intelligence and the counterterror fight and worked on strengthening...

BEIRUT - Many major players in the Syrian crisis consider the peace plan scheduled to reach its deadline Thursday as the final speed bump in figuring out how to get Russia to accept enough pressure on President Bashar Assad to stop the violence. Until now, world capitals have only squabbled over the issue, or dodged it. Kofi Annan, the main architect of the plan on behalf of the United Nations and the Arab League, said starkly this week as the deadline neared, "I think the plan is very much alive, and if you want to take it off the table, what would you...

Russia's prime minister paid a visit Wednesday to a farm that has imported cattle from the United States and also some American cowboys to help the Russians develop their struggling meat industry. Dmitry Medvedev chatted with a couple of the cowboys, including one in a broad-brimmed black hat from the U.S. state of Idaho, who introduced the prime minister to his wife and young son. Medvedev, the former president, asked the American in English whether he had managed to learn to speak any Russian.

Russia on Wednesday successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile with an enhanced capability to penetrate missile defenses and commissioned a new early warning radar, the Defense Ministry said. The first launch of the new missile was performed at the Plesetsk launchpad in northern Russia, the ministry said in a statement. It didn't give the name of the missile, but said it was fired from a mobile launcher. Russia has viewed the planned U.S. led NATO missile defense system around Europe as a potential threat to its nuclear forces, rejecting the U.S....

"C'mon, Mitt, think. " So said Colin Powell on Wednesday as he assessed Mitt Romney's foreign policy views. Powell, appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," said he wondered what Romney was thinking when he heard that Romney had declared that Russia was the top geopolitical foe of the United States. Powell said Romney's comment about Russia was "catching a lot of heck from the more regular GOP foreign affairs community who were kind of taken aback by it. " Powell, who served as secretary of state in the administration of George W. Bush, endorsed...

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin revealed the makeup of Russia's new Cabinet of ministers Monday, after repeated delays that sparked speculation that Kremlin power groupings were fighting over key positions. The list was notable for the absence of several Putin-era heavyweights, and included many new names, though none of them high profile or known to be proponents of radical change. The most significant player to leave the Cabinet is Deputy Prime Minister Igor I. Sechin, considered the leader of a group known as the siloviki, powerful Putin allies who once served in...

The United States fell to its second straight defeat at the Team World Cup and Serbia posted its second victory in two matches on Tuesday. Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek won their singles in straight sets, Berdych defeating Andy Roddick 6-1, 6-2 and Stepanek cruising past James Blake 6-2, 6-1. Serbia also took an unassailable 2-0 lead over Russia. Viktor Troicki lost only seven points on serve in a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Dmitry Tursunov. Janko Tipsarevic secured Serbia's victory by defeating Alex Bogomolov Jr. 6-1, 6-3. Russia fell to 0-2. Defending champion...

Hockey Alexander Semin of the Washington Capitals had two goals and an assist as Russia won the world championship in Helsinki by defeating Slovakia, 6-2. Alexander Pereszhogin , Alexei Tereshenko , the Red Wings' Pavel Datsyuk , and tournament MVP Evgeni Malkin of the Penguins scored the other goals, with Datsyuk and Alexander Ovechkin of the Capitals assisting on two. Zdeno Chara of the Bruins scored both goals for...

WASHINGTON -- Five days before President Bush meets Vladimir Putin in Moscow, the White House urged Russia to renounce the Soviet Union's decades-long domination of Eastern Europe to ease tensions with once-occupied countries. The suggestion was made yesterday by Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, as Bush prepared to leave tomorrow on a four-nation European trip centered on celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. The main event will be Monday, when Bush joins Putin and more than 50 world leaders at a military parade in Red Square.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says that Russia will not limit grain exports this year as the nation has overcome the consequences of a severe drought two years ago. Global wheat prices skyrocketed in 2010, when Russia banned exports after the hottest summer on record slashed production levels. A year earlier, Russia had exported 21.4 million tons of grain and was the world's third-largest exporter. Putin said Monday that he sees "no need" to limit the exports this year. His deputy, top agriculture official Viktor Zubkov, said at a televised meeting with Putin that...

Investigators on Wednesday were analyzing the cockpit voice recorder from a Russian passenger jet that slammed into the side of an Indonesian volcano. They hope the final words of the two pilots will help explain what caused last week's crash, which killed all 45 people on board. The "black box," found Tuesday at the bottom of a 500-meter (1,640-foot) ravine, was shattered and badly burned, said Tatang Kurniadi, who heads the National Commission on Safety Transportation, adding that the memory module appears to still be readable.