AIDS experts are aghast to see that rates of HIV in Russia have doubled in the past 8 years, reports the Washington Post.  Russia's 'healthy lifestyles' program and advocacy of abstinence have not been effective in combating the problem, international AIDS workers at an Eastern Europe and Central Asia AIDS Conference have argued.  Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Yakovenko has apparently defended Russia's 'humanitarian but not dubious methods' (the 'dubious' one being the widely-favored methadone substitution program - illegal in Russia) and advocated the increasing involvement of the Russian Orthodox Church in curbing insalubrious lifestyle choices. So will any advice be heeded?  The problem of HIV in Russia seems to remain, in the Kremlin's ...

TODAY: Biden in Georgia expresses support for freedom and territorial integrity; Russia-NATO Council meeting pragmatic.  Body of missing Russian activist  Andrei Kulagin found, second murder in a week.  Nobel laureates plead for justice for Estemirova; Russia says no to UN probe into her death. Mikheil Saakashvili wasted no words in condemning Russia in his meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden.  Biden pledged his support by sending out an 'unequivocal, clear message to all who will listen and some who don't want to', in an apparent tacit reference to the Kremlin.  'We refuse to recognise that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are not part of Georgia', Biden told the BBC.  Resurrected discussions of the expulsion ...

TODAY: Russia's permanent mission at NATO headquarters today stressed to cease slowing the work of the Russia-NATO council; Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will sign an array of political and financial agreements and discuss the possibility of a joint Russian-Venezuelan bank; Russian technicians to help direct China's first-ever spacewalk; Kremlin and the Parliament of Abkhazia ratify treaty. Russia's permanent mission at NATO headquarters in Brussels urged the military alliance today to stop hindering the work of the Russia-NATO Council."The Russia-NATO Council was formed as a mechanism for political dialogue on current and especially urgent issues of European security," the Russian mission stated today."We regret yet another display of capricious politics and call upon our partners to take this matter seriously". Russian dignitaries strongly believe there is the sense of fragility in today's system of European security and its failure to meet current threats and challenges."In ...