My Journalist`s Experience

13:15 12/01/2010 January 11, 2010, is the 50th anniversary of the Soviet government’s decision to establish a cosmonaut training facility, now the Yuri Gagarin Research and Testing Cosmonaut Training Center. Today, both cosmonauts and space tourists are trained at the Center. >>

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Vladimir Putin visits aircraft construction plant

17:28 19/01/2010 On Monday, Vladimir Putin visited the Voronezh Aircraft-Manufacturing Company (VASO) and inspected the new Russian-Ukrainian short-haul airliner An-148 now in production.>>

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Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Nice

15:51 20/01/2010 The Supreme Court of Nice announced its decision on property rights to the Cathedral of St. Nicholas claimed by Russia and the Orthodox Association of Nice.>>

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President Dmitry Medvedev against a background featuring some famous faces

21:22 09/02/2010 President Dmitry Medvedev visited the Best Photograph of Russia – 2009 exhibition at the Vinzavod modern art center in Moscow. >>

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Dmitry Medvedev – master of contemporary photoart

18:05 11/02/2010 In a rare personal insight, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has revealed his long-standing fascination with photography. The President said he mostly uses digital cameras, but sometimes still likes to use film. Currently he prefers new M9 digital version of classical Leica amid Canon and Nikon. Dmitry Medvedev considers human portraits as the biggest artistic challenge, but it would look a bit strange of him to suddenly turn up with a camera and start taking photos of people.>>

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Vladimir Putin’s best photographs

09:15 23/05/2008 A photo album of Vladimir Putin’s best photographs, taken by a team of 33 photo correspondents from the Kremlin pool, was launched in Moscow. RIA Novosti is publishing some of them.>>

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Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins

12:57 26/05/2009 Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, which previewed in Moscow May 22, will be officially released in Russia June 4.>>

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Medvedev, Obama sign new arms reduction treaty in Prague

18:20 08/04/2010 On April 8, 2010 Russian and U.S. Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama signed a new treaty on the reduction of strategic offensive weapons to replace the START 1 treaty, which expired in December 2009.>>

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Dmitry Medvedev, his wife and members of Norway’s royal family

14:43 27/04/2010 On April 26, Dmitry Medvedev and his wife, Svetlana, arrived on a state visit to Norway. >>

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British guardsmen train for Victory Parade on Red Square

09:10 29/04/2010 British troops will be in the May 9 military parade on Red Square this year for the first time ever. Britain will be represented by the Central Band of the Royal Air Force and a parade company from the Welsh Guards 1st battalion.>>

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The Aurora – the cruiser that changed Russia’s history

13:06 12/05/2010 On May 11, 1900, 110 years ago the cruiser Aurora was floated out from the Admiralty Shipyards in St. Petersburg>>

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Watercolor paintings on display in Moscow Metro

14:07 13/05/2010 On May 12, 2010, the Aquarelle (watercolor) train set off from Partizanskaya metro station. Reproductions of paintings by Karl Briullov, Vasily Sadovnikov, John Henry F. Bacon and other artists are on display in the cars>>

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Top Sotheby’s lots shown in Moscow

00:07 25/05/2010 This June Sotheby’s will hold two auctions in London: Important Russian Art and Impressionist & Modern Art. Prior to arriving at Sotheby’s in London, the top lots were displayed at Moscow’s State Museum of History.>>

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Days of Slavic Alphabet and Culture launched in Moscow

16:18 25/05/2010 After a festive service commemorating Sts. Cyril and Methodius, traditionally held in the Kremlin’s Assumption Cathedral but held in the Christ the Savior Cathedral this year, thousands of people carried icons and holy banners to Slavic Square, where the monument to the brothers who created the Slavic alphabet stands>>

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Filed under: Almere, Amsterdam, Arctic, Arizona, Atlanta, Australia, Belarus, Berlin, Bloomsburg, Bulgaria, Burlington, Charlotte, Chicago, Croatia, Cuba, Dallas, Den Haag, Dresden, East Lansing, England, Erfurt, Fort Lee, France, Frankfurt, Fremont, Germany, Great Britain, Gulf emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, Gunzenhausen, Holland, Hong Kong, Houston, Istanbul, Italy, Janesville, Kent, Kiev, Kohler, Kragujevac, Krasnoyarsk, La Habana, Lansing, Latvia, Lille, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Moneta, Montreal, Moscow, Munich, Odessa, Orlando, Pakistan, Paris, Philadelphia, Plano, Quebec, Redmond, Riga, Russian Federation, San Jose, Scotland, Scranton, Secaucus, Singapore, Sofia, Swiss, Taipei, Thailand, The Netherlands, Toronto, Turkey, Ukraine, USA, Uzbekistan, Valencia, Vancouver, WanChai, Washington, Wisconsin, Woodstock, Zagreb Tagged: Arts, Internet radio, Promotion, Radio, Russia, Uniform Resource Locator, Web Design and Development, World War II

- WORLD SPORT`S PHOTOS

Nikolay Kotev — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 15:50:36 +0000

Guide Schoew pulls the ball to mid wicket
Scotland Under 17 v Netherlands Under 17 – 30 June 2010
Copyright Cricket Scotland

Tiger Woods tees off on the 14th hole during the final round of the 92nd PGA Golf Championship at Whistling Straits, in Kohler, Wisconsin, August 15, 2010. REUTERS/Jeff Haynes

Competitors sail off to the start of the Techno 293-Men’s Windsurfer race 6 event at the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Singapore August 20, 2010. REUTERS/SPH-SYOGOC/Handout

Pakistan’s Azhar Ali plays a shot on the second day of the third Test at the Brit Oval in London on August 19. Ali may have been left stranded on 92 not out but he was delighted to have put Pakistan in a position where they could contemplate victory over England in the third Test at The Oval. (AFP/Adrian Dennis)

Bayern Munich’s coach Louis van Gaal jokes prior a friendly match against Spanish team Real Madrid in Munich, southern Germany, on August 13. Bayern Munich are readying to kick off the defence of their Bundesliga title at home to 2009 champions Wolfsburg. (AFP/File/Christof Stache)

Aaron Duerinck, 33, rides his mountain bike along the waterfront in Burlington, Vt., in this Jan. 9. 2004 file photo. (AP Photo/Alden Pellett)

Swiss team Alinghi is pictured training off the coast of the Gulf emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, October 2009. The America’s Cup, tarnished by a battle of egos and legal wrangling, has been plunged into even more confusion just weeks before its 33rd edition is scheduled to begin in the Spanish port of Valencia. (AFP/File/Karim Sahib)

A snowboarder rides through the fresh snow at Pats Peak ski area in Henniker, N.H., Monday, Jan. 18, 2010. ( AP Photo/Jim Cole)

FILE – In this Aug. 11, 2010 file photo, Fordson High School football players huddle at football practice after 11 p.m., in Dearborn, Mich. For Muslim teammates who make up a majority of the Fordson squad in the large Arab community it’s a way for the players to practice football and their faith — namely, the daytime fasting ritual that accompanies the 30-day holy month of Ramadan that started last week. As rancor swirls around the issue of whether a mosque and Islamic cultural center should be built two blocks from the New York site where the destroyed Twin Towers stood, Americans are being forced to examine just how tolerant they are — or are not.
(AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (12) gets loose before a preseason NFL football game aganst the Atlanta Falcons Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010 in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Maria Sharapova is introduced Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010, during Nikeâs âPrimetime Knockoutâ tennis event to celebrate the seasonâs final Grand Slam tournament by pairing the athletes with local youth during an exhibition match in New York. The U.S. Open is to begin on Aug. 30th. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Schalke’s Klaas-Jan Huntelaar of Netherlands, left, shoots the ball against Dortmund’s Neven Subotic of Serbia during the German first division Bundesliga soccer match between FC Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Sunday , Sept. 19, 2010. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

Supporters of Hamburg SV burn paper during their German Bundesliga first division soccer match against FC St. Pauli at the Millerntor stadium in Hamburg September 19, 2010. REUTERS/Christian Charisius

Speed Up Moto2 Andrea Iannone of Italy celebrates his victory as he crosses the finish line at the Aragon Grand Prix at Motorland racetrack in Alcaniz, near Zaragoza, September 19, 2010.

Сергей Лагода. Тянь-Шань. Сплав по р. Ойгаинг и р.Пскем

Filed under: Burlington, emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, Gulf emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, Henniker, Mich., New York, Pats Peak, Swiss, The Netherlands, Valencia Tagged: Aaron Duerinck, AFP, Analysis, AP, AP Photo, Breaking News, Bundesliga, Cricket, Cricket Scotland, electronical media, FC Bayern Munich, FC Schalke 04, FC St. Pauli, football, football game, football players, Fordson High School football players, Fußball-Bundesliga, Future, Golf, Golf Championship, Guide Schoew, Hamburger SV, Horizontal, Journal, Journalist Club, Journals, Louis van Gaal, mass-media, mountain bike, New England Patriots, Newspaper, Newspaper articles, Newspaper topics, Newspapers, Notes, Pats Peak ski area, photo, photography, photos, professional photography, REUTERS, snowboard, snowboarder, SPH-SYOGOC, team, Test at The Oval, The America's Cup, Tiger Woods, Tom Brady, Windsurfer, Youth Olympic Games

- WORLD INTERESTING PHOTOS

Nikolay Kotev — Tue, 11 May 2010 04:02:44 +0000

Dmitriy Medvedev and Angela Merkel. 5 июня 2010 года, 15:00 Мезеберг

Cuban President Raul Castro (L) raises the hand of his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez during the closing of the Rio Group summit and the Caribbean Community (Caricom) meeting in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. The new Latin American bloc planned without regional neighbors Canada and the United States are consistent with US goals for the region, a State Department spokesman said Tuesday. (AFP/Ronaldo Schemidt)

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (R) welcomes Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at Simon Bolivar International airport in Caracas April 2, 2010.Putin arrived in Caracas on Friday to bolster energy and defense ties with Chavez and launch a $20 billion joint venture to tap the Orinoco heavy oil belt REUTERS/Jorge Silva

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, center left, and Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin review the troops during a welcoming ceremony at Simon Bolivar airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, Friday, April 2, 2010. Putin is in Venezuela for a one day official visit.(AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Antinazist Resistance in Germany.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin looks on during a meeting with his Kazakh counterpart Karim Masimov in Yalta, November 20, 2009.REUTERS/RIA Novosti/Alexei Nikolsky/Pool

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, left, speaks to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as they leave the Defenders of the Fatherland Day celebration at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier near the Kremlin Wall in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010. The Defenders of the Fatherland Day, celebrated in Russia on Feb. 23, honors the nation’s military and is a nationwide holiday. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, pool)

A file photo of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as he attends the inauguration of the International Book Fair in Havana February 11, 2010. REUTERS/Enrique De La Osa/Files

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary General of NATO, listens as US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates speaks during a seminar on NATO’s New Strategic Concept held at the National Defense University at Fort McNair, in Washington, DC. The NATO alliance faces a “crisis” as European countries have grown averse to military force and failed to invest in weapons and equipment, Gates said on Tuesday. (AFP/Saul Loeb)

Backdropped by Earth’s horizon and the blackness of space, a portion of the International Space Station is featured in this image photographed by a crew member aboard the station in this photo released by NASA and taken February 15, 2010. REUTERS/NASA Handout

Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin, seen here addressing the press in Helsinki, said that despite international efforts to find green energy solutions, “dried dung” and other alternative sources could not replace fossil fuels in coming decades. (AFP/LEHTIKUVA/Markku Ulander)

A file photo of the Netherlands Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende as arrives for the cultural event at Kurhaus in Baden-Baden, Germany, April 3, 2009. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/Files

Prince William, center, talks with Richard and Diane Fox, left, who survived 2009 Victorian bushfire as Christine Nixon, chair of the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority, right, listens in Whittlesea, outskirts of Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010. The Prince is visiting communities that were badly effected by last year’s bushfires in Victoria on his final day of his unofficial Australian visit.(AP Photo/Luis Enrique Ascui, Pool)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks at a news conference in Moscow on Friday, Jan. 22, 2010. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says talks with the U.S. on a new nuclear arms treaty will resume in early February. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

US President Barack Obama leaves after speaking about relief efforts in Haiti. Obama invoked the legacy of legendary civil rights leader Martin Luther King to ask Americans to give support to Haiti devastated by an earthquake (AFP/Saul Loeb)

A man takes a photo with a mobile phone at an exhibition in Santiago, Chile. Wrong-footed by rocketing consumer demand, Asian technology suppliers are scrambling to expand capacity before inventories run dry of everything from smart phones to flat-panel screens.(AFP/File/Ariel Marinkovic)

Director James Cameron arrives at the premiere of “Avatar” in Hollywood in 2009. Hollywood’s awards season cranks into overdrive on Sunday with science-fiction epic “Avatar” hoping to score vital pre-Oscars momentum with victory at the 67th Golden Globe Awards. (AFP/File/Robyn Beck)

George Clooney stars in the recession-era drama-comedy “Up In the Air”, which could take up to six awards at the 67th Golden Globe Awards. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Bryan Bedder)

President Barack Obama, seen here at a roundtable discussion on healthcare in 2009, and top Democrats in Congress hope to have a deal late Thursday setting the stage for compromise legislation to remake US health care, his top domestic priority, the White House said. (AFP/File/Saul Loeb)

North Korean soldiers are seen in the truce village of Panmunjom in the demilitarised zone separating the Korean peninsula. N.Korea has threatened to break off all dialogue with S.Korea unless Seoul apologises for an alleged contingency plan to handle regime collapse in the communist state. (AFP/File/Kim Jae-Hwan)

Guinea’s interim leader, General Sekouba Konate (centre), visits troops at the Kindia garrison in 2009. The interim head of Guinea’s ruling junta has threatened to resign over the proposed return to the country of junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara, recovering from an assassination attempt in Burkina Faso. (AFP/File/Sia Kambou)

Normandy Veterans sit and listen to a speaker at a ceremony at what was the British Sword beach at Colleville Montgomery on June 5, 2009 near Caen, France. Several hundred of the remaining veterans of the Normandy campaign are travelling to France to take part in commemorations to mark the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in 1944. (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

The logo of a UBS bank in Geneva. The Canadian and Swiss governments will hold talks next month to update an income tax treaty, at a time when Canada is seeking client information from Swiss bank UBS to catch tax cheats, Ottawa said Monday. (AFP/File/Fabrice Coffrini)

A view of downtown Vancouver from the 2010 Athletes Viilage showing False Creek, Canada Hockey Place, BC Place and Science World. Vancouverites appear to be slow, or perhaps defiant, in getting the message about going without their vehicles during the Winter Olympics starting February 12 and the March Paralympics. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Jeff Vinnick)

A destroyed vehicle in ruins in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. A Canadian trapped in the rubble of a building after a devastating earthquake in Haiti reached out for help in a text message sent to Ottawa, Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said Wednesday. (AFP/Clarens Renois)

In this handout image provided by the United Nations, a poor neighborhood shows the damage after an earthquake measuring 7.0 rocked the Haitian capital, on January 13, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Much of Port-au-Prince was reduced to rubble by the quake on January 12, but the airport was operational, opening the way for international relief aid to be ferried in by air as well as by sea. (Logan Abassi/MINUSTAH via Getty Images)

This computer generated architectural image provided by the U.S. General Services Administration shows a series of 250-foot-tall trellises designed to shade the west side of the 18-story Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building in Portland. The green wall concept is familiar to anyone who has planted a deciduous tree or used a vine-covered trellis on the west side of the house: In the summer the leaves provide cooling shade; in the winter, the bare limbs and stems admit comforting light. (AP Photo/U.S. General Services Administration)

A US Navy image of American soldiers helping the crew a helicopter from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson unload food and supplies in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Helicopters sit ready to go from this US aircraft carrier off Haiti, but there’s a problem: after a day of frantic aid runs there is simply nothing left to deliver. (AFP/Daniel Barker)

Pedestrians pictured outside the New York headquarters of banking giant JP Morgan Chase in 2008. JP Morgan Chase on Friday reported a big jump in net profit to 3.27 billion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2009, highlighting renewed health in the troubled sector. (AFP/File/Don Emmert)

VIDEO: President Barack Obama promised Haitians Thursday they would not be foresaken or forgotten, offering 100 million dollars in immediate earthquake aid and every element of US power to help them. Duration: 01:06(AFPTV/POOL)

US President Barack Obama (R) speaks with Russian President Dimitry Medvedev (L) during a bilateral meeting at the Woldorf Astoria in New York in 2009. Obama’s decision to “reset” ties with Russia had enabled the two former Cold War foes to work towards a new nuclear arms reduction treaty. (AFP/Jim Watson)

A Russian Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile. © РИА Новости. Михаил Фомичев

Swiss Defence Minister Ueli Maurer (C) speaks next to his usher during the ‘Kaderrapport 2010′ in the forest Forst near Bern January 18, 2010. Maurer held his annual cadre meeting with the leaders of the Swiss Defence Department, early morning in an opening in the forest. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich

US President Barack Obama waves from Air Force One prior to departing from Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. Barack Obama promised hope amid a “winter of American hardship” when he took office, but one year on, multiple crises endure, and his ambitious presidency is handcuffed by a ruined economy. (AFP/Saul Loeb)

Barack Obama mounted an impassioned defense of his crisis-haunted first year as president, but admitted to facing personal doubts over the “painfully slow” pace of the change he has promised.(AFP/File/Jewel Samad)

A Russian Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile drives through Moscow’s Red Square during a parade. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that the United States and Russia have made “significant” progress towards a new nuclear disarmament treaty. (AFP/File/Dmitry Kostyukov)

US President Barack Obama (left) and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev together in Moscow, 2009. Medvedev said that the United States and Russia have made “significant” progress towards a new nuclear disarmament treaty (AFP/RIA/File/Dmitry Astakhov)

One of the chapters marching is the Baltimore Phil Berrigan Memorial Chapter 105 of Veterans For Peace will again be marching in Baltimore City’s annual Martin Luther King Day parade. In addition to marching bands, equestrian contingents like Buffalo Soldiers, Women In Black and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Military Families Speak Out and Vietnam Veterans Against the War marching with us.

A man works in a City of London office as a TV screen shows financial news in London , Friday, Jan. 22, 2010. World markets slipped lower Friday, led by bank stocks after President Barack Obama proposed a sweeping overhaul of Wall Street to avert future financial crises. President Obama said he would seek to limit the size and complexity of large financial institutions so that their collapse wouldn’t imperil the broader financial system and world economy or cost taxpayer money in bailouts. The announcement spooked investors, causing a sharp sell-off in the U.S. and Asia.(AP Photo/Alastair Grant

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses a news conference in Berlin, January 26, 2010. Germany aims to raise its troop count in Afghanistan by 500, and hopes Afghan authorities will be able to assume control of their own security by 2014, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday.REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

French President Nicolas Sarkozy waits to be interviewed by anchorwoman Laurence Ferrari during the evening news program of France’s top television channel TF1. Sarkozy said France will send no more combat troops to Afghanistan, in an interview on Monday three days before an international conference on stabilising the country.(AFP/Pool/Gerard Cerles)

Trading continues at the Philippine Stocks Exchange at Manila’s financial district of Makati city Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010, as President Barack Obama delivers his first State of the Union address at the joint session of U.S. Congress. An embattled President Obama vowed to make job growth his topmost priority as he looked to reignite his stalling presidency.(AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

A NASA image of Stephan?s Quintet, also known as Hickson Compact Group 92 as seen from NASA?s Hubble Space Telescope. As the citizens of Planet Earth strive ever more enthusiastically to reach E.T., some experts say numerous messages zipping through the cosmos are confusing or little more than space spam. (AFP/NASA/ESA/File)

This Hubble Space Telescope picture, from the January 29, 2010, shows a bizarre X-pattern of filamentary structures near the point-like nucleus of the object and trailing streamers of dust. Astronomers have found a comet-like object they believe was created by the collision of two asteroids, possible siblings of the rogue rock blamed for killing the dinosaurs millions of years ago. The object, known as P/2010 A2, was circling about 90 million miles (144 million km) from Earth in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter when it was spotted last week by the Hubble Space Telescope. REUTERS/NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA)/Handout.

FILE – In this Oct. 2, 2009 file photo, Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda speaks to the media during a news conference in Tokyo, Japan. Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda will speak about quality control Friday, Feb. 5, 2010, in his first — and long awaited — news conference since the automaker issued massive global recalls last month. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye, File)

Five-year-old Arundhati Baden-Mayer Eidinger holds a sign at a climate change rally outside the White House in Washington in 2009. US President Barack Obama’s administration announced plans Monday for a new office handling climate change, aiming to help businesses chart future plans as the nation shifts to agreener economy. (AFP/File/Alex Ogle)

Space Shuttle Endeavour lifts-off from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Monday Feb. 8, 2010. Endeavour’s six member crew will deliver a large room with a cupola to the International Space Station. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

The space shuttle Endeavour STS-130 lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Endeavour and its crew of six astronauts blasted off and headed for the International Space Station to deliver a module dubbed Tranquility (AFP/Bruce Weaver)

G7 finance ministers and central bank governors pose for the official photo during their meeting in Iqaluit, Nunavut, February 6, 2010. The finance ministers are (front row L-R): Japan’s Naoto Kan, Italy’s Giulio Tremonti, France’s Christine Lagarde, Canada’s Jim Flaherty, Tim Geithner of the U.S., Britain’s Alistair Darling and Germany’s Wolfgang Schaeuble. The central bank governors at rear include Japan’s Masaaki Shirakawa (2nd L), Italy’s Mario Draghi (3rd L), Canada’s Mark Carney (5th L), Ben Bernanke of the U.S. (C), Britian’s Mervyn King (5th R), Germany’s Axel Weber (4th R), European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet (3rd R) and Jean-Claude Juncker (2nd R), chairman of the group of euro zone finance ministers. Picture taken February 6, 2010.REUTERS/Chris Wattie

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill speaks with Rusiian President Dmitriy Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

Squad leader Salou Djibo pictured during a press conference at a military compound in Niamey, Niger, on February 19. Niger’s new military leaders promised Saturday to hold elections, but specified no date, as thousands rallied in support of the coup that ousted the strongman of the uranium-rich west African nation.(AFP/File/Boureima Hama)

Foreign Ministers from Latin American countries meet ahead of the Rio Group summit in the Riviera Maya, near Cancun, Mexico, Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010. The Rio Summit will be held Feb. 22-23.(AP Photo/Miguel Tovar)

In this photo provided by NASA, the view of the port side of space shuttle Endeavour’s cargo bay is recorded with a digital still camera shortly after separation from the International Space Station, Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010. The six STS-130 crewmembers inside the crew cabin are now aiming their attention to a Feb. 21 landing, after spending over a week working in tandem with the Expedition 22 crew members aboard the International Space Station.(AP Photo/NASA)

Buddhist monks look a the jade piece as it was unveiled on Monday, Jan. 18, 2010 in Hai Duong province, Vietnam. The jade imported from Myanmar measures 3 meters high, 2.15 meters wide and 2.2 meters deep and weighs 35 tons is seen as one of the world’s biggest pieces of jade. Flamboyant entrepreneurs Dao Trong Cuong, making it big in booming Vietnam, unveiled the massive precious stone on Monday that he plans to transform into the world’s largest jade Buddha.(AP Photo/Tran Van Minh)

In this April 10, 1981 file photo, Premier Margaret Thatcher greets U.S. Secretary of State General Alexander Haig at No. 10 Downing Street, London. Haig, who served Republican presidents and ran for the office himself, has died, Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010. He was 85.(THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Press Association, File)

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov, seen here in 2005, has issued graft-prone town mayors with a special instruction manual on how not to embezzle funds.(AFP/File/Velko Angelov)

A New York fortune teller looked into her crystal ball and saw… a way to steal 10,000 dollars from her client, a lawsuit says(AFP/Illustration)

Former President Bill Clinton speaks during a news conference about the fight against childhood obesity Wednesday Feb. 17, 2010 at the offices of the Clinton Foundation in New York. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)

President Barack Obama speaks at The America’s Promise Alliance Education event, hosted by Alliance Founding Chairman Colin Powell and his wife and Alliance Chair Alma Powell, Monday, march 1, 2010, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak).

Nine years into the war on Afghanistan, the number of U.S. casualties that have resulted in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, the operation in Afghanistan, has reached 1000. As President Obama plans on escalating the war in Afghanistan, Veterans For Peace will also increase its opposition to this and all wars as an instrument of foreign policy. VFP has been working hard to resist this war and will continue to do so. (Photo/Veterans For Peace)

A Chinese People’s Liberation Army soldier takes a photo of a fellow soldier inside the Great Hall of the People during the opening ceremony of the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing March 5, 2010. China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, opened its annual session on Friday, with China’s Premier Wen Jiabao giving his work report and spelling out broad policy goals for 2010. REUTERS/Nir Elias

President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign rally for Democratic Senate candidate, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley at Northeastern University in Boston, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Barack Obama gives a thumbs-up before speaking at the podium to close the Fiscal Responsibility Summit, Monday, Feb. 23, 2009, in the Old Executive Office Building at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

The deeply moved scientists, who gathered at the LHC control center of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), applauded the event. REUTERS/ Denis Balibouse

The successful head-on proton-beam collision at 7 teraelectron volt has virtually launched the LHC’s two-year operating cycle. Physicists hope to obtain new data on the structure of matter during this period. AFP/ Fabrice Coffrini

U.S. President Barack Obama, left, and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, right, sign a the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty at Prague Castle Thursday, April 8, 2010. (AP Photo/CTK, Michal Dolezal)

On April 14, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Argentina and held talks with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. RIA Novosti. Photo Michail Klimentiev

The new strategic arms pact stipulates that the number of nuclear warheads is to be reduced to 1,550 on each side over seven years, while the number of delivery vehicles in operation and in reserve must not exceed 800. POOL

The world’s first humanoid robot was sent to the International Space Station in September 2010. The Robonaut 2 can easily lift over nine kilograms, but its main advantage over human astronauts is that it doesn’t need a space suit. AFP/ NASA

President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. Photo © RIA Novosti. Sergey Guneev

Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the General Staff of Russia’s Armed Forces, said on Tuesday he will visit the United States to discuss international and regional issues, including arms cuts. © RIA Novosti. Vladimir Viatkin

April 20, 2010. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, left, and his Uzbek counterpart Islam Karimov after the Russian-Uzbek negotiations at the Kremlin. Photo Dmitry Astakhov, POOL

St. Petersburg film festival challenges ‘dog-eat-dog’ Cannes show. © RIA Novosti. Aleksei Danichev

The biggest political story was the appointment of Conservative leader David Cameron, aged 43, as the new prime minister of the U.K. He is Britain’s youngest prime minister in 200 years. Cameron said he will form a coalition government with the Liberal Democratic Party. REITERS

Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which paralyzed air traffic in Europe in April, again reminded of itself to major air companies. By the end of the week, the volcano’s activity started rising: volcanic ash started spreading more than 30,000 feet (9,100 meters) in altitude. AFP/Haldor Kolbeins

On Wednesday, April 28, 2010 Russia’s federal archive agency provided public access to digital copies of documents on the Katyn massacre. Photo Russian Archive

The famous sculpture of the Little Mermaid from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale was unveiled in front of a crowd at the Danish pavilion at the Shanghai EXPO-park. Photo Aly Song

Photo issued by the Mexican National Instute of Anthropology shows a monolith of the Aztec goddess “Tlaltecuhtli” in Mexico City on May 17. The largest stone scuplture of its kind will go on show for the first time next month in the Mexican capital, the National Institute of Anthropology and History has said.(AFP/HO/INAH/File)

Gas from the damaged Deepwater Horizon wellhead is burned by the drillship Discoverer Enterprise in the Gulf of Mexico on May 16, in a process known as flaring. The United States Tuesday closed off a large chunk of the Gulf of Mexico to fishing as fears a giant oil slick could be swept to Florida’s beaches and coral reefs overshadowed progress in stemming the spill. (AFP/USCG)

Mountain caribou are pictured in British Columbia, Canada. Forestry companies announced Tuesday a pact with environmentalists to stop logging huge swathes of Canada’s boreal forest and protect caribou herds in exchange for suspending protests. (AFP/BC Agriculture & Lands Ministry/File/null)

This NASA photo shows a view the Expedition 23 crew snapped of the underside of Atlantis’ crew cabin, during a survey of the approaching space shuttle prior to docking with the International Space Station. US astronauts completed Monday the first of three planned spacewalks from the shuttle Atlantis a day after the craft docked with the International Space Station. (AFP/NASA)

Seagulls feed not far from the massive BP oil spill offshore on May 14, in the sensitive marshlands near Venice, Louisiana. Giant plumes of oil floating deep in the Gulf of Mexico could create a new ‘dead zone’ of oxygen-depleted waters unfit for marine life and wreak environmental damage that will take generations to overcome, scientists warned Monday. (AFP/Getty Images/File/John Moore)

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon speaks during a press conference on May 2010 at the United Nations in New York. Ban Ki-moon has named Costa Rica’s Christiana Figueres to be the organization’s top official on climate change, his spokesman announced Monday.(AFP/File/Don Emmert)

The Brazilian president criticized on Friday (20.05.2010) additional sanctions against Iran which are currently being discussed by the UN Security Council. RIA Novosti. Photo Dmitry Astakhov

U.S. President Barack Obama accepted the resignation of U.S. Director of National Intelligence Adm. (Ret.) Dennis Blair on Friday.

“Over the course of many decades, Admiral Blair has served with great integrity, intellect, and commitment to our country and the values that we hold dear. During his time as DNI, our intelligence community has performed admirably and effectively at a time of great challenges to our security, and I have valued his sense of purpose and patriotism,” Obama said in a statement.

Blair, who coordinated the activities of 16 U.S. special services including CIA, submitted his resignation on Thursday night.

According to previous media reports, the resignation came as a result of recent major intelligence failures, including last November’s Fort Hood shooting spree by Major Nidal Hasan, which left 13 people killed and some 30 wounded.

Informed sources told ABC News they had doubts that Blair retained “the full and complete confidence of the president” after two failed bombings took place on the U.S. territory – the 2009 Christmas Day attempt to blow up a U.S. plane over Detroit and the April Times Square bombing. Barack Obama © flickr.com/The White House

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum will focus on Russia’s recent economic changes, a presidential aide said Thursday.

MOSCOW, May 20 (RIA Novosti)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il (R) visits the Victorious Battle of Pochonbo Memorial Tower in Hyesan, May 18. North Korea Friday repeated denials that it torpedoed a South Korean warship, saying Seoul’s allegations brought the two nations close to war, amid international outrage at the attack.

High waves break near an oil-coated barrier as a feeder band from Hurricane Alex caused high winds and lightening at on June 30 in Port Fourchon, Louisiana. Hurricane Alex, the first of the Atlantic season, battered northeast Mexico with torrential rain and violent winds Thursday after disrupting oil clean-up operations in the Gulf of Mexico. (AFP/Getty Images/Joe Raedle)

Photo illustration of a sea turtle in Boca Raton, Florida. Animal welfare groups sued BP for burning endangered sea turtles and asked a federal court to stop the oil giant’s “controlled burns” on the Gulf of Mexico spill.(AFP/Getty Images/File/Joe Raedle)z

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- WORLD TOP PHOTOS

Nikolay Kotev — Tue, 11 May 2010 04:01:43 +0000

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson signed a Memorandum of Agreement today to promote and continue collaboration between the two agencies in environmental and Earth sciences and applications. The signing ceremony took place at the Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science (MS) on the campus of Howard University in Washington. Following the ceremony, both administrators met with students to discuss the importance of science and engineering education. “Our agencies have a remarkable opportunity to tackle a variety of environmental issues together,” said Administrator Bolden. “Involving students in Earth science and climate research at an early age will encourage a stronger sense of stewardship toward our home planet.”
The agreement renews a broad partnership to promote joint efforts to improve environmental and Earth science research, technology, environmental management, and the application of Earth science data, models and technology in environmental decision-making.

This undated photo released by the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort shows a partially frozen waterfall near the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort, roughly an hour north of Kimberley in British Columbia. The resort can be found along the Powder Highway, a collection of authentic rural Canadian ski resorts and one of the last uncovered winter destinations in North America. (AP Photo/Fairmont Hot Springs Resort)

This undated photo released by the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort shows a view of mountains near the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort, roughly an hour north of Kimberley in British Columbia. The resort can be found along the Powder Highway, a collection of authentic rural Canadian ski resorts and one of the last uncovered winter destinations in North America.(AP Photo/Fairmont Hot Springs Resort, Ben Waller)

TV cameraman films the blank share price of Japan Airlines Corp. (JAL) beneath its rival All Nippon Airways (ANA) at an electric board of a securities firm in Tokyo. Kyodo news reported shares of Japan’s flagship airline, which filed for bankruptcy one month ago with $25.6 billion in debt, finished the company’s last trading day on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Friday at 1 yen, after being flooded by sell orders from the outset. The nation’s largest airline will be officially delisted from the Tokyo bourse Saturday. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Itsuo Inouye)

This handout illustration shows the winning design for the New London Embassy. The United States announced on February 23, 2010 that it has chosen a cutting-edge, energy-efficient design by acclaimed US architecture firm KieranTimberlake for its future embassy in Britain.(AFP/US State Dept./KieranTimberlake)

SeaWorld animal trainers in Orlando have their hands full with four baby Asian small-clawed otters, seen March 30, 2009. (Photo and caption submitted by Jason Collier/SeaWorld Orlando)

A stock broker trades at the stock exchange in the central German city of Frankfurt Main. Wall Street dived as weak US data combined with heightened fears of debt problems in European Union countries sent shockwaves through the markets. (DDP/AFP/File/Thomas Lohnes)

Eiger evening : This long night exposure photo taken in Wengen shows Swiss famous north face of the Eiger mountain overlooking the ressort of Grindelwald located in the Bernese Alps.(AFP/Fabrice Coffrini)

A double rainbow is seen over the Rincon Mountains in Tucson, Ariz., as monsoon rains fall in the Sonoran Desert on Aug. 23, 2009.(Photo and caption submitted by Don Collins)

A view of the office building of Alibaba (China) Technology Co. Ltd on the outskirts of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province November 10, 2009. REUTERS/Steven Shi

Beautiful Holland. Holland, December 31, 2009

This NOAA satellite image taken Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010 at 12:45 a.m. EST shows a mass of clouds in the Southeast associated with a low pressure system that is producing widespread precipitation in the area. This system will continue to move northeastward as the day progresses. (AP PHOTO/WEATHER UNDERGROUND)

Heavy rains which flooded parts of Australia’s vast desert centre have brought rare waterfalls spilling from the iconic monolith Uluru, or Ayers Rock. Situated near the centre of the semi-arid Sturt Desert, Uluru typically receives little more than 12 inches of rain a year, and January is its hottest, driest month, with temperatures topping to 45 degrees Celsius (113 F).(AFP/Torsten Blackwood)

The International Space Station. The European Space Agency is looking at proposals for using the International Space Station as a platform for climate science, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain said on Thursday.(AFP/NASA/File)

In this file photo, Physics Nobel Prize winner Dr. Leon M. Lederman, director of the Fermi National Accelarator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., speaks before moving the hands of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ‘Doomsday Clock’ two minutes closer to midnight at the University of Chicago, Feb. 27, 2002. The symbolic clock, kept by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, had been set at 11:51 since 1998. It was moved to 11:53 p.m. The attacks of Sept. 11 combined with evidence that terrorists were attempting to obtain the materials for a crude nuclear weapon should have served as a wake-up call to the world, George A. Lopez, the publication’s chairman of the board, said. (AP Photo/Aynsley Floyd)

A woman examines a giant globe in Copenhagen during the COP15 UN Climate Change Conference in 2009. World leaders should focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible over the next 40 years to avoid perilous warming conditions, researchers said Monday. (AFP/File/Attila Kisbenedek)

In this image provided by NASA, the Russian segment of the international space station is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 18 crewmember during a spacewalk Tuesday March 10, 2009.

**FILE PHOTO** In this Jan. 8, 2007 photo, a cloud of superheated ash and gas flows from the Soufriere Hills volcano, as seen from Olveston, Montserrat. (AP Photo/Wayne Fenton).

An Orca whale surfs for a moment in the wake of another in Haro Strait, off the coast of San Juan Island, Wash., in this Aug. 5, 1997 file photo. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson).

Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreau, accompanied by his wife Anda and daughter Margarita view the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum in London in this June 4, 2000 file photo. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant).

A stock broker at the Frankfurt stock exchange on February 5. Europe’s main stock markets mainly fell, tracking earlier losses in Asia and overnight on Wall Street, amid fresh doubts about the pace of global economic recovery. (AFP/DDP/File/Thomas Lohnes)

A visitor looks at a reconstructed biological model of a ‘Quetzalcoatlus northropi’ at the ‘Pterosaurs; Rulers of the Skies in the Age of Dinosaurs’ exhibition at The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo, in this June 28, 2008 file photo.(AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)

In a rare alignment, the crescent moon, and the planets Venus, center, and Jupiter shine above a farmhouse in the eastern pre-dawn sky, in this Nov. 10, 2004 file photo, in Brunswick, Maine.(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

A close-up the Energy Ball is seen at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam (Home Energy)

Superheated ash and lava is visible inside the cone of the Soufriere Hills volcano as seen from Olveston, Montserrat in this Jan. 4, 2007 file photo. (AP Photo/Wayne Fenton).

Two women look at the 30th anniversary model of Italian casual brand Diesel denim jeans at Diesel’s Ginza flaship store in Tokyo, October 2008. Diesel has named French journalist Bruno Collin, founder of the fashion magazine WAD, as its new artistic director, the company said Friday.(AFP/File/Yoshikazu Tsuno)

A worker makes room for soybeans in a hopper wagon, as the crop is being unloaded from a combine harvester. Scientists on Wednesday unveiled the genome of the soybean, saying it was an achievement that should deepen understanding of one of the world’s most important crops, help to boost yields and defend the plant against pests.(AFP/File/Daniel Garcia)

By studying a triple planetary system that resembles a scaled-up version of our own Sun’s family of planets, astronomers have been able to obtain the first direct spectrum of a planet around a star, thus bringing new insights into its formation and composition. The spectrum is that of a giant exoplanet, orbiting around the bright and very young star HR 8799, about 130 light-years away.(AFP/ESO/M.Janson)

This photo, taken on August 3 2010 and released by Australian Department of Environment, shows a cluster of vividly fluorescent coral in daylight found in watersoff Lord Howe Island, 600 kilometres off the east coast of Australia. Australian scientists have discovered that the brilliant shallow-water corals could provide vibrant illumination for cancer research.(AFP/Australian Dept. of Environment/Anya Salih And David Geny)

The Dalai Lama gives a lecture at Delhi University in New Delhi on August 10, 2010. The Dalai Lama said global warming could be to blame for devastating flooding and mudslides across Asia as he offered prayers on Saturday for victims of the disasters. (AFP/File/Prakash Singh)

Visitors are seen interacting with a giant Rubik’s Cube at an exhibition in Sydney. An international team of researchers using computer time lent to them by Google has found every way the popular Rubik’s Cube puzzle can be solved, and showed it can always be solved in 20 moves or less. (AFP/File/Greg Wood)

The United Nations headquarters is seen in 2006 in New York City. Mexico is striving to bring countries which felt excluded from the Copenhagen climate talks into the negotiations at this year’s UN climate summit in Cancun, its climate ambassador said on Thursday. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Spencer Platt)

The northern lights dance Feb. 29, 2008 over the Spitsbergen Hotel in Longyearbyen, Norway on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, as far north as you can fly on a scheduled flight. At about 78 degrees north latitude, it is less than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the North Pole. (AP Photo/John McConnico)

The northern lights dance over the Knik River near Palmer, Alaska, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2006. (AP Photo/Bob Martinson)

Dual crescent view of Neptune and its moon Triton: This crescent view of the outermost planet and its moon is one of the last images recorded by Voyager2’s cameras as it sped onwards to interstellar space, having surveyed most of the outer Solar System. Voyager 2, August 31, 1989.(Photo Credit: NASA; JPL; Calvin Hamilton; Kinetikon Pictures)

Ben Doll of Linville, Pa., sleeps with his cow Treat Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010, during the final hours of the 2010 Pennsylvania Farm Show at the Pennsylvania Farm Show and Expo Center in Harrisburg, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

A couple of illegally smuggled orangutans hug each other inside a cage at the Khao Pratap Chang wildlife reserve near Bangkok. Illegal wildlife traders are turning to the Internet to reach a wider customer base, circumvent laws and evade authorities, an animal rights activist told a conference on Sunday. (AFP/File/Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)

Singer Lady Gaga attends a media event where she was announced as Polaroid creative director at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas January 7, 2010.REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

The AR.drone moves at 18 kilometres (11 miles) per hour, can stay airborne for 15 minutes after a 60-minute battery charge, has a maximum range of 50 metres (yards), and weighs just over 300 grams, or half a pound.(AFP/Patrick Kovarik)

Swiss scientist-adventurer and pilot Bertrand Piccard is pictured unveiling the ‘Solar Impulse’ airplane during a ceremony in June last year, in Duebendorf, near Zurich. 51-year-old Piccard plans to fly his ‘Solar Impulse’ around the world over 20 to 25 days, traveling at an average of 70 kilometres (43 miles) an hour.(AFP/File/Fabrice Coffrini)

The Reventador volcano erupts early morning in Napo province, Ecuador, in this July 29, 2008 file photo.(AP Photo)

VIDEO: Around 1.3 billion people depend on the water that flows down from the Himalayan glaciers, which experts say are melting at an alarming rate. Duration: 01:27. Orginally filed on 04/12/09. (AFPTV/GREENPEACE)

A panda cub plays at the Giant Panda Breeding Centre in Chengdu on in 2009. China plans to open a fifth breeding centre for giant pandas in an effort to boost the population of the notoriously sex-shy species, state media reported on Wednesday.(AFP/File/Peter Parks)

A female Sumatran Tiger (top), gives an affectionate lick to one of her cubs at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo. The Indonesian government has hatched a plan to save Sumatran tigers from extinction by allowing people to adopt captive-born animals as pets for 100,000 dollars a pair, officials said.(AFP/File/Greg Wood)

This undated photo provided by the North American Bear Center shows a black bear named Lily outside of Ely, Minn. Biologist Lynn Rogers and his North American Bear Center have placed a camera in Lily’s den that may stream lily giving birth live on the internet.(AP Photo/Sue Mansfield, North American Bear Center)

The astronauts of space shuttle Endeavour, from left, mission specialist’s Bob Behnken, Nicholas Patrick, Steve Robinson, Kay Hire, pilot Terry Virts and commander George Zamka, wave as they leave the Operations and Checkout Building on their way to launch pad 39A for their final day of a launch dress rehearsal exercise at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010. The Endeavour crew is scheduled for a Feb. 7 launch to the International Space Station.(AP Photo/John Raoux)

This Oct. 16, 1968 file photo shows Dr. Marshall Nirenberg in Washington. Nirenberg, whose work untangling fundamental genetic processes earned him a Nobel Prize has died, Jan. 15, 2010. He was 82. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Bob Schutz, file)

Mountaineers are seen by the ‘Hillary Step’ while pushing for the summit of Mount Everest as they climb the south face from Nepal. A group of top Nepalese climbers is planning a high-risk expedition to clean up Everest, saying decades of mountaineering have taken their toll on the world’s highest peak. (The photo: courtesy of Pemba Dorje Sherpa)(AFP/File)

A snow man that was built as part of a climate change awareness program stands near the Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom) in Berlin early January 20, 2010. Environmental activist are calling on Berliners this weekend to build snowman in a bid to form a “Snowman Demonstration” in the heart of the German capital to raise awareness for climate change.REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Combo photo shows a general view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge before (top) and after (bottom) “Earth Hour” in the Australian city on March 28, 2009. Millions of people across the globe are set to switch off their lights on March 27, as part of the global ‘Earth Hour’ campaign to highlight climate change, organisers have said.(AFP/File/Krystle Wright)

US astronaut Timothy J. Creamer jokes before testing his space suit at Baikonur cosmodrome in 2009. Creamer sent the first “tweet” from space on Friday after getting a personal Web connection on the International Space Station.(AFP/File/Dmitry Kostyukov)

FASHION OF THE DECADE – Two young men with low-slung, baggy jeans walk in Trenton, N.J., Sept. 15, 2007. Wearing your pants low enough to show your boxers — or more — in a small town in Louisiana could get you six months in jail and a $500 fine. Trenton is considering a law, where a first bust for low-riding trousers could soon mean an assessment by a city worker on where your life is going. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

FASHION OF THE DECADE – Michelle Obama and French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy in Caen, France, June 6, 2009.(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Egyptian workers in Luxor, Egypt, restore the Alley of Sphinxes, Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010, known as the ‘Kebash Road’, which was originally lined with 1,200 sphinxes and was built by Amenhotep III in the 12th century B.C .Luxor is set to become the world’s largest open-air museum as a multi-million dollar project to restore the Alley of Sphinxes begins in the south of Egypt, said the governor of Luxor Sunday. (AP Photo/Saedi Press)

Kira, a 3-month-old baboon, looks on as it is fed by an employee of the Royev Ruchey Zoo in Russia’s Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk January 25, 2010. Kira’s mother refused to feed her cub and since then it has been brought up by the zoo employees. REUTERS/Ilya Naymushin

An Indochinese tiger found mainly in Malaysia and Thailand at the national zoo in Kuala Lumpur, in 2002. Governments must act decisively to prevent the extinction of tigers in Southeast Asia’s Greater Mekong region, where numbers have plunged more than 70 percent in 12 years, the WWF said Tuesday. (AFP/File/Jimin Lai)

Microsoft Corporation chairman Bill Gates attends a meeting in New Delhi, 2009. Gates has weighed in on a row between China and Web giant Google over cyberattacks, saying that Beijing’s efforts to censor the Internet were “fortunately …very limited.”(AFP/File/Raveendran)

A 1974 photo of unexplained lights over Barcelona, Spain. The law of probabilities backs theories that we are not alone in the Universe, although an encounter with an advanced civilisation may shock our species, scientists at a conference in London have said.(AFP/File)

Specialist Jason Hardzewicz is surrounded by screens as he works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

This artist’s concept shows NASA’s Spirit rover. NASA admitted defeat Tuesday saying efforts to free the Spirit rover bogged down by Martian sand were over and instead the plucky robot was hunkering down to brave the harsh Mars winter. (AFP/NASA/File)

This image taken in 2005 from the Spirit Rover and obtained from NASA/JPL shows the sunset casting a blue glow above the rim of Gusev Crater on the planet Mars. NASA Sunday celebrated Mars rover Spirit’s bountiful, six-year stint on the red planet, way longer than the three months it was forecast to last. But it all may soon come to an end, stuck as it is in Martian sand. (AFP/NASA/JPL/File/Michael Benson)

British Premier-Milister Winston Churchill

FILE – In this Feb. 1, 2007 file photo, wind and driving snow are seen on the top of the highest peak in the Northeast, Mount Washington, in New Hampshire. Mount Washington has lost its distinction as the site of the fastest wind gust ever recorded on Earth. The World Meteorological Organization says a review of climate data turned up a 253 mph gust recorded in 1996 on Barrow Island in Australia during Cyclone Olivia. That tops the 231 mph record set atop Mount Washington in 1934.(AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)

Apple CEO Steve Jobs shows off the new iPad during an Apple event in San Francisco, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010.(AP Phot

A bicycle covered with ice, leans against a wall of a building in central Berlin January 27, 2010.REUTERS/Christian Charisius

Horologist Keith Scobie-Youngs of the Cumbria Clock Company carries out maintenance work on the clock face of the Town Hall in Manchester, England, Thursday Jan. 28, 2010. Once a year Keith checks the workings, the Great Abel bell and the dial of the clock. The clock is by Gillett and Bland and its face bears the inscription ‘Teach us to number our Days’.(AP Photo/PA, Dave Thompson)

Tourists from Argentina wave before being evacuated by Peruvian Army helicopters from the Machu Picchu Pueblo archeological site in Cuzco, Peru Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010. Heavy rains and mudslides in Peru have blocked the train route to the ancient Inca citadel of Machu Pichu, leaving nearly 2,000 tourists stranded. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

The ruins of Peru’s famed Machu Picchu are seen in this July, 2006, file photo. Machu Picchu is among the leading contenders to be the new seven wonders of the world as a massive poll enters its final month with votes already cast by more than 50 million people, organizers say. The seven winners will be announced July 7, 2007 in Lisbon, Portugal.(AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

In this May 12, 2006 file photo a clock is seen on the belfry of the Central Moravian Church, Bethlehem, Pa. The 200-year-old building is a big reason why Bethlehem has successfully marketed itself as the ‘Christmas City.’ (Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

This undated photo released by Christmas in Ice shows a sculpture at the Christmas in Ice Festival held in North Pole, Alaska titled ‘Trimming the Tree’ by Sam Vose. (AP Photo/Christmas in Ice)

Visitors sit in reclining chairs where they can view historical television advertisements for Heineken at the Heineken Experience, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Tuesday Dec. 9, 2008. The Heineken Experience, a museum where visitors can learn about brewing and the history of Heineken, reopened in December after a major renovation. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

This 2009 NASA handout image shows a color mosaic of the moon, assembled from 18 images taken by Galileo’s imaging system through a green filter. President Barack Obama Monday ditched US plans to return to the moon and hitched NASA’s future to private industry in a budget calling for the space agency to stay close to Earth and do research.(AFP/NASA/File)

Emissions-producing diesel trucks and cars pass windmills along the 10 freeway in 2009 near Banning, California. Fifty-five nations including the world’s top carbon polluters have registered their commitments to combat global warming, the UN climate chief said late Monday. (AFP/Getty Images/Fille/David Mcnew)

The DragonLab in orbit. President Barack Obama has killed NASA’s $100 billion plans to return astronauts to the moon.(THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/SpaceX)

With downtown Vancouver enveloped in an early morning mist, a jogger takes a break while running on the seawall in Stanley Park, in this October 18, 2002 file photo. Vancouver, host of this month’s Winter Olympics, prides itself on being one of the world’s most liveable cities but residents seem unsure at times whether they really want the world on their doorstep. To match feature OLYMPICS/VANCOUVER REUTERS/Andy Clark/Files

FILE – In this July 23, 2007 file photo, Oscar, a hospice cat with an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, sits outside a patient’s room at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, R.I. Dr. David Dosa profiles Oscar in a book released this week, ‘Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat.’ (AP Photo/Stew Milne, File)

This undated photo provided by Sotheby’s shows ‘Portrait of a Woman, Called La Belle Ferronniere’ whose claim to fame is that it’s not by Leonardo da Vinci. The painting has fetched $1.5 million at Sotheby’s in New York City – triple its high estimate. It is believed to be of a Renaissance mistress of the Duke of Milan and has been the subject of almost a century of scholarly discussion and a legal drama. (AP Photo/Sotheby’s)

A man takes a photograph of The Mona Lisa painting, behind a protective glass, in the Louvre museum in Paris in a Monday April 26, 2004 file photo. Mona Lisa, the woman depicted in Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th century masterpiece, was either pregnant or had recently given birth when she sat for the painting, a French art expert said Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2006. (AP Photo/Amel Pain)

A new Russian T-50 fighter lands at an airfield of the Sukhoi aircraft manufacturing plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur January 23, 2010. A new fighter aircraft seen as Russia’s response to U.S. advances in military aviation made a successful first test flight on Friday, plane maker Sukhoi said. Picture taken January 23, 2010. REUTERS/Sukhoi Press Service/Handout

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, looks over his papers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Friday, Jan. 29, 2010.(AP Photo/ Michel Euler)

Bill and Melinda Gates at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has announced that his Foundation will commit 10 billion dollars over the next decade to research and deliver vaccines to the world’s poorest countries.(AFP/Eric Piermont)

A trader watches a monitor displaying stocks on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange February 4, 2010. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

In this photo taken Oct. 13, 2009, singer Jessica Simpson attends the 16th annual QVC ‘FFANY Shoes on Sale’ to benefit breast cancer research, in New York. Simpson has teamed up with the Nashville-based organization Soles4Souls. The charity has pledged to work with other aid agencies to give out one million pairs of shoes to earthquake victims in Haiti.(AP Photo/Peter Kramer)

Dmitriy Medvedev and Vladimir Putin

This image provided by E-Trade shows part of a television ad scheduled to air during the 2010 Super Bowl. A reader-submitted question about Super Bowl advertising is being answered as part of an Associated Press Q&A column called ‘Ask AP.’ (AP Photo/E-Trade)

/The Velozzi Supercar – 770 HP electric motor able to accelerate from 0-60mph in only 3 seconds, with a top speed of over 200 mph.(GLOBE NEWSWIRE)/

“Prancer” one of the 50 deer on the Miller whitetail deer ranch in Knox, Pa., stands behind one of the doe on Thursday, Nov. 30, 1999. Rod and Diane Miller started eight years ago with a buck and two does because Miller wanted to see if raising deer in a pen and matching the best bucks with the best does made a difference in the size of a buck’s antlers. A male whitetail deer in Knox, Pa., stands behind a doe in this Nov. 30, 1999 file photo.(AP Photo)

An abandoned house is shown covered in ice in Detroit, Friday, Feb. 5, 2010. The two artists who are encasing the home in ice are hoping their effort inspires and helps draw attention to the housing crisis that has battered the nation. Photographer Gregory Holm and architect Matthew Radune spent weeks spraying water on the home for the Ice House Detroit project. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

This image provided by NASA TV shows astronauts Robert Behnken, left, and Nicholas Patrick installing the Tranquility room to the International Space Station backdropped by the blackness of space and earth early Friday Feb. 12, 2010 as they pass over Austrailia. The new room, named Tranquility, and domed lookout represent $400 million in home improvements. The lookout, with its seven windows, including the largest ever sent into space, already has astronauts salivating over the anticipated views of Earth.(AP Photo/NASA)

In this photo provided by NASA, astronaut T.J. Creamer, Expedition 22 flight engineer, holds a still camera while occupying the commander’s station on the flight deck of space shuttle Endeavour while docked with the International Space Station, Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010. (AP Photo/NASA)

Spacewalker Robert Benhken works on the new Tranquility module in the payload bay of the space shuttle Endeavour in this image from NASA TV February 11, 2010. REUTERS/NASA TV

A computer generated scene gives the perspective of a crewmember looking through the Cupola on the International Space Station (ISS) with several of the Great Lakes helping to form the backdrop for the scene in this NASA handout image created on December 1994. NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour will blast off on February 7, 2010 on one of the last remaining shuttle missions, and the U.S. agency’s chief said on Saturday the days of big American solo initiatives in space were over. After launch, the shuttle is expected to deliver to the space station a third connecting module, the Italian-built Tranquility node and the seven-windowed cupola, which will be used as a control room for robotics. Image created on December 1994. REUTERS/NASA Handout

A woman walks past a shop in Berlin in January 2010. Europe’s biggest economy stuttered to a halt late last year and consumer sentiment continued to fall in the following months but analysts say another German recession is not in the cards.(AFP/File/John Macdougall)

European regulators have said that they are investigating complaints filed by three web companies that contend US Internet giant Google is not playing fair. (AFP/File/John D Mchugh)

The statue of Winston Churchill stands under a tree heavely laden with snow in London in 2003. Hundreds of UFO sightings by Britons, including one who developed a skin condition after a supernatural encounter, emerged in files out Thursday which also show Winston Churchill’s interest in the issue.(AFP/File/Odd Andersen) (AFP/ESA)

The sign at the entrance to SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida.SeaWorld said Thursday a five-tonne killer whale that attacked and killed its trainer in front of horrified onlookers will remain in its program, amid raging debate on whether to keep such animals in captivity. (AFP/Getty Images/Matt Stroshane)

FILE – In this Friday, May 13, 2005 file photo provided by SeaWorld, actress Evangeline Lilly, from the ABC television show ‘Lost’, plays with Shamu, at SeaWorld Orlando, in Orlando, Fla. An employee at SeaWorld Orlando has died after being attacked by a killer whale Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010.(AP Photo/Seaworld Orlando, Chris Gotshall, File)

This picture relased by the European Space Agency in 2006 shows an artist’s impression of what a “hot Jupiter” (planets so close to their stars they have short orbital periods) might look like. One such “hot Jupiter”, the star WASP-12b, 600 light years from Earth, is slowly gobbling up one of its own planets, according to a study released on Wednesday in Nature, the British science journal

In between the rains and storms over the Great Salt Lake, the skies clear for a natural light show as the sun sets below the horizon on May 29, 2009.(Photo and caption submitted by Ryan Romeike)

FILE – In this Friday, Nov. 3, 2006 file photo Tajik girls harvest cotton in a field outside the town of Dosti in southern Tajikistan. Tajikistan, an impoverished nation in Central Asia that borders Afghanistan, votes for a new parliament Sunday Feb. 28, 2010, as the country struggles to revive its economy and protect its borders from al-Qaida militants.(AP Photo/Sergei Grits, File)

A 507-carat diamond that sold for $35.3 million on Friday is shown in an undated photo courtesy of Petra Diamonds.REUTERS/Handout

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin seen visiting Mikhailovsky (St. Michael’s) or Inzhenerny (the Engineers) Castle after its restoration, St. Petersburg, Russia, Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010. (AP Photo/Alexei Druzhinin, Pool)

A view of a waterfall in the protected forest at the Welirang mountain in Malang, East Java province, February 10, 2010. Indonesia’s Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan on Wednesday said he had revoked the land use permits for 23 mining and other firms operating in forested areas and may crack down further, indicating a tougher stance on environmental protection. Indonesia is under international pressure to do more to save its huge tracts of tropical forest, which act as carbon sinks and help reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. To match INTERVIEW INDONESIA-FOREST/ REUTERS/Sigit Pamungkas

Artist’s rendition released by NASA shows an asteroid belt in orbit around a star. A huge asteroid that smashed into Earth with the force of a billion atomic bombs wiped out the dinosaur, scientists said Thursday, hoping to lay to rest a long-running debate over a mass extinction 65 million years ago.(AFP/NASA/File)

A young boy looks at a model of a dinosaur on display at the exhibion “Dinosaurs – Argentina’s Giants” in the western German city of Bonn. Dinosaurs were wiped out by a huge asteroid that smashed into Earth 65 million years ago with the force of a billion atomic bombs, scientists said Thursday, hoping to lay an age-old debate to rest once and for all.(AFP/DDP/File/Lennart Preiss)

Hellenistic coins dating back to the era of Alexander the Great are seen after they were discovered in northern Syria, the head of the archaeological excavation department in the Aleppo province said Thursday.(THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/SANA)

A view of the Blue Mountains National Park, inland from central Sydney, is pictured in this file photo. An Australian frog which disappeared nearly 40 years ago and was feared extinct has been rediscovered in a remote creek, astounding experts. The frogs’ location will be kept secret to ensure their survival, while talks are underway about setting up a captive breeding programme.(AFP/File/Greg Wood)

Euro’s. Photo: WN / deniseyong

A Tufted Puffin looks at visitors in his cage in San Diego’s Sea World. Climate change is pushing some bird species “towards extinction,” US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar warned Thursday as a new report on the threats facing North American birds was released. (AFP/File/Gabriel Bouys)

Tourists view the colossus of Pharaoh Akhenaten in the Egyptian Museum showing his elongated head and feminine hips that long confounded Egyptologists, at the Egyptian museum in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, March 10, 2010. The identification of Akhenaten’s mummy through DNA tests could be a step toward filling out the picture of a time 3,300 years ago when Akhenaten embarked on history’s first experiment with monotheism. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Paul Schemm)

A green sea turtle at the turtle conservation section at Aquaria KLCC in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysians’ voracious appetite for turtle eggs could drive the marine creatures to extinction on its shores, conservationists have warned.(AFP/File/Tengku Bahar)

An aerial shot shows the New Caledonia Barrier Reef in the South Pacific. The island chain has enlisted Australia’s help to protect the natural site, the world’s second biggest reef after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. (AFP/File/Marc Le Chelard)

A life-size moving Tyrannosaurus Rex from the “Walking with Dinosaurs” show. Dinosaurs rose to dominance 200 million years ago after volcanic eruptions killed off their rivals, and were later wiped from the face of the Earth by a meteorite, paleontologists have found.(AFP/File/Adrian Dennis)

A crew member walks past robotic dinosaurs during a photocall for the “Walking with Dinosaurs” show. Dinosaurs rose to dominance 200 million years ago after volcanic eruptions killed off their rivals, and were later wiped from the face of the Earth by a meteorite, paleontologists have found.(AFP/File/Carl de Souza)

Smoke raises from an incinerator in Ivry-sur-Seine, outside Paris. France is to abandon its planned carbon fuel tax which aimed to curb global warming, members of parliament quoted the prime minister as saying. (AFP/File/Joel Saget)

VIDEO: The US space shuttle Discovery blasted off Monday toward the International Space Station amidst debate over what should replace the soon-to-expire space shuttle program in the United States. Local Floridians are fearing that the end of the shuttle era for NASA could mean the end of thousands of local jobs at a time when unemployment is already high. Duration: 02:09(AFPTV)

The red carpet outside the Kodak Theater is reflected on the sunglasses of a woman watching in Hollywood, California. Cutting-edge technology which monitors and interprets what our eyes see has gone on show at an augmented reality conference in the French Alps, with scientists and engineers demonstrating how the technology can give someone digital feedback about what he or she is gazing at. (AFP/File/Roberto Schmidt)

Logo of the first Augmented Human International Conference which is being held in the French Alps. Cutting-edge technology which monitors and interprets what our eyes see has gone on show at an augmented reality conference in the French Alps, with scientists and engineers demonstrating how the technology can give someone digital feedback about what he or she is gazing at. (afp.com)

A night view of the Mount Everest range seen from Shyangboche, some 140 km (87 miles) northeast of Kathmandu. China and Nepal have found a solution to a longstanding dispute over the height of Mount Everest in the giant peak’s rock and snow. (AFP/File/Prakash Mathema)

Former US president Bill Clinton, pictured in March, met Saudi King Abdullah in an unannounced two-day visit to the oil-rich kingdom, the official SPA news agency said. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Chip Somodevilla)

An information board posts the latest prices and graphs above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange earlier this month. Doctors have found a relation between stock market fluctuations and heart attack frequency, a preliminary study by North Carolina’s Duke University Medical Center said Saturday. (AFP/Stan Honda)

A rare 5.16-carat blue diamond, seen here on display at Sotheby’s, sold at auction for 6.4 million US dollars in Hong Kong on Wednesday, confirming Asia’s fast-growing taste for the precious stone. (AFP/File/Mike Clarke)

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs speaks about the iPhone OS4 Software Development Kit at a special event at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California April 8, 2010.REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

George Washington “Lansdowne”1796 oil painting by Gilbert Stuart, photo.

The Aptera 2e battery electric vehicle was unveiled in California on April 14. REUTERS/ Mike Blake

Knut has also been depicted on the logo for the German Environment Minister’s campaign to help stop global warming and is the mascot of a movement for the preservation of polar bears. AFP/ John Macdougall

A Harp seal pup. Photo Olga Gershenzon

Its crater is 3-4 kilometers wide, and the glacier covers an area of nearly 100 square kilometers. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

The Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption. AFP/ Halldor Kolbeins

The solar-powered plane Solar Impulse successfully made its first long-range flight in Switzerland on April 7, the Swiss newspaper 24 Heures reported. REUTERS/ Christian Hartmann

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has called for a “major cleaning” of the Arctic, where the level of pollition is six times higher than norlal. @ RIA Novosti. Photo /Aleksey Nikolskiy/.

Pope Benedict XVI smiles as he arrives in Saint-Peter’s square at the Vatican for his weekly general audience on May 5. Roman Catholics can send now text messages of support to Pope Benedict XVI, Italian public television said Saturday, as the Church faces an international paedophile scandal. (AFP/File/Tiziana Fabi)

U.S. President Barack Obama waves alongside the President of Hampton University, William R. Harvey, after delivering the commencement address at Hampton University in Virginia, May 9, 2010. REUTERS/Jason Reed

A security guard walks past a picture of imprisoned Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Jakarta. A top US diplomat has met Aung San Suu Kyi for the second time in six months as Washington expressed concern about the ruling junta’s election preparations.(AFP/File/Bay Ismoyo)

Actress Jessica Alba, left, and festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal arrive for the Tribeca Film Festival Awards Night ceremony Thursday, April 29, 2010 in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

In this film publicity image released by the Tribeca Film Festival, Director Alex Gibney interviews a former colleague of Eliot Spitzer during the filming of an untitled film about the former New York governor. (AP Photo/Tribeca Film Festival, Brian Butnick)

From left, festival Executive Director Nancy Schafer, film director Alex Gibney, festival co-founders Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro and John Hayes of American Express watch a video clip during the opening news conference for the Tribeca Film Festival Tuesday, April 20, 2010 in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

Mass riots are continuing in Athens. People are protesting against measures taken by the Greek government to cut public spending in return for the EU-IMF loans package. REUTERS/Grigoris Siamidis

Space Shuttle Atlantis lifts-off from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Friday May 14, 2010. Atlantis’ 12-day mission will deliver a Russian built storage and docking module to the International Space Station. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

Space shuttle Atlantis lifts-off from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Friday May 14, 2010. Atlantis’ 12-day mission will deliver a Russian built storage and docking module to the International Space Station. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)

A policeman videotapes foreign journalists outside a Beijing court where leading Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was lodging an appeal against an 11-year prison term. The Obama administration has disappointed many activists who believe it has downplayed human rights in its quest for a broader relationship with China on issues such as the global economy and climate change. (AFP/File/Frederic J. Brown)

A giant balloon representing the earth filled with one tonne of carbon dioxide, one of the main gases held responsible for global climate change, is on display in Taipei to mark Earth Day last month. (AFP/Patrick Lin)

Scuba diver Charles Ang from Singapore approaches a school of jack fish off the Malaysian island of Layang Layang in the South China Sea April 4, 2010

Participants dance during the closing ceremony of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth at a stadium in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Thursday, April 22, 2010. (AP Photo/Dado Galdieri)

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez gestures during the closing ceremony of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Thursday, April 22, 2010. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

A military officer stands by an Indigenous flag and a large image of a crocodile on the final day of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Tiquipaya on the outskirts of Cochabamba, Bolivia, Thursday, April 22, 2010. (AP Photo/Dado Galdieri)

The cultural highlight of the week was the opening of the 63rd International Cannes Film Festival on May 12. It will last through May 23. This year, Russia will be represented by Nikita Mikhalkov’s “Burnt by the Sun 2.” Reiters/ Eric Gaillard

Russell Crowe opened the Cannes film festival with “Robin Hood” co-star Cate Blanchett. The opening ceremony included the stars’ traditional walk down the red carpet and presentation of the new “Robin Hood” film. From left: France’s Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand, Russell Crowe and wife, producer Brian Grazer and wife, and Cate Blanchett. REITERS/Vincent Kesler

Winston Churchill with old friends

Filed under: Almere, Amsterdam, Atlanta, Bangkok, Belarus, Berlin, Bloomsburg, Bulgaria, Chicago, Cuba, Dallas, Den Haag, East Lansing, England, Erfurt, France, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Hong Kong, Houston, Istanbul, Kiev, Krasnoyarsk, La Habana, Latvia, London, Los Angeles, Montreal, Moscow, Muenchen, Odessa, Orlando, Paris, Philadelphia, Plano, Quebec, Redmond, Riga, Russian Federation, San Jose, Scranton, Sofia, The Netherlands, Toronto, Turkey, Ukraine, USA, Uzbekistan, Vancouver, WanChai, Washington, Zagreb Tagged: Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Charles Bolden, Charles F. Bolden Jr., Earth, Earth science, KieranTimberlake, Lisa P. Jackson, United States

- NEW RUSSIAN PHOTOS

Nikolay Kotev — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:56:15 +0000

More than 4.2 million people celebrated Victory Day on Moscow streets, no incidents were registered. Photo Madina Kanukova

Moscow, 9th May 2010. RIA Novosti. Photo Ilya Pitalev

Moscow, 9th May 2010. RIA Novosti. Photo Sergey Piatakov

The president receives a special, one-of-a-kind car, assembled specifically for the head of state. The car’s body must be armored and withstand at least the explosion of a hand grenade and a round of 7.62 mm ammunition. The windows must also be bullet-proof and up to 48 mm thick. The car must have special reinforced tires for protection against a chemical attack. Photo: September 15, 2009. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Red Square before meeting with participants of the Valdai International Club at the GUM department store. RIA Novosti. Dmitriy Astakhov

Filed under: Arctic, Belarus, Cuba, England, France, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Kiev, Krasnoyarsk, La Habana, Latvia, London, Moneta, Moscow, Odessa, Paris, Philadelphia, Riga, Russian Federation, Secaucus, SPb, The Netherlands, Turkey, UK, Ukraine, USA, Uzbekistan, Washington Tagged: Analysis, Atlas, Barrack Obama, Bibliographie, Biographie, Breaking News, Contemporary photo, Contemporary photos, Dmitry Medvedev, Documents, electronical media, Euronews, European politics, Force, Foreign Affairs, Future, Gold speech, GUM (department store), Hand grenade, Head, Historical photo, Historical photos, Horizontal, International situations, Inventaire, Journal, Journalist, Journalist Club, Journalists, Journals, mass-media, Memoires, Memoirs, Military, Military agreements, Military journalist, Moscow, Newspaper, Newspaper articles, Newspaper topics, Newspapers, Notes, Peace, photo, photography, photos, Politics, Preparation, President of Russia, professional photography, Progressive politics, Red Square, Revues, RIA Novosti, Russian politics, SALT-I, SALT-II, SPb, Test, Testimony, Top Russian news and analysis online, US, US & Foreign Affairs, US politics, Vertical, Victory Day, Vladimir Putin

- Do you know this world? (Old photos of the Soviet history).

Nikolay Kotev — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:35:53 +0000

1936, the first four ZIS 101 Soviet limousines were manufactured. The first serial model was presented to Josef Stalin.

Old Soviet photograph of DniproGES in 1947, work belonged to the Soviet government.

In May, 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon was expected to visit Moscow. Before the visit, the Soviet ambassador in the United States Anatoly Dobrynin confidentially suggested to Richard Nixon that Leonid Brezhnev would be happy to receive a Cadillac Eldorado as a gift. The car was manufactured by special order within three days. On the fourth day the Cadillac for Brezhnev was delivered to Moscow by an American military transport aircraft.

Президент США Джимми Картер и Генеральный секретарь ЦК КПСС Леонид Брежнев подписывают договор ОСВ-II. 18 июня 1979, Вена.

In the mid 1970s, Leonid Brezhnev acquired a black Rolls Royce Silver Shadow and a gold-and-brown Citroen Maserati high-performance coupe. According to some estimates, Brezhnev’s collection consisted of 49 to 324 cars. Photo: the Rolls Royce Silver Shadow exhibited in Paris.

US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachov at the first Summit in Geneva, Switzerland.
Date 19 November 1985

- Top World Photography

Nikolay Kotev — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:31:49 +0000

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson signed a Memorandum of Agreement today to promote and continue collaboration between the two agencies in environmental and Earth sciences and applications. The signing ceremony took place at the Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science (MS)^² on the campus of Howard University in Washington. Following the ceremony, both administrators met with students to discuss the importance of science and engineering education.“Our agencies have a remarkable opportunity to tackle a variety of environmental issues together,” said Administrator Bolden. “Involving students in Earth science and climate research at an early age will encourage a stronger sense of stewardship toward our home planet.”

The agreement renews a broad partnership to promote joint efforts to improve environmental and Earth science research, technology, environmental management, and the application of Earth science data, models and technology in environmental decision-making.

George Washington “Lansdowne”1796 oil painting by Gilbert Stuart, photo.

The Aptera 2e battery electric vehicle was unveiled in California on April 14. REUTERS/ Mike Blake

A Harp seal pup. Photo Olga Gershenzon

Its crater is 3-4 kilometers wide, and the glacier covers an area of nearly 100 square kilometers. REUTERS/ Lucas Jackson

The Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption. AFP/ Halldor Kolbeins

The solar-powered plane Solar Impulse successfully made its first long-range flight in Switzerland on April 7, the Swiss newspaper 24 Heures reported. REUTERS/ Christian Hartmann

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has called for a “major cleaning” of the Arctic, where the level of pollition is six times higher than norlal. @ RIA Novosti. Photo /Aleksey Nikolskiy/.

U.S. President Barack Obama waves alongside the President of Hampton University, William R. Harvey, after delivering the commencement address at Hampton University in Virginia, May 9, 2010. REUTERS/Jason Reed

Actress Jessica Alba, left, and festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal arrive for the Tribeca Film Festival Awards Night ceremony Thursday, April 29, 2010 in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

Mass riots are continuing in Athens. People are protesting against measures taken by the Greek government to cut public spending in return for the EU-IMF loans package. REUTERS/ Grigoris Siamidis

A giant balloon representing the earth filled with one tonne of carbon dioxide, one of the main gases held responsible for global climate change, is on display in Taipei to mark Earth Day last month. (AFP/Patrick Lin)

Scuba diver Charles Ang from Singapore approaches a school of jack fish off the Malaysian island of Layang Layang in the South China Sea April 4, 2010

Filed under: Almere, Amsterdam, Arctic, Arizona, Atlanta, Bangkok, BC, Belarus, Berlin, Bloomsburg, Bulgaria, CA, Charlotte, Chicago, Croatia, Cuba, Dallas, Den Haag, East Lansing, East Lansing, England, Erfurt, FL, Fort Lee, France, Frankfurt, Fremont, GA, Germany, Great Britain, Gunzenhausen, Holland, Hong Kong, Houston, IL, Istanbul, Janesville, Kent, Kiev, Krasnoyarsk, La Habana, Lansing, Latvia, Lille, London, Los Angeles, MI, Moneta, Montreal, Moscow, Muenchen, NC, NJ, Odessa, ON, Orlando, PA, Paris, Philadelphia, Plano, Quebec, Redmond, Riga, Roubaix, RU, Russian Federation, San Jose, Scranton, Secaucus, Sofia, SPb, Thailand, The Netherlands, Toronto, Turkey, TX, UK, Ukraine, US, USA, Uzbekistan, Vancouver, WanChai, Washington, WI, Woodstock, Zagreb Tagged: Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Analysis, Anti-War, Barrack Obama, Breaking News, Capital cities, Charles Bolden, Charles F. Bolden Jr., Dmitry Medvedev, Earth, Earth science, electronical media, European politics, Force, Future, Head, Horizontal, International situations, Journal, Journalist, Journalist Club, Journalists, Journals, Leaving, Lisa P. Jackson, mass-media, Memoires, Military, Military journalist, NASA, Newspaper, Newspaper articles, Newspaper topics, Newspapers, Notes, Peace, photo, photography, photos, Politics, Preparation, professional photography, Progressive politics, RIA Novosti, Russian politics, SALT-I, SALT-II, US politics, Vladimir Putin

- reserv

Nikolay Kotev — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:02:01 +0000

Filed under: Almere, Amsterdam, Berlin, Bulgaria, Den Haag, England, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, London, Moscow, Russian Federation, Sofia, The Netherlands, USA, Washington