Eurasia

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Piracy in the Gulf of Aden has cost shippers between $18-30 million so far this year in ransoms and is threatening global business, British think-tank Chatham House said on Thursday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is in St Petersburg in Russia, helping to mend ties between the two countries.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee will visit Iran soon to discuss consolidation of bilateral ties and cooperation.

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Somali authorities have given Russia’s navy the go-ahead to use force against pirates holding a Ukrainian ship hijacked with 33 tanks on board, a maritime official said on Wednesday.

BELYAYEVKA, Russia (Reuters) – Part of a school building in a provincial Russian town collapsed on Wednesday, killing five children and injuring four, the latest casualties of Russia’s crumbling infrastructure.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Supreme Court ordered on Wednesday that Czar Nicholas II be recognized as a victim of Soviet repression, a symbolic victory for monarchists who said it would help draw a line under Russia’s blood-stained past.

NABAKHTEVI, Georgia (Reuters) – EU monitors entered a Russian-controlled buffer zone around Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia for the first time Wednesday in what they said was a smooth start to their peacekeeping operation.

ODZISI, Georgia (Reuters) – Riding in a rickety truck laden with furniture, Zina Zakarashvili gave European Union ceasefire monitors an early glimpse on Wednesday of the human face of the conflict between Russia and Georgia.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia is considering blasting a railway line through the Caucasus mountains to link up with South Ossetia, the breakaway region of Georgia over which Moscow and Tbilisi fought a war in August.

FRANKFURT/MOSCOW (Reuters) – European and Russian policymakers urged U.S. politicians to pass a new version of a $700 billion bank rescue package on Wednesday as a new Senate vote on the bailout loomed.