Only a few months ago, the Kremlin was talking about pricing its oil in rubles and making the ruble a regional reserve currency, giving it a status closer to that of the euro and the dollar.

The financial crisis in the Russian Federation has pushed up the already high rates of mortality from heart and circulatory diseases there to third world levels, according to medical experts. And that development combined with other trends likely makes the demographic future of Russia even bleaker than had been thought.

Ossetians have abducted six ethnic Georgians from the villages of Zerti, Gori district. The men went to the forest for fire wood at 4pm yesterday and the separatist gunmen must have kidnapped them a few hours later.