UKRAINE

Ukrainian Vitali Klitschko comfortably retained his WBC heavyweight title on Saturday, scoring a unanimous points decision over Briton Dereck Chisora in Munich's Olympic Hall to ensure his family maintained a global stranglehold on the division.

Europe’s bitterly cold weather has claimed hundreds of lives so far, and has left many cities and villages without water and electricity.

Eastern Europe has been hit the hardest by the cold snap, with shipping suspended and hundreds dead across the continent

Iran is seeking to close grain purchases using gold and oil as payment, and has paid in yen for a large volume of wheat in its first deal since western sanctions against Tehran started choking imports of food staples, European wheat exporters said.

The temperatures in Eastern Europe have plunged to as low as minus-30 Fahrenheit.

Iranian buyers have defaulted on payments for about 200,000 tonnes of rice from their top supplier India, exporters and rice millers said on Tuesday, a sign of the mounting pressure on Tehran from a new wave of Western sanctions.

As Europe's cold snap hit the UK over the weekend, Heathrow Airport canceled hundreds of flights in a move many have called unnecessary and excessive.

More than 300 people have died in Europe as the result of a severe and long-lasting cold spell, and tens of thousands of people across the continent have been left without power or been cut off from supplies.

Bitterly cold weather that has claimed hundreds of lives in eastern Europe swept westward over the continent on Saturday, as Russian natural-gas exporter Gazprom acknowledged it had been unable to meet increased demand as it battles its own deep freeze and had thus cut its supply for a few days.

There are up to 3,500 sex workers from the former Soviet Union plying their trade in New Delhi alone.

There are officially some 12,000 homeless people living on the streets of the capital city of Kiev (out of a total population of about 2.6-million).

After the dust settled from the shocking news of Don Cornelius' suicide, attention began turning to his ex-wife, Viktoria Chapman. Who is Viktoria Chapman Cornelius?

In some cases, gas supplies have been reduced by as much as 30 percent.

Europe has been struck by one of the worst cold spells in year. Massive amounts of snow have fallen across the continent this week, causing flight cancellations and transportation delays.

Topless Protest at Political Summit: Feminist Arrested At Davos Forum [VIDEO, PHOTOS]

Don Cornelius, the creator of Soul Train, was found dead in his Sherman Oaks, Calif., home Wednesday morning. In the past few years the music-industry legend has faced a tumultuous time with his health and his personal relationships, including that with his second wife Viktoria Chapman-Cornelius.

The websites of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich and the former Soviet republic's interior ministry were put out of action on Wednesday as disgruntled Internet users hit back at the government after it shut down a popular file sharing site.

The health impact of last year's Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan appears relatively small thanks partly to prompt evacuations, the chairman of a U.N. scientific body investigating the effects of radiation said on Tuesday.

Ukrainian police on Tuesday shut down the former Soviet republic's most popular file sharing website, Ex.ua, accusing its owners of illegally distributing copyright-protected software, music and videos.

Margaret Thatcher: The One and Only

LONDON, Jan 17 - The downgrade of much of Europe's credit ratings demonstrates in perhaps the bluntest terms so far the collapse of any lingering -- if lazy -- assumptions that developed states are somehow safer than emerging counterparts.