RUSSIA

Italy's Eni and Russia's Rosneft announced on Wednesday a joint venture to search for oil and gas in the Russian Arctic, following a similar pact between ExxonMobil and the state-run oil firm.

Researchers spotted an white killer whale on Sunday, the first time an all-white adult killer whale has been seen.

U.S. authorities reported the country's first case of mad cow disease in six years on Tuesday, swiftly assuring consumers and global importers that there was no danger of meat from the California dairy cow entering the food chain.

Shares of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), the world's most valuable technology company, skyrocketed 10 percent before the markets opened Wednesday on forecasts of further recordbreaking earnings. That sent overall U.S. markets up.

India has overtaken the US to become the world's top source of junk or unsolicited emails, accounting for one in ten spam messages in the inbox, research by a security firm has found.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that he will step down as the leader of United Russia, the nation's dominant political party, after he assumes the presidency in May.

Argentina added to its gold reserves for the first time in nearly six years in September 2011 as the price hit record highs, mirroring the trend among emerging central banks to diversify further from paper currencies such as the U.S. dollar.

French spirits group Remy Cointreau expects full-year core profit growth of at least 15-18 percent, thanks to booming demand for premium cognac in Asia and notably China.

Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is serving a seven year prison sentence on an abuse of office conviction, went on a hunger strike to protest the “concentration camp of violence and lawlessness” created in her country by current president President Viktor Yanukovych.

Turkey claims that Armenians who perished were simply the victims of war.

Lyudmila Putin seems to have disappeared from public view, and the Kremlin is tight-lipped about her whereabouts. Relatively little is known about Lyudmila, but these photos give us a rare glimpse into her past.

Yulia Tymoshenko, the jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister, was moved back to her cell after a short stint in the hospital. She refused treatment from doctors for an undisclosed medical issue.

Gold prices steadied near $1,640 an ounce in Europe on Tuesday as a softer tone to the dollar arrested the previous session's slide, but traders largely stuck to the sidelines ahead of a key monetary policy meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Close on the heels of India testing Agni-V, its first long-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile, Pakistan has alerted India of its plans to conduct a similar launch very soon.

Forget hotdogs, pizza, and hamburgers. Russia has entered the competitive eating arena with a new food: caviar.

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir met with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao Monday in Beijing as the young African nation seeks investment for an alternate pipeline that would allow it to circumvent exporting oil through its northern rival Sudan.

Scientists have captured video of what they are saying is a white killer whale they spotted. Why is this orca white? The sighting took place while the researchers were on an expedition in waters off the eastern coast of Russia.

After all the recent leaks and rumors regarding Activision’s next “Call of Duty” release, the publisher finally officially announced the new game’s unveil date. According to the “Call of Duty” website the world reveal will be on Tuesday, May 1st. A countdown timer accompanies the announcement, and the game is to be showcased during the basketball playoffs aired on TNT.

Iran has recovered data from the unmanned American drone that crashed near the Afghan border last year, and is using the information to reverse-engineer its own spy plane, the Islamic Republic announced on Sunday.

Corporate executives are hesitant to pull the trigger on new acquisitions despite indicating they believe the global economy is improving somewhat, according to a survey of more than 1,500 executives polled by Ernst & Young.

A research firm, Startup Genome, has ranked the world’s top 25 startup ecosystems, based on research from 16,000 startups. Researchers Bjoern Herrmann, Max Marmer and Ertan Dogrultan’s research also throws light on what makes tech startups successful and vice versa.