An adoption story leads the news from Russia this week. Russia's Supreme Court overturned three guilty verdicts in a seven-year case about the adoption of Russian children by foreigners and ordered a retrial. Last September, a court in Volgograd convicted a former Russian citizen and the former director and doctor of the Kirov orphanage of bribery and forging documents. All were given suspended sentences, however.

In technology, Russian tech companies have shown up in force... more

Ordinarily, this kind of news might not merit a full post. But after another excruciating bus ride into New York City with some clod who had to broadcast every detail of his business over his cell phone, I find what the Alexandrinsky Theater has done worthy of applause.

The Alexandrinsky, located in St. Petersburg, is Russia's oldest theater. I think this is where I saw a production of Lucia di Lamermoor (Italian opera, but sung in Russian) on my trip to the city in 1982, but I no longer have the playbill. What makes... more

Roman Abramovich, who was orphaned as a child, is now the 16th-richest man in the world according to the latest list of the world's richest people from Forbes, released on Thursday. Forbes pegged Abramovich's wealth at , $18.7 billion, which put him at the head of a list of 53 Russian billionaires.

Since I date my news weeks from Monday to Friday, I missed out reporting on the... more

This week, Russia offered more reassurances about the recent outbreak of bird flu. A veterinary service official told Reuters that Russia has cleared up outbreaks of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in two areas. H5N1 is the virus that public health administrators fear could be transmitted from human to human and result in a pandemic. But Nikolai Vlasov, head of veterinary surveillance at animal and plant health watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor, also said that Russia expects more bird flu... more

There was a lot of saber rattling in Russia--and about Russia--this week.

On Monday, a top Russian general warned that Poland and the Czech Republic could be targeted by Russian missiles if they agree to Washington's plan to put 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar site in the Czech Republic. Also on Monday, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Russia would boost its arms sales... more

Here's the news from and about Russia this week.

The New York Times kicked off Sunday with an account of Russian President Vladimir Putin's hard-nosed speech about U.S. foreign policy. Under the headline "Putin Says U.S. Is Undermining Global Stability", the Times said that Putin accused Washington, among other things, of provoking a new nuclear arms race. The Russian... more

Earlier this week, I wrote about some of the news sources I track for journalistic information about Russia. Every Friday afternoon, I'll sum up the main news developments of the week there, adoption-related and not. Here's what happened during the week of Feb. 5:

In adoption news, the BBC on Wednesday posted perhaps the most complete account yet of the mistreatment of border babies... more

The first time I went to Russia was in the summer of 1982 and staying on top of the news was an exercise in futility. This was before Gorbachev, before perestroika, before glasnost and before much of anything in the way of an independent press. Pravda contained all the news the Kremlin deemed fit to print, and its slant on the story was so far out in, well, left field that we took to acting out a story on the bus as we toured every day. "Comrades," someone would intone, "the people have won a great victory in metal manufacturing."... more