President Vladimir Putin spent three hours in front of the television cameras on Thursday, taking and answering questions from citizens on a wide range of economic, social and political issues. According to the official Russian government Web site, Putin answered more than 60 questions during the show, which came from people in Vladivostok, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Voronezh region, Arkhangelsk region, six other regions and Kazakhstan. The government site doesn't yet have the transcript posted, but promises one will be available soon.

In their reports on the show, Western news organizations focused on the president's answer to political questions. Reuters noted Putin's call for an "effective" parliament given the impending presidential elections. Thomson Financial, a wire service primarily aimed at the Wall Street crowd, highlighted Putin's promise to defend Russia's natural resources in Siberia. "Thank God Russia is not Iraq," it quoted the president as saying. "And everyone has seen what happened there. They learned to shoot at each other. But so far, establishing order has not really worked out."

In business news this week, Russia's state aircraft company United Aviation Corp. announced plans to spend $1 billion to buy a 5% stake in EADS, the European company that makes the Airbus. The funds for the deal will apparently come from a sale of UAC shares to VTB, a Russian state-controlled bank.

Russian prosecutors charged nine people, including a high-ranking government official in the murder last October of a prominent Putin critic. Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist, was shot dead in her Moscow apartment building. Among those charged with the crime this week is a lieutenant-colonel in Russia's security service, Pavel Ryaguzov. According to Reuters, Ryaguzov allegedly gave details of Politkovskaya's address to another suspect, who then gave them to the gunman. This is not the first time that suspects in Politkovskaya's murder have been apprehended: 10 people were arrested in August but none was ever charged. In announcing this week's group, Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika indicated the killing was directed anti-Kremlin forces living outside Russia.

There were no new accreditations of adoption agencies, American or otherwise, this week and very little in the way of directives from the Ministry of Education.