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Russian students have been demonstrating high performance since 1995 but the past few years saw a sharp leap above international average, Galina Kovalyova of the Russian Academy of Education told reporters on Tuesday.
According to the 2011 PIRLS study, four-grade school students from Russia ranked second, outscored by Singapore by just a few points.
Voice of Russia, Interfax
A Russian defector, former Russian security officer and a body guard of Boris Berezovsky Alexander Litvinenko suddenly died in London in November 2006 with symptoms of what British forensic experts described as poisoning with radioactive polonium. Earlier this week, Foreign Secretary William Hague issued instructions to purge the Litvinenko inquest of all evidence that could implicate Russia in Litvinenko’s death or suggest that British special services could have averted the tragedy.
Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin wished singer Dina Garipova success and victory at the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden.
Russia will do its utmost to secure the return of Russian nationals Victor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko, who were convicted in the US, for serving their sentences in Russia. Lawyers for Bout and Yaroshenko insist that their sentences should be revised. Should that prove impossible, they demand that their appeals receive fair hearings.
In Syria, militants have kidnapped the 80-year-old father of the country’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad.
Speaking to The Voice of Russia Saturday, expert of the Moscow-based International Institute of Political and Humanitarian Studies Dr Vladimir Bruter accused the European Union of deliberately turning a blind eye to the discriminatory citizenship policy of its member nation Latvia.
In an exclusive interview for the Argentinian newspaper Clarín, shared with the Observer, Bashar al-Assad says he welcomes attempts at dialogue, but believes that western states are looking for ways to fuel the violence, rather than stop it, and are seeking to topple his regime regardless of the toll.
Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin wished singer Dina Garipova success and victory at the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden.
Singers from 26 countries began battling it out on Saturday night for the crown of glitzy pop in the Eurovision Song Contest, returning this year to the homeland of ABBA, the Swedish band it propelled to global superstardom. One of them is Russian Dina Garipova.
An apparent US drone attack has killed four suspected Al-Qaeda militants in southern Yemen and destroyed an explosives-packed truck, tribal sources said on Saturday.
The Baltic Sea Fleet in Russia’s northwest is celebrating 310 years since its foundation.
Next week, the Russian parliament’s lower house is going to consider some amendments to laws concerning adoption of Russian children by foreigners.
In the period since the nuclear accident in Fukushima in Japan, Russia’s Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant in the region of Tver northwest of Moscow has installed cutting-edge safety features which should enable it to withstand seismic shocks of up to 5 points. Appropriate tests have been successfully carried out.
Economic issues took centre stage Saturday when German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Pope Francis at the Vatican, two days after the pontiff called unbridled capitalism ungodly.
Natural disasters have cost the global economy $2.5 trillion since 2000, that’s according to a UN report released on Wednesday. These figures are at least 50% higher than previous international estimates. The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction warned economic losses from earthquakes, floods and droughts will continue to escalate, unless businesses take action to reduce their exposure to disaster risks.
European Stabilization Fund has transferred a bailout tranche of 4.2 billion euros to Greece.
A white-tailed deer crashed through the windshield of a public bus in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. It was filmed by a surveillance camera. (VIDEO)
In a harsh rebuttal to George Soros, the President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research Hans-Werner Sinn accused the speculator of “playing with fire” and stated that “Germany will not accept Eurobonds” in spite of the pressure from the investing community.
In an exclusive interview with the Voice of Russia, Wolf Richter talks about the ECB's desperation, the money printing bonanza of the world's central banks and about a French finance minister who is barking at the wrong tree. Wolf Richter is the editor of , entrepreneur, private equity specialist and the author of "Big Like: Cascade Into An Odyssey".
Witnesses in southwestern Virginia say a car has driven into a crowd at a parade. Several people appear to be hurt, but the nature of their injuries wasn’t immediately known.
A new film by the Russian director Taisia Igumentseva has reaped applause at the 66th annual film festival held in Cannes in southern France.
Thousands of people have marched through the streets of Rome to urge the coalition government of Enrico Letti to drop its austerity policy and focus on creating jobs.
Car crashes into parade crowd in Virginia, many injured
