London, Nov. 4 : Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has revealed that the Kremlin could have triggered off the Third World War in 1989 had it used force to prevent the Berlin Wall from falling.

Gorbachev, who is hailed in the West for ignoring hardliners who advised him to guarantee the Soviet Union''''s future by crushing a growing protest by Eastern Bloc countries, has revealed that the move would have sparked-off a world war.

Moscow, Oct. 20 : Former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev has delivered a damning indictment of the state of Russia''s political system, describing the recent elections as a stage-managed "mockery" of voters.

In his most outspoken comments since he resigned in 1991, Gorbachev fiercely criticised the ruling United Russia party led by Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, and said that genuine political debate was now confined to Russia''s tiny liberal press.

Berlin - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has praised his old East German counterpart Erich Honecker during an interview, 20 years after the events which brought down the Berlin Wall.

"Honecker was a serious politician, he had character and ambition," Gorbachev said in an interview with German daily Bild, released ahead of publication on Saturday.

"Sure, Erich Honecker made mistakes, but he wanted to serve his country. He was a true German, one who had fought against Hitler during the war," Gorbachev added.

Moscow - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev congratulated US President Barack Obama on winning this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Gorbachev, himself a Nobel laureate in 1990 for his efforts to over come the Cold War between east and west, sent a telegram to Obama saying "you are a worthy addition to our family of Nobel prize winners," the Interfax agency reported.

The 78-year-old former Kremlin leader said that with his initiatives, Obama had considerably improved the diplomatic atmosphere around the world.

Geneva  - The end of the Cold War does not mean the nuclear arms race has ended, the last president of the Soviet Union warned Monday.

Speaking at a conference on nuclear disarmament at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Mikhail Gorbachev said there remained multiple obstacles to a nuclear-free world.

"The only way to eliminate nuclear danger is to eliminate nuclear weapons," said Gorbachev.

"There is a real threat of a real arms race and 'weaponization' of outer space," he told a forum attending the "Resetting the Nuclear Disarmament Agenda" seminar.

London, Sep 5 : Former President of USSR Mikhail Gorbachev has criticized Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for failing to fight corruption and for rolling back democracy in the country.

Gorbachev attacked Putin in an exclusive interview to The Times over his failure to convict the killers of prominent Kremlin critics such as the journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the dissident spy Alexander Litvinenko.

The former USSR President accused Europe and America of a failure to understand Russia since he started his glasnost and perestroika reforms of the Soviet Union almost a quarter of a century ago.

Moscow  - Oleg Shenin, one of the organizers of the failed 1991 coup against then Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev, died Thursday of unspecified illnesses, Russian television reported Saturday.

Shenin was head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in August 1991 when he, and a group of other hard-line Communists, attempted to steal control of the Soviet Union from Gorbachev.

The putsch failed and, after a short incarceration, Shenin was released from prison for health reasons. (dpa)

Berlin - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev criticized NATO and European Union (EU) policies towards Russia on Thursday, speaking on German radio.

The Nobel peace laureate said the eastern expansion of NATO had been a "big mistake," adding that the "unilateral actions" of the alliance were supposed to resolve many problems. "That didn't work," the 78-year-old said in his interview with Deutschlandfunk radio.

Washington, Apr 25 : Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to help his then American counterpart Ronald Reagan in case the United States was attacked from outer space.

Gorbachoev was appearing on Tuesday's Charlie Rose show on PBS along with George Shultz, Reagan's Secretary of State during the Gorbachev era.

Berlin  - Mikhail Gorbachev, 77-year-old last president of the Soviet Union, has become a great-grandfather, with his granddaughter Xenia giving birth to a baby girl, a German hospital said Wednesday.

The 3.91-kilogram child was born at Agatharied in Bavaria state. Agatharied said mother and child were both well. The former president heads his own foundation in the Russian capital Moscow. (dpa)

Moscow - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is planning the launch of new Russian political party with the support of billionaire and former KGB officer Aleksander Lebedev, Vedomosti newspaper reported Tuesday.

The new political grouping named the Independent Democratic Party (IDP) will aim at putting candidates into parliament in Russia's 2011 elections.

The IDP's main platform will be the development of independent state and social institutions and particularly a national television broadcaster that would not take orders from the government, Vedemosti reported.

Washington - The blame game between Russia and Georgia over who started the war and who continues to inflict more damage continued Friday, as former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev sparred with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on CNN.

Georgia may blame Russia for the conflict in South Ossetia, but "there is no doubt" that Georgia provoked the clash, Gorbachev told CNN's Larry King.

He said that Russia moved additional troops into South Ossetia to counter the "barbaric assault" of Georgia on the city of Tskhinvali.

London, June 5 : Former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev has said that the embalmed body of Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin should be moved from its mausoleum in Red Square and given a standard burial.

Lenin’s body has been on public display in a glass case since his death in 1924. His continuing presence in the symbolic heart of Moscow has been a source of controversy since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

London, May 7 : Former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev has warned that the United States could push the world into a new Cold War.

Delivering one of his most scathing attacks on Washington, Gorbachev told The Daily Telegraph that a US military build-up was under way to contain a resurgent Russia.

From Nato's expansion plans in the former Soviet Union to Washington's proposals for a bigger defence budget and a missile shield in central Europe, the US was deliberately quashing hopes for permanent peace with Russia, Gorbachev claimed.