Moscow - Russia halted plans to deploy Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, citing a shift in US policy on missile defence with US President Barack Obama, a top military official was quoted by news agency Interfax as saying on Wednesday.

"Russia doesn't need the Iskander missiles if there won't be any US missile defence elements in Eastern Europe," the agency cited the unnamed official in Russia's military general staff as saying.

Moscow  - The Russ

London - Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said on Tuesday that his club have not agreed a fee to sign Russian forward Andrei Arshavin.

Arshavin's club, Zenit St Petersburg, said on Monday night that only personal terms remained to be agreed, but Wenger denied that any agreement was in place.

"(Rumours of an agreed fee) are not true," the Frenchman said.

"In this job "far" doesn't mean a lot. I believe that we are not close to concluding any transfer, Arshavin or anybody else.

Geneva - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been slated to open the 39th Davos World Economic Forum this Wednesday as world politicians are expected to take centre stage in dealing with the ongoing financial and economic crisis.

Forty heads of state and government are expected to attend the annual event in the Swiss ski resort, more than double the number that attended last year.

Brussels - Ukraine will stand by the terms of the deal which ended its gas row with Russia, even though not all the details are to its liking, President Viktor Yushchenko said on Tuesday.

"The agreements signed are not easy ones, but Ukraine fully takes up the performance (of its commitments) and guarantees full-fledged transit to European consumers," Yushchenko told journalists in Brussels after a meeting with the head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso.

Moscow - The Russian Orthodox Church will elect a new leader Tuesday for the first time since the collapse of the officially atheist communist regime in 1991.

A full church council of 711 bishops, monks and lay people from the former Soviet Union gathered in Moscow's massive Christ the Savior Cathedral to vote on a short-list of three candidates selected by church hierarchs on the weekend.

Clergy clad in ceremonial garb intoned a liturgy that resonated against the gilded vaults of the cathedral to open the proceedings Tuesday.