Topic: Viktor Chernomyrdin

Former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin was buried Friday in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery in a service attended by Russia's top leaders.

Former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin died early Wednesday morning at 72, Russian media reported.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday Ukraine's threats to expel its ambassador is another attempt to sour relations between the two neighbors.

The most fascinating energy development of the last 14 months has been the furious, if covert, struggle involving Russia, China and the United States to develop Turkmenistan's vast natural gas deposits since the death of Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov in December 2006.

Joining NATO will demand sacrifices and additional efforts from Ukraine, such as fulfilling the Membership Action Plan.

What a difference nine months makes. Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, nine months ago a relatively unknown Turkmen apparatchik, made his first official visit to the United States, attending the opening of the United Nations' 62nd General Assembly and dazzling the Bush administration with promises of Western access to Turkmen energy resources. Given longstanding Turkmen grievances against Russia underpaying for its most valuable export, against all odds Washington might have staked a tentative claim to the Caspian basin’s last underdeveloped hydrocarbon assets, which Moscow formerly saw as its own. If the negotiations come to fruition, they represent an astonishing turnaround in U.S. fortunes in Ashgabat, which up to now have been marked by a mixture of indifference and ineptitude.

The death of Turkmen leader Saparmurat Niyazov last Dec. 21 set off an unseemly but discreet scramble among a number of nations eager for access to the world's

Today is Monday, March 27, the 86th day of 2006 with 279 to follow.

Russia is raising the cost of natural gas for Ukraine to a level comparable to the cost of the commodity in Europe.

Today is Sunday, March 27, the 86th day of 2005 with 279 to follow.