The organizers of the recent terrorist attacks on Moscow and Kizlyar and several suicide bombers have been identified, the Russian counter-terrorism committee said on Friday.

Ukraine plans to hold talks on upgrading the gas transit system with both Russia and the European Union, the country's prime minister said on Friday.

Another victim of bombings in the Moscow metro has died, bringing the total death toll to 40, a spokesman for the Russian health ministry said on Friday.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met Russian medalists of the 2010 Vancouver Paralympic Games in the Moscow Kremlin on Friday to personally award them state prizes.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will make his first visit to Venezuela later on Friday for bilateral talks with Venezuelan President  Hugo Chavez.

Further development in economic relations between Russia and China is impossible without an increase in bilateral investments, a leading Russian researcher said.

The German-based carmaker Daimler has been fined $185 million (137 million euros) after admitting to paying tens of millions of dollars of bribes to foreign governments, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Friday.

U.S. President Barack Obama has spoken to his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao about the importance of "working together" on the issue of Iran's nuclear program.

Ukraine is relying on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for a project to modernize Ukraine's gas transportation system, the Ukrainian prime minister said.

The former Georgian republic of Abkhazia hopes Bolivia and Ecuador may soon recognize its independence, the republic's foreign minister said on Friday.

"We expect Bolivia and Ecuador to recognize the independence of Abkhazia soon because there is a positive attitude to our country there," Maxim Gvindzhiya, who is heading the Abkhaz delegation in Latin America, told journalists. 

The delegation has visited Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador.

Russia recognized Abkhazia and another breakaway republic, South Ossetia, as independent shortly after a five-day war with Georgia in August 2008 that began when Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia in an attempt to bring it back under central control.

Nicaragua, Venezuela and the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru have also recognized the two former Georgian republics.

RIA Novosti

The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of the the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will hold a meeting in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, on Friday to discuss stepping up efforts to combat terrorism, the Russian delegation's head has said.