Russia could balance its federal budget this year, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at a government presidium meeting Wednesday. "According to the data the Finance Ministry is putting out, we will most likely be able to bring the budget deficit down to zero this year," Putin said, noting that the 2011 budget deficit was planned last year at 3.6 percent of GDP. Putin said revenues and spending were balancing out and would each be approximately 11 trillion rubles ($370 billion) for the year.

A view of Hurricane Katia is seen from the International Space Station in a NASA handout picture taken Aug. 31. CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Ground controllers are figuring out how best to leave the International Space Station running — which lights to leave on, which vents to keep open — in case it needs to be temporarily abandoned. A Russian rocket carrying space station supplies failed during liftoff two weeks ago and crashed in Siberia.

The festival takes place in the cramped quarters of Teatr.doc and mixes well-known writers and newcomers. John Freedman The festival known as Lyubimovka is one of those intriguing misnomers that no one would think to question. Properly, Lyubimovka is the name of the rural estate northeast of Moscow that once belonged to the family of the famous director Konstantin Stanislavsky. Indeed, that is where the Lyubimovka Festival of Young Drama was held from its inception in 1990 until the year 2000.

Kommersant reporter Oleg Kashin has been awarded the same German press award that Anna Politkovskaya won in 2005, a year before her murder, Interfax reported. The Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media, awarded by the Media Foundation of Sparkasse Leipzig, goes to journalists and publishers who are "committed to the cause of protecting and expanding freedom of the press," the organization said on its web site Tuesday.

Late Polish President Lech Kaczynski's dislike of communism and distrust of Russia led him to block the appointment of any ambassadors who had studied in the Soviet Union, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks. Lech Kaczynski, elected president in 2005, died in a plane crash along with 95 others, mostly senior officials, on April 10, 2010, in Smolensk. His twin brother, Jaroslaw, served as prime minister in 2006 and 2007.

VimpelCom posted a 29 percent fall in its second-quarter net profit Wednesday, blaming higher interest and depreciation costs following its acquisition of Wind Telecom. The company, which bought a controlling stake in Orascom Telecom and Italy's Wind Telecom in a more than $6 billion deal in April, said its net profit fell to $239 million, including the results of the newly acquired assets from April 15, from $335 million a year ago.

Danish Queen Margrethe II, in pink, visiting the Grundfos factory in Istra. Vladimir Filonov ISTRA, Moscow Region — Elaborate orchestration marked the visit of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, clad in a bright pink suit and matching pillbox hat, to a new facility at Danish pump-making giant Grundfos' factory in the Moscow region on Wednesday. All female attendees to the event were instructed to wear skirts and all men slacks or suit pants.

Vladivostok investigators are looking into media reports that a drunken colleague of theirs got himself tossed out of a night club for harassing clubgoers and proceeded to crash his car outside, PrimaMedia.ru reported Tuesday. Fellow clubbers said the unidentified junior lieutenant was smashing drinking glasses and shouting that he did not care because he was a policeman. "I'm 'garbage' and I don't give a damn," he said, using a Russian derogatory term for police officers.

ALMATY — Kazakhstan's central bank "blacklisted" Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group as the government selects banks to manage initial public offerings of the nation's biggest companies, chairman Grigory Marchenko said Wednesday.

KIEV — Ukraine, seeking to renegotiate the terms of a 2009 natural gas supply deal with Moscow, plans to cut Russian fuel imports by two-thirds in the next three years, Energy and Coal Industry Minister Yury Boyko said. The former Soviet republic seeks to reduce imports from Gazprom to 12.5 billion cubic meters by 2015 from 40 bcm, Boyko told reporters Wednesday in Kiev.

Sept. 18 marks 100 years since Pyotr Stolypin, prime minister of imperial Russia from 1906 to 1911, was assassinated in Kiev. Stolypin was one of Russia’s foremost statesmen and one of the country’s most controversial as well. Stolypin does not fit into any of the standard categories that characterize most Russian politicians: reactionary or reformer, conservative or liberal, Slavophile or Westerner, pro-autocracy or pro-democracy.

Although 2011 is still far from over, it is already likely to go down in history as the year of the Arab Spring. It will be remembered as the year when Arab populations threw down the gauntlet to their stagnating regimes, revised their traditional authoritarian power model and at long last commenced the transition to democracy. It is also time to consider revising the European Union’s relationship with Russia, which has stagnated rather badly in recent years.

Sberbank is proceeding with privatization plans after a share rebound. Maxim Stulov Sberbank will be technically ready for a 7.6 percent stake sale by the end of the week, but the final decision depends on market conditions, three banking sources said Wednesday. "Preparations will be completed by the end of this week. If markets calm down, they [Sberbank] are likely to proceed with the placement," one of the sources said.

Police standing at the gate of Damascus’ central prison, adorned with photos of Syrian leader Bashar Assad.

PhosAgro posted a 156 percent rise in first-half net profit to 12.3 billion rubles ($415.3 million) on Wednesday and said prices of its farming commodities should remain stable at least until the end of the year thanks to tight supply conditions and farmers' desire to increase food output. Chief executive Maxim Volkov added in a conference call that the company would now consider an interim dividend payment on results for the first nine months of this year.