Screams in the smoke as Moscow rush hour turned to horror

Amid the jostling crowds squeezing their way on to the packed train at Lubyanka, no one gave the silent, bulkily dressed woman a second glance. It was minutes before 8 o?clock and she was just one of the seven million passengers due on the Moscow Metro that day.

Burmese opposition votes to boycott election

Burma?s opposition chose loyalty to its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, over participation in the country?s first election for 20 years in a momentous decision that will lead to its dissolution as a legal party.

Desire shares plunge after Falklands drilling delivers poor results

The shares of two companies drilling for oil and gas off the coast of the Falkland Islands fell sharply today after a disappointing early progress report.

Police hunt 'Black Widow' suicide bomb gang

Police in Moscow say that the two women suicide bombers who blew themselves up on packed underground trains this morning were accompanied by other women.

Burmese bus drivers are spared the rod

There are few regimes in the world with a worse human rights record than the military dictatorship of Burma. But now comes a rare piece of good news: in an unaccustomed act of soft-heartedness, the Government has ordered that bus drivers are no longer to be caned for accepting passengers.

In depth: the Black Widows

Chechen terrorist groups have regularly recruited women to act as suicide bombers or ?Black Widows?.

City did not close Metro after first bomb

Moscow failed to shut down its underground network today despite the 8am bomb attack at Lubyanka station ? sending passengers blindly into the path of a second rush hour blast and possibly increasing the death toll.

South Korean warship 'may have hit old mine'

The explosion which split in two a South Korean naval ship may have been caused by a sixty-year old sea mine, the country?s defence minister said yesterday, as rescuers spent a fourth day searching for the 46 missing sailors believed to have gone down with the vessel close to the disputed border with North Korea.

Analysis: why have the Moscow bombers struck now?

The return of devastating terrorism to Moscow has brought horror back to the lives of ordinary Russians and represents a defeat for the Kremlin?s strategy of containing an Islamist insurgency inside the confines of North Caucasus.

Rio Tinto sacks four executives jailed in China for bribery

Rio Tinto, the Anglo-Australian mining giant, has sacked four iron ore executives after a Chinese court sentenced them to jail terms ranging from seven to 14 years for commercial espionage and taking bribes.

Timeline - terror linked to Russia's Chechen wars

Russia has repeatedly been racked by violent acts since the first Chechen war of December 1994 to August 1996, in which the Russian security forces invaded the internally-divided rebel republic and tried to bring it to heel. Tens of thousands of civilians died in the conflict, which was highly controversial even in Russia.

Rio Tinto executive sentenced to 12 years in China

A Chinese court has sentenced an Australian executive of mining giant Rio Tinto to 12 years in jail on charges of bribery and commercial espionage.