MOSCOW, July 31 (RIA Novosti) - A Russian regional court has given a deputy director of a local branch of Russia"s Civil Service Academy a 3 1/2 year suspended sentence for bribery. The court in Vladimir, to the east of Moscow, found Vladimir Starostin, a professor at the Academy"s management department, guilty of receiving a 100,000 ruble ($4,200) bribe in February this year from an applicant for helping him to become a student, local prosecutors said. The judgment comes as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a plan on Thursday to counter Russia"s rampant corruption. The president, a former lawyer, has made the fight against corruption one of his top priorities, signing a decree setting up a presidential anti-corruption council just two weeks after his inauguration.
A small plane crashed into a building in the U.S. state of Virginia on Tuesday; the pilot later died and the passenger was injured, the Roanoke Times reported citing airport officials and eyewitnesses.
MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia"s Defense Ministry is preparing a response to a U.S. revision of its missile shield plans in Central Europe, the Russian defense minister said on Thursday.