-Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has urged the US to move relations forward by shelving plans for a missile defence shield in Europe.
His comments come ahead of a summit between US President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dimitry Medvedev.
They serve, correspondents say, as a clear sign that the powerful former president will have to be taken into account during the negotiations.
Mr Obama is preparing to visit Moscow between 6 and 8 July.
Reducing both countries' nuclear stockpiles, as well as Iran and North Korea, will be on the agenda when he meets Mr Medvedev.
'Two feet'
Mr Obama said on Thursday that the US was developing a "very good relationship" with the Russian president. But, says the BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow, Mr Putin has persistently made it clear that it is he - not his successor - who takes all the key decisions.
Mr Putin said the US needed to change its policy on siting a missile defence shield in Europe and on expanding military blocs - a reference to Nato expansion into Eastern Europe.
"If we see [that] our American partners refrain from deploying new missile complexes, anti-missile defence systems, or for example review their approach to widening military-political blocs... this would be a big movement forward," Interfax news agency quoted Mr Putin as saying.
Russian officials earlier told the BBC that they were optimistic of a major step forward in negotiating further cuts to nuclear arsenals at the summit.
But, our correspondent says, Moscow's long-held objections to America's missile shield plans have always been a potential obstacle to an agreement on disarmament.
On Tuesday, Mr Obama urged Russia to end "old Cold War approaches" to ties - and described Mr Putin as having one foot in the past.
Mr Putin hit back. Russians, he said, "stand solidly on their own two feet and always look to the future".
Read more!
-A rogue trader at a London oil broker caused his employer to lose $10m (£6m) after making unauthorised trades.
PVM Oil Futures said it was a "victim of unauthorised trading" on Tuesday, 30 June, and said it was now conducting a full investigation.
The rogue trader, believed to be Steve Perkins, has been suspended.
PVM said it had informed the Financial Services Authority and the InterContinental Exchange (ICE), the location for much European oil trade.
The trades are thought to have caused a jump in the price of Brent crude oil on Tuesday. PVM said it was now conducting business as normal.
"As a result of a series of unauthorised trades, substantial volumes of futures contracts were held by PVM. When this was discovered, the positions were closed in an orderly fashion. PVM suffered a loss totalling a little under $10m," the company said in a statement.
"There are a range of procedures that are followed to look at trading patterns, price movement and levels of activity," explained David Peniket, the president of ICE Futures Europe, which trades futures and energy and commodity contracts.
"It will investigate and follow up, and where appropriate, action will be taken," he added.
Rogue trade
On Tuesday morning, the price of Brent crude rose about $2 a barrel in the space of an hour, hitting $73.50 a barrel before reversing sharply in volatile trade.
In that time, contracts for 16 million barrels of oil changed hands - 32 times the normal level - equivalent to double the daily production of Saudi Arabia. By the time PVM sold the futures contracts the trader had bought, the price had fallen, which is why PVM booked losses of $10m, Nick McGregor at Redmayne Bentley told the BBC.
"In the very small hours, while volumes are relatively low during Asian trading because most of London is asleep, an awful lot of business went through and as it turns out it all came from the same source," Mr McGregor said.
"This all happened within an hour at about two o'clock in the morning, and of course in a thin market at that sort of time, it doesn't take an awful lot to move the price."
With volume so thin, the trade stood out, which is why the "rogue trade" has emerged so quickly, he added.
"Firms have systems to pick up oddities and anomalies, but of course at two o'clock in the morning, I am sure it rang a little bell. The question is how fast were they able to get on top of it and deal with it," he said.
Oil is the world's most heavily traded commodity, with trading centred on the ICE in London and the New York Mercantile Exchange or Nymex.
Brokerages like PVM place orders on behalf of large banks and hedge funds.
On Friday morning, Brent crude oil hovered above $66 a barrel in light holiday trading.
Read more!
-UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on Burma's military junta to release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners.
Mr Ban made the request during talks with Gen Than Shwe in the remote administrative capital Nay Pyi Taw.
He also asked to be able to visit Ms Suu Kyi in jail in person, but said he had not yet been given permission.
Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, has spent much of the past two decades in prison or under house arrest.
Her trial, on charges of breaking the terms of her house arrest, has been adjourned for another week.
Mr Ban said he had had "a very frank and extensive exchange of views on all the matters of the spectrum of issues pertaining to Myanmar [Burma]," during nearly two hours of talks with Gen Than Shwe, the country's top military leader.
Mr Ban said he had been assured that elections planned for 2010 would be "held in a fair, free and transparent manner".
"I proposed and I urged that all political prisoners should be released before this election begins, so that this election can be all inclusive," the AFP news agency quoted him as saying.
Burma's political prisoners are thought to number about 2,100.
Risky trip
Mr Ban said he had also asked Gen Than Shwe whether he could see Ms Suu Kyi in person before he left Burma. "He told me that she is on trial but I told him this is my proposal, this is important and I am waiting for their consideration and reply," said Mr Ban.
When asked when he was expecting an answer from the junta, Mr Ban replied: "I am leaving tomorrow, so logically speaking I am waiting for a reply before my departure."
If Mr Ban is eventually allowed to meet Ms Suu Kyi, he would be the first UN secretary general to do so.
The trial of 64-year-old Ms Suu Kyi has caused outrage around the world.
Critics of Burma's military government have dismissed it as a ruse to keep the opposition leader locked up until after next year's election.
Ms Suu Kyi's lawyers have been appealing against the judge's ban on testimony from three defence witnesses. One additional defence witness will be allowed to testify.
"The Supreme Court did not send the case files to the lower court, so the case has been adjourned until July 10," said her lawyer, Nyan Win. He added Ms Suu Kyi had expressed surprise at the further delay.
The BBC's Laura Trevelyan, in Nay Pyi Taw, says Mr Ban is thought to believe he has a rapport with Gen Than Shwe.
But the UN always knew this would be a risky trip, and so far Mr Ban has not managed to gain any concessions from Burma's ruling generals, says our correspondent. In his opening statement to the junta leader, Mr Ban had said he appreciated the general's "commitment to move the country forward".
"I would like to contribute, to work together, for peace and prosperity," he said.
The government called national polls in May 1990 which Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won convincingly, but the junta refused to hand over control, and has remained in power ever since.
The BBC's Jonathan Head says the failure of many previous UN missions to Burma has at least lowered expectations of this one.
But Mr Ban needs to come away with something more than a few token prisoner releases if he is to avoid charges that his visit is merely being used by Burma's military rulers to boost their legitimacy, our correspondent says.
Success and failure
This is Mr Ban's first visit to Burma since he persuaded the junta in May 2008 to accept international aid in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, which killed nearly 140,000 people. Critics say there is little sign that the UN has wrung any other concessions from the regime.
But some analysts speculate that Mr Ban may have been given an indication by the generals that the visit could harbour some kind of positive result.
Ms Suu Kyi was transferred from house arrest to prison in May after an American man swam to her lakeside house. She faces up to five years in jail if convicted.
Human Rights Watch said Mr Ban should not accept the return of Ms Suu Kyi to house arrest as a sign of a successful visit.
"Time and again, the UN has politely requested Aung San Suu Kyi's release, but her 'release' back to house arrest would be a huge failure," said executive director Kenneth Roth.
The NLD leader led a revolt against Burmese dictator Gen Ne Win in 1988, calling for peaceful democratic reform and free elections.
But her movement was brutally suppressed by the army, which seized power in a coup on 18 September 1988.
Read more!
-Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has announced she will resign as governor of Alaska on 26 July and not run for re-election.
Mrs Palin's term of office was due to end in 2010.
There has been speculation that Mrs Palin, who is very popular with the Republican Party base, might make a bid for the White House in 2012.
Her resignation means Alaska's Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell will take over as state governor.
'New direction'
Polls indicated Mrs Palin was very popular in Alaska during the first few years of her governorship, and although her approval ratings have dipped somewhat since her vice-presidential run, she still enjoys widespread popularity in her home state.
Mrs Palin announced her decision in a statement from her home town of Wasilla, Alaska.
"I'm taking my fight for what's right in a new direction," she said, as her family looked on.
Mrs Palin did not reveal what she intended to do after leaving office, and did not give an explicit reason for her decision not to run for re-election.
But in a written statement, she made it clear that once she had decided not to run again, she did not want to hang on in office until her term expired.
"Once I decided not to run for re-election, I also felt that to embrace the conventional Lame Duck status in this particular climate would just be another dose of politics as usual, something I campaigned against and will always oppose," she said.
Read more!
-AROUND 200 Sovanna Shopping Centre vendors were threatened by district police and prevented from boarding buses set to take them to Prime Minister Hun Sen's Kandal province residence on Thursday, where they had planned to protest high rents at the mall.
"This morning we rented two buses, but district police came to warn the drivers that if they took us to the prime minister's house they would have a problem," said Thea Neapy, a shoe seller at Sovanna.
"A lot of district police with guns banned us from getting into the bus ... and said we have no right to go to the PM's house."
Thea Neapy accused the police of having been paid off by the market owner, who "knows that if we go to Hun Sen's house he will help us".
Driver Thy Na said police told him not to allow market vendors into his vehicle and told him to "go back home" if he didn't want "problems".Yem Dany, a cloth vendor at the market, said she was kicked by police outside the mall as the buses left the scene.
"They have no right to kick me like this. If they are so strong, they should go to Preah Vihear and fight with the Thais instead," she said.
Vendors from the mall, located in Chamkarmon district, managed to meet with representatives of the prime minister after making their way to Takhmao in tuk-tuks and private cars.
Two tuk-tuks full of protesters were stopped and detained by police near Takhmao Bridge, one vendor said, but were released after the police received a phone call from Hun Sen's staff.
They were then invited to speak with Nouv Ra, the prime minister's Cabinet chief, who said he would forward their concerns to City Hall.
"We told him we would like to reduce the price by 30 percent because of the economic crisis," said the vendor, who declined to be named.
"We will close our shops until we get a resolution."
Chesda Metrey, the head of Sovanna Shopping Centre, said the mall had "a lot of problems", and that he would not reduce the rental price for vendors.
"The vendors should already know our policy. We reduce the price by 13 percent for vendors who are under a 10-year lease, and 10 percent for a two-year lease," he said.
Chamkarmon district police Chief Ouch Sokhon declined to comment when contacted Thursday.
Read more!
