To the outside world, the resort of Sheregesh is as well known for Yeti as skiing or snowboarding.

'The Siberian pine is just divine: that is the overwhelming verdict of riders hurtling round the thrilling new velodrome at 2012 Olympics', reported Reuters.

'We've got to punish singers financially', Irina Ruzankina's lawyer said, adding that there will be '12 claims altogether, like 12 apostles'.

The unnamed third year student from Dagestan was excluded for wearing a headscarf against the university's rules.

Schoolboy 'finds giant footprint in clay near campsite'.

Vlada Dzyuba, 14, was dreaming of catwalk stardom, but now her parents 'cannot afford to fly her body home' to bury her.

He emphasised the importance of the economically buoyant Asian-Pacific region as critical to the development of Russia as Western markets stall.

Going by train all the way from Beijing (or even London) to New York could become a reality.

Once Britain was hailed around the world for its giants of science - figures like Sir Isaac Newton, Alexander Fleming and more recently Stephen Hawking.

Success as Novosibirsk State now rubs shoulders with the likes of Yale and Harvard in the United States and Oxford and Cambridge in Britain.