Action man Putin ties transmitter on whale

September 16th, 2009 MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin handed over a 5000 dollar Swiss watch to a weapons manufacturing factory worker in Tula. According to The Telegraph, the metalworker put Putin in a spot after he gave a speech on the economy in the town of Tula.

August 5th, 2009 Putin again bares his torso in SiberiaMOSCOW — Vladimir Putin has once again stripped to the waist for photographers while visiting a rugged region of Siberia. The Russian prime minister rode a horse bare-chested and went swimming while visiting the Tuva region.

August 1st, 2009 IRKUTSK - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin who prides himself over his 'macho' image, on Saturday boarded a mini-submarine in southern Siberia in Russia and dived to the bottom of Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world and the largest freshwater lake in the world by volume. The 56 year-old was seen boarding the Mir-1 submarine before being hoisted into the water to begin his journey into the lake, which is also known as the "Blue Eye of Siberia," and contains more water than all of the North American Great Lakes combined, the AAP reported.

July 7th, 2009 MOSCOW - US President Barack Obama began his first meeting with Vladimir Putin Tuesday morning at the Russian prime minister's country residence outside Moscow. Obama, on his first visit to Russia since becoming president, held extensive talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday, resulting in a framework agreement for a new strategic arms reduction treaty.

July 7th, 2009 Putin says Obama meeting went wellMOSCOW — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says his first meeting with President Barack Obama went "very well." The former Russian president called the two-hour meeting "substantive, informative and collaborative." Putin told reporters he and Obama "covered the issues from previous years" and found "many positives" and "many points in common." Obama also had good things to say about their meeting Tuesday, and said he found Putin's views similar to those of Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev. Before heading to Russia, Obama had described Putin as still having a confrontational Cold War mentality, while the younger Medvedev seemed to understand that it was time for a new approach to U.S.-Russia relations.

July 3rd, 2009 Spokesman: Obama wrong about Russian premier PutinMOSCOW — President Barack Obama was wrong to suggest Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin remains partially mired in a Cold War mindset and is sure to change his opinion when they meet next week in Moscow, Putin's spokesman said Friday. Obama said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press that Putin needs to understand "that the old Cold War approaches to U.S.-Russian relations is outdated, that it's time to move forward in a different direction." Obama said he believes Russian President Dmitry Medvedev "understands that," but Putin "has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new." Obama makes his first trip as U.S.

July 3rd, 2009 Putin responds to Obama's criticismMOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says the U.S. president is wrong to suggest he remains mired in a Cold War mindset.

July 2nd, 2009 Obama says Putin lives partly in pastWASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is describing Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as someone who still has "one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new." He says one reason he's meeting with Putin — as well as with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (dih-MEE'-tree med-VYEH'-dyev) — during his upcoming visit to Moscow is that he wants Putin to know that "the old Cold War approaches" to relations with the United States are "outdated." Obama says Putin "still has sway" in Russia. He also says the U.S.

June 12th, 2009 Putin sends 85th birthday wishes to Bush Sr.MOSCOW — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has sent a telegram wishing former U.S. President George H.W.

June 10th, 2009 Russia might abandon nukes if other countries doMOSCOW — Russian news agencies are quoting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as saying that Russia is willing to abandon nuclear weapons if the United States and all other countries that have them do the same. State-owned RIA Novosti quotes Putin as saying that, "if those who made the atomic bomb and used it are ready to abandon it — like, I hope, other nuclear powers — of course we will welcome and facilitate this process in all ways." Interfax and RIA Novosti reported that Putin made the comments during a meeting Wednesday with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

June 1st, 2009 MOSCOW - Russia is ready to buy $10 billion worth of bonds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said. Putin said the money would be used to help countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

May 28th, 2009 WELLINGTON - A rare blue whale, measured at 27 metres long and estimated to weigh about 150 tonnes, has washed up dead on a New Zealand beach, news reports said Thursday. The animal, found by abalone divers in a remote spot near the northern tip of the South Island, had several shark bites, but whale expert Anton van Helden of the Te Papa national museum told the Dominion Post newspaper it was likely to have been attacked after dying at sea.

May 12th, 2009 TOKYO - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Moscow and Tokyo could resolve their existing territorial dispute by building mutual trust and developing strong economic ties. Putin, who arrived in Tokyo Monday, said he was in Japan to discuss a long-standing territorial dispute, along with economic, energy and international issues with the Japanese leadership.

May 11th, 2009 MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has hinted that he wants to comeback as president of the country in 2012. Putin said there was no decision as yet on whether he or his close ally Dmitry Medevedev, the current president, would run for office when Medvedev's four-year-stint in the job expires.

April 23rd, 2009 MOSCOW - There is outrage in the ruling United Russia party over a new brand of ice cream bearing the name of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The local branch of the party in Lipezk is angry about what it called the lack of political good taste and the profanation of his name, the Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported Wednesday.