The director of the independent Levada Center says the polling organization could be forced to close down after Russian prosecutors warned that it must register as a "foreign agent."

In the U.S. state of Oklahoma, at least 24 people have been killed and scores of others injured by a huge tornado. The twister was nearly a kilometer wide and packed winds of up to 320 kilometers per hour. RFE/RL correspondent Antoine Blua talked to Dr. Liz Bentley, a member of Britain’s Royal Meteorological Society, to get the lowdown on this often devastating natural phenomenon.

In a corner of a park in the U.S. capital lies an unexpected memorial to some of Russia's greatest writers. Washington's Alley of Russian Poets, a short path lined with trees and plaques, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.

The spokesman for Iran's Guardians Council -- the oversight body that vets all the country's election candidates -- has said that physically weak candidates will not be allowed to run. The comments appear to be a reference to the age of 78-year-old presidential hopeful Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is considered a challenge to Iran’s establishment.

A museum of the Stalin-era prison camp system in central Kazakhstan has given visitors a night-time tour, where they were "treated" to prison meals and a performance of mock interrogations.

Georgia’s strict laws on marijuana have become the subject of a hot debate in the former Soviet republic as the government considers decriminalizing the use of cannabis.

After two decades as Russia's marquee company, is Gazprom losing its mojo? A changing energy market and emergence of new energy sources is challenging the company's longtime dominance.

Bosko and Admira, who became known to the world as Sarajevo's Romeo and Juliet, were killed on a bridge in the Bosnian capital 20 years ago.

Each year, the U.S. green-card lottery awards tickets to American citizenship to a lucky 55,000 applicants. But now, the program itself may have run out of luck, becoming collateral in deal-making between Democrat and Republican lawmakers as they attempt a massive overhaul of the U.S. immigration system.