VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Russia issued a new warning on Monday that it would retaliate if the European Union or Ukraine push ahead with moves to implement a free-trade agreement.

As India celebrated becoming the first Asian nation to reach Mars, S.M. Vaidya, head of business at conglomerate Godrej's aerospace division that made the spacecraft's engine and thruster components, sounded surprisingly downbeat.

Rosneft (ROSN.MM), Russia's biggest crude oil producer, may back out of a deal to buy Morgan Stanley (MS.N)'s oil trading unit because Western sanctions make it virtually impossible to finance day-to-day operations, three sources close to the state-controlled company said.

A selloff on Ukraine's dollar debt is focusing attention on a controversial $3 billion bond held by Russia, raising investor concerns that President Vladimir Putin could use the issue to trigger a cascade of defaults across Kiev's sovereign Eurobonds.

The European Union is quietly increasing the urgency of a plan to import natural gas from Iran, as relations with Tehran thaw while those with top gas supplier Russia grow chillier.

India's low-cost mission to Mars successfully entered the red planet's orbit on Wednesday, crowning what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said was a "near impossible" push to become the only country to complete the trip on its maiden attempt.

Scotland's rejection of independence and a lack of any fireworks at a Fed meeting last week have calmed investors enough to shift the focus back to what some call the "Great Stagnation", and how to avoid it.

The U.S. drive to end its reliance on Russian rocket motors got a boost this week when Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos unveiled a new engine project, but officials and industry insiders say it will take years and hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a locally built alternative.

Financial leaders of the Group of 20 top economies remain committed to chasing higher global growth, but were divided on how to achieve it as Germany pushed back at calls from the United States and others for more immediate stimulus.

NASA will partner with Boeing and SpaceX to build commercially owned and operated "space taxis" to fly astronauts to the International Space Station, ending U.S. dependence on Russia for rides, officials said on Tuesday.

Russia risks slipping into recession because the government is not investing enough in the economy to weather Western sanctions, former finance minister Alexei Kudrin said on Tuesday, criticizing the strategy so far.

The drop in oil prices to their lowest in two years has caught many observers off guard, coming against a backdrop of the worst violence in Iraq this decade, heightened tensions between the West and Russia, and sanctions against Iran.

A chance to buy the candy empire of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is the kind of opportunity in a fast-growing market that would normally have multinational confectioners - like Nestle or Cadbury's parent Mondelez - drooling at the prospect.

The head of Russia's natural resources ministry said on Friday foreign oil services companies would find it difficult to return to Russia as Western sanctions would give Russian firms the opportunity to take their place in the Russian market.

One in three German companies expect business with Russia to decline sharply this year as a result of economic sanctions imposed due to the Ukraine crisis, a German business lobby group said on Tuesday.