MOSCOW. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has sought to defend his controversial plan to seek a third mandate as president, saying Russia needed stability and was only a few steps from a return to the collapse of the 1990s.

In a rare acknowledgment of public discontent, Mr Putin said his political opponents claim ''everything is so bad, that it could not get worse''. ''Saying that things cannot get worse, I would be careful … Everything here is tacked together, both in politics and in the economy,'' Mr Putin said in a startling admission of the fragility of the stability that he prides himself on bringing to Russia.



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Russia's hardest working man... Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Credit:Reuters

King sacks government

JORDAN. King Abdullah II of Jordan, under growing pressure to accelerate political reform and genuine anti-corruption measures, has fired his government just eight months after doing so for similar reasons.