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MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s foreign minister sternly warned Washington Saturday that any attempt to put a draft resolution on Syria to vote at the United Nations would lead to “scandal,” a blunt warning that Moscow is prepared to use its veto power.

Sergey Lavrov said in an interview broadcast on Russian state television Rossiya that Moscow had submitted its amendments to the Western-backed draft. He said that Russia hopes that “bias will not prevail over common sense.”

“If they want another scandal at the U.N. Security Council, we wouldn’t be able to stop them,” Lavrov said, voicing hope that Washington wouldn’t put the draft to vote.

The U.N. Security Council is expected to meet Saturday morning to take up a Syria resolution.

Russia and China, which wield veto power at the Security Council, have blocked previous Western attempts to impose sanctions on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime over its crackdown on protests. The U.N. has said that more than 5,400 people have been killed in violence since March. Hundreds more have been killed since that tally was announced, and activists say 200 died in the city of Homs on Saturday.

Russia is opposing any U.N. call for regime change or a military intervention in Syria, its last remaining ally in the region.

The U.S. and its partners have ruled out military action but want the U.N. body to endorse an Arab League plan that calls on Assad to hand power over to Syria’s vice president.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke with Lavrov by phone on Friday, and was to meet with him later in the day on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. Ahead of that, Clinton told the conference she was hopeful that the U.N. would be able to come to an agreement later in the day:

“As a tyrant in Damascus brutalizes his own people, America and Europe stand shoulder to shoulder. We are united, alongside the Arab League, in demanding an end to the bloodshed and a democratic future for Syria. And we are hopeful that at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time in New York the Security Council will express the will of the international community,” she said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia sought to delay a U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution aimed at ending the bloodshed in Syria, warning on Saturday of a “scandal” if the current draft was put to council members, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s remarks, which Itar-Tass said came in an interview to be aired on state-run Rossiya-1 television, suggest Russia would likely veto the resolution if its latest proposed amendments were not taken into account.

“If they want another scandal for themselves in the Security Council, then we probably cannot stop them,” Lavrov said, according to Itar-Tass. Rossiya-1 said the interview was recorded early on Saturday.

Lavrov said he hoped the draft - scheduled to be put to a vote at 1500GMT on Saturday - would not come to a vote without changes “because our amendments to this draft are well-known.”

“I sent them to (U.S. Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton yesterday, and to our representative at the United Nations to convey them to our partners,” Lavrov was quoted as saying.

“The reasonableness and objectivity of these amendments should not raise any doubts. I hope that a prejudiced view does not prevail over common sense.”

Activists said on Saturday that more than 200 people had been killed in shelling by Syrian forces in the city of Homs, ahead the U.N. vote.

In the remarks reported by Itar-Tass, Lavrov gave no detail about the proposed changes in the resolution, which gives “full support” to an Arab League plan that calls for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to cede power.

Western and Arab nations that have pushed for Assad to give up power after an 11-month government crackdown that the United Nations says has led to more than 5,000 deaths are struggling to overcome Russian resistance to Security Council action.

REVISED

They revised a draft resolution first circulated last month to deal with Russia’s concerns, adding some language it wanted and removing sections that Moscow had suggested would prompt it to use its veto power as a permanent Council member.

The latest draft, circulated by Morocco on Thursday, makes no specific mention of what the Arab League plan to end the bloodshed entails, such as Assad giving up power.

However, it still “fully supports” the plan, which Russia has complained contains too many specifics that could predetermine the outcome of a settlement dialogue between the government and its opponents.

Russia has said political decisions such as a transfer of power must be made only as a result of dialogue inside Syria, not set in advance from outside.

It has also said previous Western drafts put to much blame for the bloodshed on the government, while Russia says militant opponents of Assad are behind much of the violence.

Assad’s government has given post-Soviet Russia its firmest foothold in the Middle East, buying Russian weapons and hosting a naval maintenance facility on its Mediterranean coast that is Russia’s only military base outside the former Soviet Union.

Russia and China vetoed a European-drafted resolution on Syria in October, with the Kremlin saying it put too little blame on Assad’s opponents and could have opened the way to Western military intervention.

Russia allowed a Security Council resolution authorizing air strikes on Libya by abstaining in a vote last year and then accused the United States and its NATO allies of overstepping its bounds and using it to help rebels oust Muammar Gaddafi.

(Writing by Steve Gutterman)

Prokhorov, who made his money in nickel, aluminum and gold, has flown to Siberia for the day, to the country’s third-largest city, part of his last-minute bid for the top job. As one of Russia’s richest men, he’s challenging Russia’s most powerful man.

And that man, Putin, has acknowledged that the election might go to a second round — though Prokhorov still has an uphill climb if he’s to be a part of it.

“The government has to work for the people, not the reverse,” Prokhorov says.

It sounds like an applause line, and he uses it often, but it sails right past the thousand curious residents who have packed the enormous Mayakovsky Cinema to hear him speak. However, when he talks about keeping Novosibirsk tax money at work in Novosibirsk instead of shipping it off to Moscow, the hall erupts in applause.

The fabulously wealthy, world-traveling business titan says he wants a “democracy of taxpayers” instead of a corrupt culture of chiseling and extortion. He promises to dismantle what Putin calls the “vertical of power,” under which all authority is concentrated in the Kremlin, by creating an independent judiciary and restoring elections for local officials. He says he is for competition in every field — politics, business, science, what have you.

Prokhorov says the prime minister and parliament have to be a strong counterweight to the president. He says his first act as president would be to pardon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil magnate who was destroyed and imprisoned by Putin, and offer him the prime minister’s post. (Prokhorov fondly calls him “Misha” and a friend.) He says the top 200 officials in government, and their families, would have to sell their business holdings. He says he would sell off state-owned television.

If all this was to happen, it would fundamentally reshape the country. But first, Prokhorov has to convince a skeptical public that he’s for real. An oligarch with no political experience, he’s asking Russians to trust him with the presidency. The rich, as a rule, aren’t popular. But judging by the reaction of those who turn out at the Mayakovsky and sit through two hours of QA, they’re at least willing to give him a hearing.

A questioner asks whether he would take a post in government if he doesn’t win — which seems very likely, because Putin still has huge advantages heading into the election. It depends, he says. But his main goal at the moment is to force a second round, by keeping Putin under 50 percent and emerging as the second-place finisher.

It takes a lot to make the circus of the Republican presidential nomination campaign look civil, democratic and enlightened. But if there’s anything that can be counted upon to reliably do so, it’s reading about Russian politics, which are even more of a mess.

The country is gearing up for presidential elections, which will be held on March 4th. The favorite is two time former president Vladimir Putin, one of the grimmest figures in global affairs. His four opponents include Mikhail Prokhorov, the third-richest man in Russia and Vladimir Zhirinovsky, whom the BBC says is often described as “something of a clown.” The choices are far from ideal. Activists have already protested, and plan to continue to protest, what many see as Putin’s unfair meddling.

In typical Russian fashion, though, others are responding with dark humor rather than tears. One such fellow is the owner of a Moscow cafe, who took the time on Thursday to draw the faces of the five candidates in cappuccinos for an AP photographer.

Here’s the man pouring the coffee:

And here are the results:

From left, clockwise: portraits of presidential candidates Sergei Mironov, Mikhail Prokhorov, Gennady Zyuganov, Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Vladimir Putin, created with cinnamon- and cocoa-powder-adorned cups of cappuccino at a Moscow coffee house on Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

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In an audio recording made and posted online by the internet hacktivists Anonymous, a number of Federal agents both in the US and the UK can be heard discussing work and chuckling at each other’s awkward jokes.

After a rather odd discussion on whether there really is a McDonalds in the Pentagon – and gleeful confirmation of the existence of one in Sheffield – the agents get down to the point of their conference: whether dual interviews with suspects are possible, the delayed arrests of several teenagers suspected of being hackers, and unnamed “operational matters.”

But the most intriguing part of the conference comes after a US agent thanks his UK counterparts for their help. “We are here to help,” came the reply. “We know we’ve cocked up in the past.”

Unfortunately for those with Kipling’s mongoose syndrome of wanting to know all, the London field office does not elaborate on how exactly it has cocked up in the past – or whether the comment was related solely to the Bureau’s battle with hacker groups like Anonymous, LulzSec, Antisec and others.

The FBI has already reacted, saying the leaked recording was confidential,and that the information revealed “was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained.” The Bureau also added in its statement that it is “hunting those responsible”.

For the moment, however, the score is clearly in Anonymous’ favor as they continue to catch the FBI agents off guard with their weekly #FFF – or FuckFBIFriday – leaks.

Moscow’s gallery directors agree: the contemporary Russian art market is undervalued and poorly integrated into the global scene. They reached the conclusion during a discussion of the key problems facing art investment in Russia and abroad.

­The roundtable, organized by Troika Dialog, featured a number of Russian and foreign insiders including Art Director for the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art Joseph Backstein, and Managing Director of Christie’s Russia, Matthew Stephenson.

“Contemporary art is becoming the leading field,” Stephenson remarked, saying it has recently overtaken its closest rivals, Asian Art and Impressionist Art.

“The Russian art market is highly undervalued, and this makes it a fantastic investment,” said contemporary gallery owner Aidan Salakhova.

The problem is that any serious art investment demands not only knowledge of the mechanisms and trends of the global market, but also expertise in art.

“The difference between a Russian and a foreign art collector is that Russians need to be educated and foreigners don’t,” explained Salakhova, who advises aspiring art collectors.

“I tell them not to buy anything for two or three months, as it takes time to set up your goals clearly. During this period we just look around, visiting various exhibitions to find out what is it they want to collect,” she added.

“The first thing to do is to invest in art education,” Backstein suggested. “A professional art background is the ‘weakest link’ in Russia.”

Figures released Friday by the US Labor Department declare that the unemployment rate has dropped to 8.3 percent. While economists applaud the latest news, the reality is improvement comes only after 3 million jobless Americans are unaccounted for.

While job creation exceeded expectations for January, those experiencing long-term unemployment — those jobless for longer than six months, that is — remains at a record high.

In a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts, it’s revealed that those suffering the longest from the unemployment epidemic exceed any monthly statistic dating back to the Second World War. The Labor Department figures that 5.5 million would-be workers have been without employment for 27 weeks or longer, accounting for around 42.9 percent of the total tally of unemployed Americans.

The consulting firm Hamilton Place Strategies based out of Washington estimates that as many as 3 million additional unemployed workers have been without jobs for just as long but are not taken into consideration by the US government. For those unfortunate many, the Department of Labor simply stops including them in statistics once they are determined to have simply “given up” on the job hunt. They add in their study, however, that even if bettering economic conditions prompt those considered to have given up to reevaluate the job hunt, the government’s “official” unemployment rate may once again surge to unfavorable numbers as the country’s still staggering economy would not be able to create work for them.

Additionally, the government has identified around 2.8 million Americans “marginally attached” to the job market in January. Per their own definition, that accounts for those who want to work and have looked for working during the last year but have not concentrated their efforts on the job hunt during the last month. They are also not accounted for in the Labor Department’s unemployment figure.

Speaking on Thursday before the US House of Representatives Committee on the Budget, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke addressed the issue. He admitted that the US economy “has been gradually recovering from the recent deep recession,” but called long-term unemployment figures still “particularly troubling.”

“More than 40 percent of the unemployed have been jobless for more than six months, roughly double the fraction during the economic expansion of the previous decade,” explained Bernanke. “We still have a long way to go before the labor market can be said to be operating normally.”

Gus Faucher, a senior economist at PNC Financial Services, adds to the Washington Post, “We’ve dug a big hole, and though we’ve been filling it in, we’ve still got a lot more to go.”

New Zealand authorities have again denied Kim Dotcom bail, based on their insistence that the towering, bulky behemoth behind the Megaupload website will flee the country and escape international persecution.

Dotcom, born Kim Schmitz, was arrested on January 20 for a series of charges stemming to his involvement with file-sharing site Megaupload. American authorities insist that the 6’6”, 285-pound (2 meters, 130 kg) German national will disappear if freed from behind bars before his scheduled trial. As a result, a New Zealand court has now denied an appeal that comes after already being denied bail twice.

Along with several other suspected Megaupload affiliates, international authorities are attempting to develop a case against Dotcom and his site, attesting that its administrators orchestrated an elaborate online conspiracy to personally profit handsomely while duping copyright holders inside the music and movies industry out of millions. The raid on his New Zealand mansion last month and the subsequent shut-down of Megaupload.com has caused mass outrage online from opponents who believe that the US has not only overstepped their boundaries by trying to bring Dotcom to American court, but that federal agents are attempting to end Internet freedoms around the globe.

While considered by no-means a career criminal — or of imminent danger to anyone — the New Zealand court has once again refused to release Dotcom on any conditions as he awaits trial.

“The judge correctly concluded that the risk of flight cannot be mitigated by the imposition of conditions, including electronic monitoring,” prosecutor Anne Toohey said Friday.

In his own defense, Dotcom declares that he will abide by any restrictions as long as he is allowed to be with his family while awaiting trial.

“I will not run away. I want to fight these allegations on a level playing field. I have three little children. My wife is pregnant with twins. I just want to be with them,” he told the court.

Despite these pleas, he currently is expected to remain behind bars until February 22, at which point authorities will begin hearings in hopes of extraditing Dotcom to America. Although he resides half-a-world away, American agents want to impose a jail sentence and fines on Dotcom in the US for operating a site — outside of the US — that allowed American users to download pirated material.

Authorities insist that by operating Megaupload, the entertainment industry missed out on $500 million in profits. At one point accounting for roughly 4 percent of all online traffic, however, Megaupload has also implemented file-storage services that were legitimately used by international audiences for sharing and saving personal and private documents.

“The legal battles between the government and Megaupload are unlikely to end soon. In the meantime, however, many ordinary users of Megaupload’s services have been swept up in the government’s dragnet, and, as a consequence, have lost access to their own data,” reads a statement offered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation earlier this week.

Citing the government-imposed blockade that has kept millions of paid and unpaid subscribers of Megaupload from accessing their own material, the EFF writes that “The government should try to avoid this kind of collateral damage, not create it.”

Anonymous have unveiled their second major release for this week’s installment of FuckFBIFriday. Their target this time around is Frank Wuterich, the US Marine that admitted to killing Iraqi civilians — and received no jail time for his crime.

Early Friday afternoon, members of the loose-knit online collective Anonymous began circulating news that the website for Puckett and Faraj, the high-profile attorneys that represented Sgt. Frank Wuterich in his recent trial, had been hacked. Wuterich admitted to leading Marines into two civilian homes in Waditha, Iraq in 2005, massacring 24 civilians including women, children and an elderly man confined to a wheelchair.

In response, hacktivists with Anonymous have uncovered gigabytes worth of correspondence from Sgt. Wuterich’s attorneys and affiliated parties.

Last month, a military tribunal finally finished their hearing on Sgt. Wuterich, more than six years after the notorious slaughter. Insiders reported before his sentencing that he was expected to receive only 90 days behind bars. When the case ended, he was sentenced to zero.

Anonymous members have hacked into the website for Sgt. Wuterich’s attorneys and have since defaced it with a detailed message explaining how the self-proclaimed “cold-blooded killer” became their latest target.

“As part of our ongoing efforts to expose the corruption of the court systems and the brutality of US imperialism, we want to bring attention to USMC SSgt Frank Wuterich who along with his squad murdered dozens of unarmed civilians during the Iraqi Occupation,” reads a message now on the homepage of his attorney’s website. “Can you believe this scumbag had his charges reduced to involuntary manslaughter and got away with only a pay cut?”

“Meanwhile,” adds the Anonymous-penned message, “Bradley Manning who was brave enough to risk his life and freedom to expose the truth about government corruption is threatened with life imprisonment.”

“When justice cannot be found within the confines of their crooked court systems, we must seek revenge on the streets and on the internet – and dealing out swift retaliation is something we are particularly good at. Worry not comrades, it’s time to deliver some epic ownage.”

In addition to defacing the website of his attorneys, nearly 3 gigabytes of email correspondence belonging to his attorneys have been leaked online.

“And to add a few layers of icing to this delicious caek, we got the usual boatloads of embarrassing personal information. How do you think the world will react when they find out Neal Puckett and his marine buddies have been making crude jokes about the incident where marines have been caught on video pissing on dead bodies in Afghanistan? Or that he regularly corresponds with and receives funding from former marine Don Greenlaw who runs the racist blog http://snooper.wordpress.com? We believe it is time to release all of their private information and court evidence to the world and conduct a People’s trial of our own,” writes Anonymous

The announcement this afternoon comes only hours after Anonymous operatives posted a recorded phone message that they intercepted from the FBI and Scotland Yard. Hours later, The Associated Press reports that the FBI confirmed the interception and says it is going after the parties responsible.

Ukraine should own a 34 percent stake in any gas transortation consortium with Russia and the EU to manage its gas transportation system, Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported on Friday, quoting Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych as saying.

Under Ukraine’s plans, Russian gas giant Gazprom and European companies would own 33 percent each.

Russia and Ukraine are embroiled in a drawn-out dispute over the price and volume of Russian gas purchased by Ukraine. Kiev insists the current price is too high, while Moscow is pushing for control of Ukraine’s system of gas transit to Europe.

Both parties have said lately that they see a consortium to manage the Ukrainian gas transit system as a possible solution to the problem but have not agreed on the project’s format.

Yanukovych told the paper that country’s gas transportation system should be upgraded, while the expenses seemed to be $5-7 billion for five to seven years.