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ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (CNN) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected a suggestion from U.S. President George W. Bush that his country should emulate democracy in Iraq.

During a joint news conference Saturday in St. Petersburg, Bush said he raised concerns about democracy in Russia during a frank discussion with the Russian leader.

"I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world, like Iraq where there’s a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same," Bush said.

To that, Putin replied, "We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have in Iraq, quite honestly."

The Bush administration has publicly voiced its disapproval over Putin’s appointment of local governors, crackdown of the press and pursuit of what the United States calls political persecution against the Yukos oil company.

The two leaders met ahead of the G8 summit of the world’s leading industrialized nations, and discussed a variety of topics, including Russia’s WTO bid.

Bush said the two leaders are close to reaching a deal but added "there’s more work to be done."

via CNN.

President Bush and first lady Laura Bush visit the Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Negotiations on Russia’s admission to the World Trade Organization broke off with no agreement being reached, U.S. and Russian officials said Saturday.

The talks ended because of differences over assurances the United States was seeking over the protection of U.S. copyrights and patents and promises that Russia would accept greater amounts of U.S. farm goods.

President Bush, speaking at a joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the deal could not be reached, despite intensive talks, because the administration believed Russia needed to offer more in trade concessions to satisfy the Congress.

“We’re tough negotiators and the reason why is because we want the agreement that we reach to (be) accepted by our U.S. Congress,” Bush said.

He said both sides would continue to negotiate to get a deal. The United States is the only country that has yet to sign off on Russia’s membership in the WTO.

Bush blamed “false reporting” in the press for raising hopes that a deal could be reached. “Well, it was almost reached,” the president said. “There is more work to be done.”

Russian trade negotiator Maxim Medvedkov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying the deal would not be signed “either today or in coming weeks.”

The failure to reach an agreement dashed the hopes of Putin to burnish the first Group of Eight summit on Russian soil with an economic triumph his government has been seeking for years.

Russia, the largest economy to remain outside of the 149-nation WTO, sees membership as a way to demonstrate how far the country has come since its severe economic collapse in 1998.

Hopes for an agreement had been raised when U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab traveled to Moscow earlier this week for intensive negotiations with Russian Economic and Trade Minister German Gref.

The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Medvedkov as saying that another stumbling block was an impasse over Russian tariffs on the sale of American airplanes. Russia has imposed high import tariffs for foreign planes as a way to protect its beleaguered aircraft industry.

 The Associated Press.

Space Shuttle Discovery has undocked from the International Space Station and is moving away in preparation for a return to Earth on Monday.

Six astronauts are on board, after German astronaut Thomas Reiter was left behind for a six-month ISS stay.

Before re-entry Discovery’s team will conduct a final scan of the craft’s heat shield to check for impact damage.

It will stay just 46 miles (74km) from the ISS until the scan is done so it can return if serious damage is found.

The shuttle is scheduled to land at Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Monday.

The mission is just the second to be carried out since the space shuttle Columbia broke up on re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere in January 2003, killing all seven crew on board.

Accident investigators said the disaster had been caused by insulating foam falling from Columbia’s external fuel tank during launch and striking the shuttle’s wing, compromising the heat shield needed to protect it during re-entry.

The heat shield scan will done with the same laser and camera system which was used to check for possible damage from flying debris during launch earlier in the flight.

In this instance it will check for micrometeoroid impacts which could have occurred during the stint in space.

The post-launch inspection found no damage and the astronauts are confident that this will be the case again.

"We’ve been flying space shuttles for a long time and we’ve never had any kind of critical damage from a micrometeoroid so it’s pretty remote," pilot Mark Kelly said

"Based on what we’ve seen over the last 10 days, the inspections we’ve done… we’ve got a great ship. It’s ready to come home," he added.

The nine-day mission has included three spacewalks and repairs vital to resuming building work on the ISS.

via BBC.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 13 (Reuters) — Intel said Thursday that it would lay off 1,000 managers, or about 1 percent of its work force, in an effort to streamline its business.

Intel, which is based in Santa Clara, Calif., is the world’s biggest chip maker, but it is facing heightened competition from Advanced Micro Devices.

Last month, Intel said it would sell its money-losing communications chip business to the Marvell Technology Group for $600 million as it refocused on personal computer processors and related chips.

Chuck Mulloy, an Intel spokesman, said the company was not disclosing how much it would save with the layoffs, but added that more details would be provided in its quarterly earnings report next week.