From issues of global importance to the state’s internal policy, as well as fighting corruption, sport, Internet development and photography: Dmitry Medvedev has become the first Russian President to start his own videoblog. In October 2008, he posted the first entry on the Kremlin website. Since then, it has become immensely popular among Russian Internet users, who can also leave their comments in the presidential interactive blog. RT gives its audience a chance to read and watch Medvedev’s posts in English.

Doug Wead is a presidential historian and New York Times bestselling author.  He served in the White House of George Herbert Walker Bush and is the co-founder of Mercy Corps, a relief organization that has distributed $US 1.5 billion of food and medicine around the world.

Colonel Evgeny Khrushchev, navy brat & army lifer, is the military analyst at RT.

Contrary to the family tradition, he didn’t apply to Vladivostok Navy Academy to join the Pacific Fleet but enrolled in the Red Banner Institute special faculty Persian Team.

The dream to become a military attaché in Tehran has yet to materialize – the first foreign mission started in Afghanistan as a psyops officer of the 56th Airborne Assault Brigade in Gardez, Paktia, Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the last one was as the First Secretary of the Russian Embassy in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

Other tours of duty:

Paula Slier reports for RT from the Middle East and Balkans.

In her blog she brings her audience into her world and shares her thoughts, funny anecdotes and behind-the-scenes experiences. Her blog is meant to incite reaction – it’s her view, her interpretation and her experiences of the world. From being embedded in Afghanistan to narrowly missing Qassam rockets fired from Gaza, the reader is invited to be a part of the stories shaping our reality.

“Sometimes I feel like my only friend is the city I live in…”

But unlike Anthony Kiedis we don’t cry together – our mutual love is fulfilling, bright, and full of surprises.

It is here that I love riding my bicycle along the boulevard ring on warm summer nights. On a chilly winter afternoon I proudly watch the amazed by-passers stare at me as I bite into my ice-cream. Even my favorite English poetry sounds even more romantic under the Moscow sky.

Moscow welcomes and sees off millions of people every day rushing through it in between their transit flights and only able to see the Kremlin and take a bit strained photo in front of St. Basil Cathedral. But as a person who has lived all her life in Moscow, I want to prove Moscow has a lot more to it than just a few notorious sites one is offered on an hour-long bus tour.

I know quite a number of secrets an outsider hasn’t got a clue about. I know where to stand on the Metro platform so that the upcoming train opens its doors just in front of you. I know how to get on a bus without paying. I know where to find free newspapers and how to get into a cinema unnoticed. But you bet your boots – I‘ll never sell the information cheap.

RT's sports presenter, Kate Partridge, gives us a week-by-week view of English Premier League football, along with the wider world of sport.

America's #1 progressive radio show host and NY Times bestselling author of over twenty books, Thom Hartmann is also the host of The Big Picture, a daily political show on RT.

 Jenny Churchill is an RT producer and regular contributor to The Alyona Show. She grew up in Kentucky across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio, which provided her with a unique experience of both urban and rural life in America. She has a unique understanding of the problems and people of "Middle America." Jenny received a BA from the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism at Indiana University. Her goal is to tell the stories of those who don't have a large enough voice in the mainstream media. She believes that Middle America has been ignored for too long.

The stories behind the news – a look at some of the thoughts and experiences encountered in the course of filming.

With additional footage and interviews, it will hopefully be a chance for people to further form their own opinions – and find out more about how a particular story came about, and was shaped.

­Jake is a religious scholar, having studied at the Fuller Theological Seminary. Jake specialists in Religious Conflict and Religious Guerilla Warfare. He served as a US Marine in Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Jake is a co-founder of Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan and a policy adviser and analyst with US based advocacy organization Rethinking Afghanistan.

­Seals, icebergs, extreme weather, glaciers, presidents, scientific exploration and, of course, penguins; these are all a part of a day in the life of the Antarctic explorer. Since the very discovery of the Antarctic continent, Russia's tradition of icy exploration of the region has been a strong one. Traveling for RT, Sean Thomas is officially registered as part of the Russian Antarctic Expedition stationed at the Bellingshausen Base on King George Island. Here Sean writes about daily life around the base, the important research being undertaken there now and some extra bits from behind the scenes that may surprise you.

­From the State Duma, to the center of the country's economy, as a Moscow-based correspondent Jacob Greaves is in a position to track day-to-day happenings in Russia.  Here he gives a more in-depth analysis of the major issues shaping the country – all from the vantage point of where the key decisions are being taken.

­Gerald Celente has earned his reputation as "The most trusted name in trends" by accurately forecasting hundreds of social, business, consumer, environmental, economic, political, entertainment, and technology trends. Gerald Celente, a Close Combat practitioner and black belt trainer, well understands the importance of proacting rather than reacting: "The first rule of Close Combat is to attack the attacker. Action is faster than reaction. The same holds true for the future. You know the future is coming … attack it before it attacks you."

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Naida Azizova,  Russia Today Correspondent, born in Makhachkala, USSR.

As a college student Naida studied the History of the Arab World. She holds a MA in Oriental Studies and a PhD in Ethnography and Anthropology from St. Petersburg State University  in Russia. Her thesis was on the Arab component in the culture of the North Caucasus people. Naida also spent a year as a visiting scholar to the University of Oxford (UK), and lectured at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

While starting as a freelancer for RT in 2006, Naida first gained notice for her reports on terrorist activity in Dagestan. A year later she joined the staff as a full-time correspondent. Reporting took her to many conflict zones – Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,  and Nagorno-Karabagh -just to name a few. A twist in her career occurred in August 2008 when Naida was assigned to cover the war in South Ossetia. She brought the first RT report on the event from the region on the spot.

Later on Naida was appointed the chief of RT’s bureau in the Caucasus – the first such bureau ever established by Russian or Western media in Tskhinval, South Ossetia. Though based there she has also been covering Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, and Northern Ossetia and won many exclusives.

Having joinedTV nearly 20 years ago Naida is a journalist with extensive professional experience.Apart from Avar – her native language – and English, she is fluent in Russian and Arabic. Naida also speaks Persian, French and Hebrew.

Welcome visitor! Forget about plastic food, banking, bailouts and economic crisis! Also, leave behind all of your sad thoughts like salary cuts or overdue loan payments. Here we talk fun. A specific sort that is closely associated with “heavy metal things”. Cars. Motorcycles. Outdoor activities. Weapons. Hunting & fishing, probably. Small human pleasures of the past and many more.

History, when attached to technical progress in certain related areas. You know what? One can’t separate technical progress from history and the evolution of human society – well, prove that I‘m wrong! Weapons, cars and other tech stuff appear when people need and want change, when civilization makes another leap forward.

Why OldTimeR? Well, let me explain – the term “old-timer“ is used when speaking of a car made in the past. Okay, I’m probably like one – made in the past, living in the present, heading for the future. And the “Time” part starting with a capital “T” may have its own explanation – being part of history, a “time” category is essential to understanding events when put within certain context of a historical era.

Capital “R” may stand for “Russian”…well, there’s yet one more explanation – other spelling versions were probably all taken – leaving only THAT ONE free! I guess you may take any description you like…or invent your own …but don’t forget some of the areas of human interest or hobbies I intend to cover might not be, well, “fancy” in the 21st century.

­Aleksey Yaroshevsky is RT's reporter in Eastern Europe. He is currently based in Kiev, Ukraine. From there he covers stories all across the Eastern part of Europe, and brings the most interesting details to this blog.

­Madina Kochenova is an RT correspondent working in Russia`s North Caucasus. In her blog she tells of life’s mysteries down in Russia’s own Deep South. From the secrets of traditional cuisine to the echoes of recent conflicts, no stone is left unturned. As she travels across the region with an RT film crew, she challenges many of the stereotypes that persist – both within and outside Russia – leading, hopefully, to an increased understanding of this wonderful and fascinating part of the country.

Juha Molari has worked for more than 20 years as a priest in an Evangelical-Lutheran church in Finland, but a conflict arose with his church because he strongly criticized a few legal anti-Russian organizations in Finland. Molari is a doctor of theology; his dissertation was a psycho-historical study about religious extremism and war trauma. For his second degree, in business education, Molari studied in Helsinki and in St. Petersburg. He has also worked as a journalist. He enjoys sport, especially long-distance running and going to the gym.

­Katia Zatuliveter is a former parliamentary researcher in the British Parliament accused by MI5 of espionage activities and is now fighting this allegation in a British court. She received her Bachelor’s degree in European Studies from St. Petersburg School of International Relations and her master’s in conflict resolution from the University of Bradford, UK. She went on to work on the issues of freedom of expression in the human rights NGO Article 19 in London.  Zatuliveter later worked on European defense issues in the European Security and Defence Assembly in Paris. During her time as a parliamentary researcher in the House of Commons, she has also contributed to the blog of the UK Defence Forum and helped the international production company Brook Lapping with their documentary on Russian-Western relations. She has a strong interest in international relations, defense and conflict resolution, especially in the Caucasus region where she was born and raised.

I’m Tom Barton, a news correspondent for RT. I travel all over Russia, the former Soviet Union and beyond meeting fascinating people and telling their stories. Here I’ll be telling you about things everyday and extraordinary, about tragedy and triumph across this vast space. I’ll give you an insight into the themes and personalities that inhabit this part of our not-so-small world.

­Lode Vanoost is a former Deputy Speaker of Belgium’s House of Representatives. Since 2004, he has worked as a consultant on parliamentary methodology to international institutions in post-conflict countries and emerging democracies. Concern over crimes against humanity committed by our opponents is fake, he believes, when matched by silence over or denial/approval of those same crimes, committed by ourselves or our allies. Lode Vanost considers it a moral duty to write about our own crimes first. These are his personal opinions on a wide range of international issues. He publishes regularly on the Dutch-language Belgian news sites www.uitpers.be and www.dewereldmorgen.be.

­Christopher Petrella is a doctoral candidate in the African American Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley. He writes a weekly column for NationOfChange and teaches at San Quentin State Prison. In addition to his regular contributions to NationOfChange, he has written for Monthly Review, Truthout, Axis of Logic, and The Real Cost of Prisons. Christopher holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from Bates College and an M.A. from Harvard University in Religion, Ethics, and Politics. He lives in Oakland, CA with his partner