Putin Dubs DiCaprio a 'Real Man'

Russia's PM hailed Hollywood heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio as amuzhik ("a real man"), after the actor pressed on to St. Petersburg in spite of an engine failure and an emergency landing.

The star of Titanic and Inception was in the romantic Russian city to take part in the International Tiger Summit (more of which later), yet his journey proved a perilous undertaking. First, his plane was forced to make an emergency landing in New York after it lost an engine. Later, his second flight had to make an unscheduled re-fuelling stop in Helsinki after facing intense headwinds.

"This is not even funny," Mr. Putin quipped.

Meanwhile, DiCaprio revealed his little known Russian ancestry (Smirnov was the family name), and expressed how he had always wanted to take his grandmother to St. Petersburg.

DiCaprio brought 1 million dollars to the summit, which was addressing the vital task of saving the world's tiger population. Approximately 150 tigers are killed by poachers every year, with an estimated $5 million annual trade on the black market in skins and bones (the latter used for alternative medicine).

The World Wildlife Fund believes that only 3200 tigers endure worldwide. Attempts to double the population require an estimated $350 million from the international community.