“It was clear that internationally, just as in the US, MySpace’s staffing had become too big and cumbersome to be sustainable in current market conditions,” said MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta. “Today’s proposed changes are designed to transform and refine our international growth strategy.” Operations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden and Spain are “under review,” he added, and face possible closure.

The cuts follow a 30 percent reduction in headcount in the states last week and the hastening erosion of MySpace’s position in the social-networking market. MySpace lost the title of world’s most popular social network to rival Facebook last year and was overtaken by it in the U.S. last month as well.

An unfortunate turn of events for Google (GOOG), which had expected to complete its acquisition of ZAO Begun in the third quarter. More so, because of the regulatory scrutiny being leveled at the search sovereign’s proposed advertising partnership with Yahoo (YHOO). “We are very disappointed to hear that FAS has come to this decision,” Google said in a statement. “We strongly believe that this acquisition will enable us to significantly improve opportunities for Russian users, advertisers and publishers as well as the entire industry. At this time, we are reviewing FAS’s decision. Once this process is complete, we will decide on our next steps.”

Sounds like Google may not be willing to take nyet for an answer …

The deals are something of a turnabout for the Russian carriers, who had initially balked at the terms of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone distribution deals, which reportedly required local carriers to buy phones wholesale and pay Apple 10 percent for each device sold, as well as 10 percent from each subscriber’s monthly fee. Whether Apple adjusted its terms to woo Russia’s reluctant carriers or the carriers simply rolled over is anyone’s guess. But one thing’s certain, the iPhone’s popularity in Russia’s so-called gray market suggests strong sales of the device following its official debut. Indeed, analysts predict sales of the handset in Russia could reach 700,000 in 2008 alone. “Typically, Russian operators are not strong handset sellers, and users prefer to buy handsets separately from their mobile contracts,” said Konstantin Belov, a telecom analyst at UralSib. “But the iPhone is very popular, and if mobile operators start subsidizing it, they will probably see strong demand.”

News of iPhone 3G’s warm reception in some parts of Europe comes amid reports that Apple is finalizing a deal with will bring the device to Russia. Market sources tell Reuters that the company is talking to Mobile TeleSystems, Russia’s largest carrier, as well as Vimpelcom and MegFon. Eldar Murtazin, an analyst with Moscow-based Mobile Research Group, says Mobile TeleSystems expects iPhone sales over the next two years to reach one million. And if Apple (AAPL) inks deals with Vimpelcom and MegFon as well, it’s likely to triple that number. Said Murtazin, “Total sales by the Big Three carriers will amount to 3.5 million iPhones within the next two years.”

Financial terms weren’t disclosed, though Kommersant reports the deal to be worth some $30 million. The sale comes about a year after Six Apart and SUP allied to bring LiveJournal to Russia, where the platform quickly gained a lot of traction. Today www.livejournal.ru accounts for 28% of LiveJournal’s overall audience. As SUP CEO Andrew Paulson once said, “LiveJournal is the ‘blogosphere’ in Russia.”

The acquisition, then, would appear to make perfect sense. Six Apart unburdens itself of a tiring distraction and SUP gears up to transform LiveJournal into what its previous owners could not. “This is pretty cool because [SUP is] ridiculously excited about LiveJournal, and [has] been for a while,” writes LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick. “They want to throw a lot of resources at LiveJournal in terms of product development and engineers. ‘LiveJournal.com, Inc.’ now stands alone again, focusing on nothing but LJ. “