Opposition figure appeals to Russians from court, saying ‘to live is to risk it all’
A Moscow court has rejected an appeal from Alexei Navalny that virtually guarantees the Russian opposition figure will be sent to a prison camp for two and a half years.
In a widely expected ruling, the judge upheld a decision to imprison Navalny by reversing a parole handed down in 2014 for embezzlement in a case Navalny said was politically motivated.
Continue reading...While the UK and US strive for herd immunity, Russia and China are leveraging their Covid jabs
“Today it is easier to get a nuclear weapon than to get a vaccine,” the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, declared in January. He was bragging. The Balkans country had just received its first shipment of almost 1m Covid-19 vaccine doses from Sinopharm, a state-owned Chinese pharmaceutical company.
Since then, Serbia has augmented its stockpile with tens of thousands of shots of Russia’s Sputnik V, signed an agreement to build a bottling plant for the Russian vaccine and now boasts the fastest vaccination rate in continental Europe.
Continue reading...DNA from teeth found in Siberia permafrost the oldest yet sequenced, pushing science into ‘deep time’
Teeth from mammoths buried in the Siberian permafrost for more than a million years have led to the world’s oldest known DNA being sequenced, according to a study that shines a genetic searchlight on the deep past.
Researchers said the three teeth specimens, one roughly 800,000 years old and two more than a million years old, provided important insights into the giant ice age mammals, including into the ancient heritage of, specifically, the woolly mammoth.
Continue reading...Russia says it will ignore ruling, which it calls a ‘blatant and gross interference’ in its affairs
The European court of human rights has told Russia to free Alexei Navalny, prompting a new standoff between Europe and Moscow over the fate of Vladimir Putin’s staunchest critic.
Russia has said it will ignore the ruling despite a requirement to comply as a member of the Council of Europe, calling the court’s decision “blatant and gross interference in the judicial affairs of a sovereign state”.
Continue reading...Project aims to identify paleoviruses and study virus evolution using the remains, Siberian lab says
A Russian state laboratory has announced that it is launching research into prehistoric viruses by analysing the remains of animals recovered from melted permafrost.
The Siberia-based Vektor lab said in a statement on Tuesday that the aim of the project was to identify paleoviruses and conduct advanced research into virus evolution.
Continue reading...About 300 women gathered in Moscow holding a white ribbon in -13C temperatures
Several hundred women formed human chains in Moscow and St Petersburg on Sunday, using Valentine’s Day to express support for the wife of the jailed opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, and other political prisoners.
About 300 women gathered on Arbat Street in Moscow’s city centre holding a long white ribbon in temperatures of -13C (8F).
Continue reading...A heavy blanket of snow covered the Russian capital, and record-breaking snowfalls descended on the central part of Russia on Friday.
More snow is expected over the weekend, with temperatures hitting -15C
Continue reading...Opposition leader accuses state of orchestrating case to damage his image among Russians
Alexei Navalny, the leading opposition figure whose jailing this month sparked protests across Russia, has been back in court to face charges of slandering a war veteran in a separate case.
Navalny denies the charges and has accused the state of orchestrating the case to damage his image among the Russian public.
Continue reading...Our Moscow correspondent reflects on a new wave of anger against Putin over the treament of dissident Alexei Navalny
Over the last decade, I’ve covered so many protests against Vladimir Putin in Russia that they all start to blur together.
But the past month’s demonstrations against the jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny have seemed to me darker and more serious than ever. There are few fun signs and little chanting; the mood is joyless but determined. I’ve never seen the streets of Moscow locked down like they have been in 2021, patrolled by riot police called “cosmonauts” for their space-like helmets.
Continue reading...Many politicians and diplomats from the 1980s lay claim to a pivotal role in ending the cold war, but the former US secretary of state George Shultz, who has died aged 100, had a better claim than most. And he was not shy in letting people know, as he did at length in his 1,184-page account of his years at the state department, Turmoil and Triumph (1993).
When he became secretary of state in 1982 – a job he was to hold for seven years – relations between the US and the Soviet Union were at a dangerous low. The administration of US president Ronald Reagan was packed with anti-Soviet hardliners. Reagan himself in 1983 dubbed the Soviet Union “the evil empire”.
Continue reading...The US reversal over Yemen marks the country’s welcome re-entry into world affairs
His intentions had been repeatedly trailed in advance. Yet Joe Biden’s first foreign policy speech as president, delivered appropriately at the state department, the home base of American diplomacy, was still a breath of fresh air. The main headlines were an end to US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen and a brisk warning to Russia that its easy ride under Donald Trump was over. But the speech also marked a broader policy shift.
Gone were Trump’s trademark “America First” slogans and the ugly isolationism, protectionism and xenophobia that frequently underpinned them. Biden said he was sending “a clear message to the world that America is back”. By this, he meant recommitment to multilateralism, to alliances such as Nato, to UN agencies such as the World Health Organization and to international agreements such as the Paris climate agreement and Iran nuclear deal.
It would be facile to apply terms such as the “Biden doctrine” to what was essentially a restatement, or reassertion, of longstanding American policy objectives after a four-year hiatus. Yet at the same time, the speech was more than a mere touch on the tiller. It signalled a significant change in the means the US will employ to achieve those objectives. Biden’s way is the diplomatic way, not the way of war, arms sales, punishment, tantrums, stunts and threats.
He’s been poisoned and jailed... but not silenced. Now Navalny poses the greatest threat to the president’s 21-year rule
Alexei Navalny was in defiant mood last Tuesday, as he waited for his inevitable sentence. He made a heart gesture for his wife, Yulia, who was sitting at the back of Moscow’s city courtroom. Navalny smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t be sad! Everything is going to be all right,” he yelled at her. She waved back. Meanwhile, a state prosecutor droned on.
Last week’s sham trial was the latest episode in an epic stand-off between two men for a nation’s future. One is the man in the dock, Russia’s foremost opposition leader, and now a global figure, likened by some to Nelson Mandela. The other is the country’s president of two decades, a former KGB colonel who appears determined to stay in power and to smash a popular revolt against him.
Continue reading...Analysis: From Yemen and the Middle East, to Russia and China, the UK has to step up diplomatically
Joe Biden’s promise that the US is back on the world stage as an advocate of multilateralism holds huge opportunities for the UK so long as it steps up a gear diplomatically, uses its presidency of the G7 well and shifts its stance in the Middle East.
In the short term, Biden’s promise to end support for offensive operations in Yemen has led to calls for the UK to suspend its arms sales to Saudi Arabia, including from the Conservative chair of the defence select committee, Tobias Ellwood, and the shadow foreign secretary, Lisa Nandy.
Continue reading...German chancellor condemns expulsion of European diplomats as Alexei Navalny appears in court again
Angela Merkel has condemned as “unjustified” Russia’s expulsion of European diplomats for participating in unauthorised demonstrations in support of the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
“We consider these expulsions to be unjustified. We believe it is yet another aspect that can be observed right now of Russia being quite far from the rule of law,” the German chancellor said on Friday at an online press conference with France’s president, Emmanuel Macron.
Continue reading...Videos have leaked out from the holding centre for immigrants near Moscow which has been turned into a jail because of the need for somewhere to put more than 10,000 people arrested in the last two weeks since protests began against Vladimir Putin.
In a video posted on Tuesday, a young activist on a bus outside the Sakharovo centre said they had been held in the bus for nine hours. 'We don’t have water. We aren’t taken to the toilets,' he said
Continue reading...1,438 more reportedly arrested amid brutal police crackdown following opposition leader’s imprisonment
The Kremlin has attempted to play down the jailing of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, saying that his 32-month imprisonment will have not have “significant influence” on Russian politics or lead to a mass protest movement similar to the one in neighbouring Belarus.
Meanwhile, protesters detained at recent rallies in support of Navalny have complained of inhumane conditions as police hold them in overcrowded jails or on buses in subzero temperatures days after their arrest.
Continue reading...A court in Moscow has sentenced opposition leader Alexei Navalny to two years and eight months in a penal colony. The original three-and-a-half year sentence was reduced by the 10 months Navalny has already spent under house arrest. The latest charges were for violating parole conditions imposed in 2014 for embezzlement charges. He was arrested on his return from Germany on 17 January where he had been recovering from being poisoned by a nerve agent
Continue reading...Preliminary findings based on analysis of data from more than 20,000 participants
The Sputnik V vaccine, which has been the subject of scepticism since Russia began using it last year before trials had ended, is 91.6% effective against symptomatic Covid according to data published in one of the world’s leading medical journals.
Results in the Lancet from 20,000 trial participants suggest Sputnik’s efficacy is on a par with that of some of the leading vaccines now in use. There was good efficacy in older adults, who are at highest risk for death, but little diversity, since most participants were white males.
Continue reading...Court locks up Putin’s foe despite threat of protests and international condemnation
A Moscow court has sentenced Alexei Navalny to two years and eight months in a prison colony in a landmark decision for Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on the country’s leading opposition figure.
Navalny, who has accused the Russian president and his allies of stealing billions, was jailed for violating parole from a 2014 sentence for embezzlement in a case he has said was politically motivated.
Continue reading...Putin spokesman says Moscow will ignore US pleas for opposition leader to be freed in wake of protests
Russian state prosecutors are poised to jail the opposition leader Alexei Navalny for three-and-a-half years, with the Kremlin shrugging off US complaints about his case on Monday ahead of a crucial court hearing on Tuesday.
Navalny – who was jailed after flying back to Moscow last month – faces the prospect of a lengthy spell behind bars. Vladimir Putin’s press spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow would ignore statements from the Biden administration, following Sunday’s mass pro-Navalny protests.
Continue reading...