One-person protests sparked by charges against woman for ‘spreading pornography’
Russian police on Saturday detained more than 30 people, most of them women, who were staging separate one-person protests in central Moscow against charges of spreading pornography levelled against a prominent LGBT activist, a monitoring group said.
One activist was also detained in St Petersburg, according to OVD-Info, which monitors law enforcement issues in Russia.
Continue reading...Fierce response from top Democrats after US intelligence finding was reportedly briefed to Trump in March, but the White House has yet to act
Outrage has greeted media reports that say American intelligence officials believe a Russian military intelligence unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing foreign soldiers in Afghanistan, including targeting Americans.
The story first appeared in the New York Times, citing its sources as unnamed officials briefed on the matter, and followed up by the Washington Post. The reports said that the US had come to the conclusion about the operation several months ago and offered rewards for successful attacks last year.
Continue reading...Get-out-the-vote effort includes prize giveaways while campaign avoids focus on president
The people of Moscow received text messages this week telling them they had been registered to win “millions of prizes”.
The catch? They have to vote on constitutional amendments that include allowing Vladimir Putin to remain in the Kremlin potentially until 2036.
Continue reading...Russia is holding its postponed Victory Day military parade despite rising coronavirus infections. The parade celebrates the defeat of Nazi Germany and has grown since Vladimir Putin came to power
Continue reading...Exclusive: Christopher Steele claims May government turned blind eye to Trump allegations
Boris Johnson and Theresa May ignored claims the Kremlin had a “likely hold” over Donald Trump and may have covertly funded Brexit, the former spy Christopher Steele alleges in secret evidence given to MPs who drew up the Russia report.
In testimony to MPs, the MI6 veteran accused the government led by May and in which Johnson was foreign secretary for two years of turning a blind eye to allegations about Trump because they were afraid of offending the US president.
Continue reading...Pyotr Verzilov seized at his apartment by unidentified men who broke down his door
The Russian state news agency Tass has said that a prominent member of the protest group Pussy Riot has been detained by the police anti-extremism division.
The Mediazona website reported that Pyotr Verzilov was seized at his apartment by unidentified men who broke down the door on Sunday morning.
Continue reading...Failure to establish key scrutiny committee is also criticised as ‘unprecedented underhand behaviour’
The government’s apparent refusal to release a report into Russian infiltration in the UK and to delay establishing a key scrutiny committee has been condemned as unprecedented and “utterly reprehensible”.
The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has not met since before the general election in December – – its longest break since it was established in 1994 – and critics say the government has sat on the committee’s report into Russian interference for nine months.
Continue reading...Ramzan Kadyrov defends compatriots in France after an attack on Chechen teenager sparked unrest
Ramzan Kadyrov, the autocratic leader of Chechnya, has expressed support for compatriots involved in clashes in the French city of Dijon this month, saying they were protecting one of their own because police failed to act.
Kadyrov’s message came as French police carried out raids and made a number of arrests of Chechens after several nights of violence blamed on members of the Chechen community from last Friday to Monday, when the city was rocked by clashes and car burnings.
Continue reading...Father Sergei Romanov who was banished by church leaders in April says he will only be removed by force
A rogue Russian priest who denies the existence of Covid-19 has seized a convent in the Urals region and announced he will only be removed by force.
Father Sergei Romanov stormed the Sredneuralsk convent this week, after being banished by church leaders in April for protesting the closure of churches due to the coronavirus epidemic, which he called a “pseudo-pandemic”.
Continue reading...Chechen leader and Moscow deny sending hitman after journalist’s expletive-laden TV tirade
Georgia has thwarted a plot to assassinate a journalist who made an expletive-laden attack on Vladimir Putin on live television last year, the Georgian prime minister said.
“Georgian secret services have foiled a very serious crime,” Giorgi Gakharia told journalists on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Unusually high temperatures in region linked to wildfires, oil spill and moth swarms
A prolonged heatwave in Siberia is “undoubtedly alarming”, climate scientists have said. The freak temperatures have been linked to wildfires, a huge oil spill and a plague of tree-eating moths.
On a global scale, the Siberian heat is helping push the world towards its hottest year on record in 2020, despite a temporary dip in carbon emissions owing to the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...Anyone visiting the Russian president at his official residence must pass through a special disinfection chamber, state TV says
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has been protected from the coronavirus by a special disinfection tunnel that anyone visiting his residence outside Moscow must pass through, according to state television.
The special tunnel, manufactured by a Russian company based in the town of Penza, has been installed at his official Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow where he receives visitors, RIA news agency reported on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Much progress has been made in attitudes towards sexual equality and gender identity – but in many places a dramatic backlash by conservative forces has followed. By Mark Gevisser
On a visit to Senegal in 2013, Barack Obama held a press conference with the Senegalese president Macky Sall. “Mr President,” asked an American journalist, “did you press President Sall to make sure that homosexuality is decriminalised in Senegal? And, President Sall,” the journalist continued, “as this country’s new president, sir, will you work to decriminalise homosexuality?”
The question was inevitable: the previous day, while they were flying over the Atlantic, Obama and his staff had erupted into cheers when they heard that the US supreme court had overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, paving the way for same-sex marriage across the country. The president had issued a statement from Air Force One: “The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts: when all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free.”
Continue reading...Paul Whelan has insisted on his innocence, saying he was set up
A Russian court has convicted a former US marine of espionage charges and sentenced him to 16 years in a high-security prison.
The harsh sentence handed down by a court in Moscow to Paul Whelan is likely to raise tensions between Russia and the US. It followed a secret trial that was criticised by the country’s ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, as a “mockery of justice”.
Continue reading...Partial quarantine remains in Beijing; European countries continue to open borders to neighbours
China detected its highest number of daily coronavirus cases in months on Sunday, locking down parts of Beijing in a warning of the difficulties of avoiding a resurgence of the pandemic as Europe prepared to open more borders and loosen restrictions this week.
A wholesale food market in the Chinese capital, where traces of the virus were detected, was closed at the weekend. Nearby housing estates were also placed under quarantine after authorities detected 36 new coronavirus cases in the city and another 19 across the country.
Continue reading...She was the White House’s top Russia expert catapulted to fame by Trump’s impeachment. She reflects on her journey from County Durham to Washington
In the last days before Washington was locked down, Fiona Hill was standing on the street on her phone dealing with a domestic crisis.
Hill’s daughter had become ill, it was unclear whether it was coronavirus (it later turned out to be regular flu) and the family had relatives flying in that weekend for a visit. As she paced up and down making contingency plans, passersby on Connecticut Avenue looked and looked again on recognising her. The British-born White House adviser had temporarily become one of the most famous faces in America after testifying in Donald Trump’s impeachment hearings in November.
Continue reading...Infections keep falling in EU but reports suggest Russian death toll much higher than official figures
France is to lift its state of emergency on 10 July, Denmark said opening its bars, restaurants and malls had not led to a rise in infections, and Austria will reopen its border with Italy next week as EU nations pursue their steady exits from lockdown.
However, Germany extended its coronavirus travel warnings for more than 160 countries outside Europe until the end of August and reports suggested that Moscow’s death toll may be twice as high as Russia’s official figures.
Continue reading...Brussels shifts position by accusing Beijing for first time of running false campaigns
China has been accused by Brussels of running disinformation campaigns inside the European Union, as the bloc set out a plan to tackle a “huge wave” of false facts about the coronavirus pandemic.
The European commission said Russia and China were running “targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns in the EU, its neighbourhood, and globally”. While the charge against Russia has been levelled on many occasions, this is the first time the EU executive has publicly named China as a source of disinformation.
Continue reading...But Moscow warns against insisting on including China in New Start negotiations
Russia has confirmed that it will open talks with the US this month on extending a major nuclear disarmament treaty but warned that Washington’s insistence on including China could scuttle efforts.
The deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov will meet the US envoy Marshall Billingslea in Vienna on 22 June to begin negotiations on New Start, which expires in February.
Continue reading...South Africa warns pandemic could last up to two years; Indonesia reports largest daily rise in infections
Moscow has partially lifted its lockdown despite Russia reporting thousands of new daily cases and Spain’s government said face masks would remain mandatory in public as Europe continued to emerge from the first phase of its struggle against Covid-19.
Concern mounted, however, over the spread of coronavirus in Africa and elsewhere, with Nigeria confirming 600 deaths from a previously undetected outbreak and South Africa warning its pandemic could last up to two years.
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