Day: July 10, 2019

  • Russians Work More Nights, Weekends Than Other Europeans – Research

    Russians Work More Nights, Weekends Than Other Europeans – Research

    Russia is among the leading countries in Europe where employees regularly work night or weekend shifts, recent research published by the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics (HSE) has said. Nearly half of Russians polled last month said they don’t support the idea of a four-day work week over fears that it would reduce their income.…

  • 5 Moscow Police Officials Fired Over Investigative Journalist’s Arrest

    5 Moscow Police Officials Fired Over Investigative Journalist’s Arrest

    Five officials in Moscow’s police department have been dismissed over last month’s arrest and subsequent release of investigative journalist Ivan Golunov, a letter by the head of Moscow’s Interior Ministry said. Police detained Golunov, an anti-corruption reporter for the Meduza news website, last month on drug trafficking charges, which his supporters said were fabricated as…

  • Russia’s Torture Complaints Doubled Since 2018, Rights Official Says

    Russia’s Torture Complaints Doubled Since 2018, Rights Official Says

    Complaints of torture in Russia’s penal system have doubled over the past year, the country’s top human rights official has said. Russian law enforcement has been rocked by several torture scandals in recent years, with reported victims including LGBT people in Chechnya, Jehovah’s Witnesses and prisoners. Recent polling has said that one in 10 Russians…

  • Obama Didn’t Keep His Promises, Putin Says

    Obama Didn’t Keep His Promises, Putin Says

    Former U.S. President Barack Obama did not keep his promises made while he was in office, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said in an interview with American filmmaker Oliver Stone. The interview appears in a Ukrainian-American director’s documentary scheduled to premiere on Russian state television next week. “You know, Obama is no longer president, but…

  • Russia Negotiated $65M Payment to Help Italian Far-Right in Elections – BuzzFeed

    Russia Negotiated $65M Payment to Help Italian Far-Right in Elections – BuzzFeed

    Russian operatives sought to funnel $65 million into the European election campaign of a far-right Italian politician they described as the “European Trump,” BuzzFeed News has reported, citing leaked recordings of negotiations. Italy’s media have repeatedly suggested that the League, the country’s most popular party, has received financial backing from Moscow. Party leader Matteo Salvini,…

  • Moscow Tracks Commuters’ Movements in ‘China-Style’ Surveillance Scheme

    Moscow Tracks Commuters’ Movements in ‘China-Style’ Surveillance Scheme

    Moscow City Hall is tracking people’s movements based on their taxi and metro rides, as well as cellphone data and CCTV footage, a city official has told BBC Russia, in a scheme that has alarmed critics and drawn comparisons to China. The city government has spent $8 million since 2015 on acquiring commuters’ location data…

  • Crimean Tatar Protesters Detained on Moscow’s Red Square

    Crimean Tatar Protesters Detained on Moscow’s Red Square

    Russian police detained seven Crimean Tatars on Moscow’s Red Square on Wednesday after dispersing a demonstration that had aimed to draw attention to alleged rights abuses on the Black Sea peninsula which Russia annexed from Ukraine five years ago. The Tatars, a mainly Muslim community that makes up about 15% of Crimea’s population, have largely…

  • On This Day: Folklorist Agrafena Kryukova Was Born

    On This Day: Folklorist Agrafena Kryukova Was Born

    Russian folklore performer Agrafena Matveevna Kryukova was born on July 10, 1855 in a small village northwestern Russian on the coast of the White Sea. Throughout childhood, her mother and uncle taught her Russian folktales known as byliny and stariny, which the storyteller chants to an audience already familiar with their plots. She stored the…

  • UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay and PhosAgro CEO Andrey Guryev Discuss Cooperation

    UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay and PhosAgro CEO Andrey Guryev Discuss Cooperation

    Paris – UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay together with PhosAgro CEO and member of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO Andrey Guryev discussed prospects for continuing successful cooperation. During the meeting at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, which is the venue for events marking the centennial of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry…

  • Russia and Lao People’s Democratic Republic to develop cooperation in the field of peaceful use of atomic energy

    Moscow, 9 July – Yesterday, at the 15th session of the Lao-Russian Intergovernmental Panel on cooperation in trade, economy, science and technology, the Ministry of Energy and Mines of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) and ROSATOM signed two memorandum of understanding. The first document defines the areas of cooperation in education and personnel…

  • Russia’s Political Prisoner Population Grew Sixfold in 4 Years – NGO

    Russia’s Political Prisoner Population Grew Sixfold in 4 Years – NGO

    The number of political prisoners in Russia has grown sixfold since 2015, a prominent member of the pro-democracy movement Open Russia has said. Russia’s Memorial human rights group currently estimates there are 297 political prisoners in Russia, up from 50 four years ago. It lists 77 of the most high-profile cases on its website, including Crimean filmmaker…

  • Wind Turbines Ignore Birds’ Interests, Putin Says

    Wind Turbines Ignore Birds’ Interests, Putin Says

    Russian President Vladimir Putin questioned on Tuesday the use of wind power, saying wind turbines were harmful to birds and worms. Russia, a world-leading producer of fossil fuel, is lagging other countries in its development of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind-powered energy. Wind power is rarely used in the country to generate…

  • Russian Nuclear Sub Wreck’s Radiation 100K Higher Than Normal, Scientists Say

    Russian Nuclear Sub Wreck’s Radiation 100K Higher Than Normal, Scientists Say

    Norwegian scientists have discovered radiation levels 100,000 times higher than normal near a Soviet-era nuclear submarine that sank 30 years ago in the Arctic, Norway’s TV2 broadcaster reported Tuesday. The Komsomolets sank in a section of the Barents Sea considered to be one of the world’s largest fishing areas in 1989, killing 42 of its…

  • Russia Failed to Protect Woman Who Suffered Years of Domestic Abuse, European Court Says

    Russia Failed to Protect Woman Who Suffered Years of Domestic Abuse, European Court Says

    Russia failed to protect a woman from repeated acts of violence by her former partner, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday, saying her case showed that Moscow was not facing up to its domestic abuse problem. Valeriya Volodina, who now uses a different name for security reasons, was assaulted, kidnapped and stalked…