Day: March 12, 2021
-
St. Olga Dropped From WEF’s Influential Women List Over Ukraine Criticism
The World Economic Forum has dropped St. Olga of Kiev from its list of influential women after Ukraine’s ex-president criticized the organization for calling her the founder of Russia. Before being taken down, St. Olga’s profile on the WEF web page dedicated to International Women’s Month described her as “the progenitor to modern-day Russia” and…
-
Countries Slam Russia at UN Over Navalny Case
Dozens of countries took Russia to task at the UN on Friday over its imprisonment of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, and slammed numerous “arbitrary arrests” of his supporters. In a historic joint statement delivered to the United Nations Human Rights Council, 45 countries voiced alarm at “the deteriorating situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms”…
-
Jailed Kremlin Critic Navalny Taken to Unknown Location, Team Says
Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been moved to an unknown location from a detention center outside Moscow where he had been quarantined, his Twitter account said Friday. Navalny was similarly transferred from a Moscow jail last month, turning up at a Vladimir region detention center where he was under quarantine a week later. He was sentenced…
-
Russia’s Arms Sales in 2020 ‘Successful’ Despite Pandemic
Russia’s arms sales last year were not affected by the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, a senior official said Friday, making it one of the country’s only industries to come out unscathed. “Our order book remained at a level of $50-55 billion,” said Dmitry Shugayev, who heads the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation. “We…
-
Thousands of Russian Surveillance Cameras Vulnerable to Cyberattack – Reports
Over 6,300 surveillance cameras in Russia are not secure, making them vulnerable to cybercriminals, experts told the Kommersant business daily Friday. Dark web users can easily access footage and private data from the CCTV cameras installed at places like industrial plants, businesses and smart home systems as they have public IP addresses, Kommersant cited experts…
-
Guzel Yakhina Lays Bare the Soviet Past in ‘Train to Samarkand’
On Tuesday Russia’s best-selling novelist Guzel Yakhina presented her third novel, “Train to Samarkand” (Eshelon na Samarkand), in an online press conference. Yakhina took Russia’s literary world by storm in 2015 with the publication of her first novel “Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes.” It won the Yasnaya Polyana and Big Book awards, was translated into over…
-
Austria Convicts Chechen ‘Moral Guardians’ for Harassing Women – Reports
Five Chechen men went on trial in Austria for outing and harassing female compatriots for exhibiting “Western behavior,” Austrian media reported Thursday. The defendants were accused of running an online chat where they threatened, intimidated and occasionally abused Chechen women for allegedly not adhering to strict Islamic rules, according to the Die Presse daily. “The…
-
Russia Charges 3 Over Mobster’s Murder in 2009
Russian prosecutors on Friday charged three men over the 2009 murder of one of the country’s most notorious gangsters and drug traffickers who had served time in both Russian and U.S. prisons. Vyacheslav Ivankov, alias Yaponchik or The Little Japanese, was shot in the abdomen in July 2009 by sniper fire as he left a…
-
Slovakia Health Minister Resigns Over Sputnik V Dispute
Slovakia’s health minister has announced his resignation after coming under pressure from the country’s four-party ruling coalition for ordering Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, Reuters reported Thursday. Slovakia became the second EU country after Hungary to purchase Sputnik V for national use, bypassing EU authorization of the jab. Prime Minister Igor Matovic ignited backlash from…
-
Russia Warns of H5N8 Bird Flu Transmission
The mutating H5N8 strain of avian flu has a high risk of human-to-human transmission, Russian authorities warned Friday. Anna Popova, who heads Russia’s health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, made the prediction nearly a month after scientists detected the first case of H5N8 transmission to humans at a southern Russia poultry farm. “There’s a fairly high degree of…
-
Russia’s Life Expectancy Plummets in Pandemic-Hit 2020 – RBC
Russians’ life expectancy plummeted in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic disrupted President Vladimir Putin’s goal to increase lifespans, according to state figures cited by the RBC news website Thursday. Annual life expectancy dropped for the first time in 17 years from a record of 73.3 years in 2019 to 71.1 years last year, according to…
-
‘We Need Our Government’: Surging Food Prices Put Kremlin on Edge
Lyubov, a 59-year-old pensioner doing her weekly shop, doesn’t know why her Russian state pension isn’t going as far as it used to, but is sure the government needs to do something about it. “All the prices for food are going up,” she told The Moscow Times on her way out of a branch of…