Police Kill Bear Roaming Street in Russia’s Far East

2013/08/31

VLADIVOSTOK, September 1 (RIA Novosti) – Police have killed a bear that was roaming through a city in Russia’s Far East and threatening locals, the Interior Ministry said Sunday.


The bear was spotted by residents of Nakhodka, in Russia’s Primorye Territory, on Sunday. “The animal appeared to act aggressively and posed danger to people,” a local citizen told police.


The bear was located by police on Kirov street shortly after the initial report. A police officer shot the bear to “neutralize” it, the ministry said in a statement. No one was injured in the incident.


Aggressive bears, starving because their natural food sources were destroyed by floods, are becoming a growing threat for Far Eastern villages. In one of such incidents, police had to deal with an aggressive bear, which dangerously approached a group of children picking mushrooms. Officers initially tried to scare the animal off, but it ran towards them and was killed.



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Putin Signs Decree to Deal with Far East Flood Consequences

2013/08/31

MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to deal with the consequences of a devastating flood in the country’s Far East, the Kremlin reported.


Several weeks of flooding, which according to Russian meteorologists are the worst in the region in 120 years, have affected the Amur and Magadan regions, the Jewish Autonomous Region, and the Khabarovsk and Primorye territories, as well as in the Siberian republic of Yakutia.


In line with the decree signed Saturday, overcoming the consequences of the flood is one of the most important state tasks.


The affected regions’ authorities should by September 5 set up commissions to deal with the flood consequences.


The Russian government considers allotting 12 billion rubles ($360 million) to victims of a massive flood that ravaged the country’s far eastern reaches, a spokeswoman for the Russian emergency services said Saturday. The money, which will come from a state emergency fund, is to fund rebuilding efforts and compensations for flood victims.


President Vladimir Putin said Saturday the government must begin payments to victims by September 10.


The federal government has so far allotted 3.2 billion rubles ($96 million) to flood cleanup, including planned compensations for the 102,000 flood victims, many of whom lost their houses to the unprecedented calamity.


Putin on Saturday fired his envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District, Viktor Ishayev, appointing in his place presidential aide Yury Trutnev. Ishayev also lost his job as Far East development minister, though a Kremlin spokesman denied the dismissal was linked to the flood.



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Five Dead in Southwest Siberia House Fire

2013/08/31

MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - Five people died early Sunday in a fire in southwest Siberia, the Emergencies Ministry has reported.


“A one-story wooden house in the city of Mezhdurechensk, Kemerovo Region, caught fire,” the ministry said Sunday.


“Five people were killed by the fire that engulfed an area of 56 square meters. The fire was extinguished at 04:18 Moscow Time,” it said on its website.


Ten firefighters and three fire trucks were used to put out the flame.



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Wild Trip to Chukotka

2013/08/31



Being in Chukotka is such an adventure! Check out a dose of pictures of one extreme trip to the region.









Chukotka may become a private physcologist for you.















Links to explore:


See even more of English Russia:




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Russian Opposition Leader, Activists Detained at Rallies

2013/08/31

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) – The head of an outlawed opposition party and two dozen activists were detained Saturday at unsanctioned rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg that were dispersed by police, the rally’s organizers said.


Eduard Limonov and at least 15 protesters were rounded up by police on Mayakovsky square in central Moscow after unfurling banners anti-Kremlin banners, the Strategy 31 group said on Twitter. It said another nine protesters were detained in St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city.


The group is named after Article 31 of the Russian constitution that guarantees free assembly.


Since 2009, rallies urging the Kremlin to allow the freedom of assembly have been held in Moscow and other Russian cities on the 31st of each month with that many days. The protests have routinely been dispersed by police, its participants briefly detained.


Limonov, 70, is a popular novelist and head of the radical National Bolshevik Party that was outlawed in Russia in 2007.



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2 Anthrax Burial Sites Flooded in Russian Far East

2013/08/31

VLADIVOSTOK, August 31 (RIA Novosti) – Fifteen animal burial sites, including two storing remains of animals killed by anthrax, have been flooded in the disaster-hit Russian Far East, a Russian minister said Saturday.


However, tests found no evidence so far that anthrax bacteria have spread and contaminated any area outside the burial sites, Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said.


Experts continue monitoring the areas for possible contamination, she added, speaking at a governmental meeting.


Since late July, Russia’s far eastern territories have been affected by the worst flood in the 120-year-long history of meteorological records in the region. More than 100,000 people were displaced, 11,000 houses flooded, and total damages are estimated at 30 billion rubles ($1 billion).


Anthrax can have a lethality rate of upward of 90 percent, depending on bacteria strain and timeliness of treatment, which made it a potential tool of biological warfare explored by both the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Spores of bacteria that cause anthrax can live on in burial sites for decades.


This is the second incident within a week related to lethal diseases with a high epidemic potential. On Monday, authorities in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan confirmed the death of a local teenager from bubonic plague, which he apparently contacted from a flea living on a marmot that he has eaten. No further cases of infection were reported, and local authorities launched a marmot extermination campaign.



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Pushkin, ‘Vodka Inventor’ Tie in Test Moscow Vote

2013/08/31

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s favorite poet and a famous chemist credited in Russian urban legend with perfecting the classic vodka recipe squared off in a test run for the snap mayoral elections in Moscow on Saturday, electoral authorities said.


Alexander Pushkin and Dmitry Mendeleev scored a modest 18 votes each in the test vote, a spokesman for the city’s election committee told RIA Novosti.


But that sufficed to trounce Romantic music composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky, 18-century historian Nikolai Karamzin and 19-century painter Ilya Repin in a race for the title of “All-Time Genius,” the spokesman said.


The test vote was to familiarize Muscovites with the voting procedure and examine the video surveillance setup intended to prevent vote rigging and the electronic voting system.


Moscow already held a test vote in February 2012. At the time, Peter the Great defeated Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Winston Churchill and Genghis Khan to the title of “Ruler of Destinies.”


In the real world, six candidates will compete in the Moscow mayoral vote on September 8. The favorite is acting mayor Sergei Sobyanin, a longtime Kremlin official, while the main challenger is Alexei Navalny, a whistleblowing blogger who rose to become the leader of the Russian opposition. Sobyanin is leading in most surveys, but results are inconclusive whether he can avoid a runoff.


Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) was a poet and novelist whose impact on Russian literary tradition is often compared in scope to William Shakespeare’s contribution to English language and literature.


Dmitry Mendeleev (1834-1907) is primarily known for inventing the periodic table of elements. He was also on a state commission regulating alcohol sales, which, along with his scientific studies of spirits, gave rise to the incorrect, but persistent belief that he introduced the now-classic alcohol/water proportion for vodka – 40 percent of alcohol by volume.



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Putin: Allegations Against Assad ‘Provocation’

2013/08/31

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that allegations about the Syrian government using chemical weapons against civilians were a “provocation.”


The United States alleged that the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad were behind a chemical attack that killed hundreds last week, but such accusations are still pending proof, Putin said, marking the first time he weighed in on the topic.


“If they say that the [Syrian] governmental forces used weapons of mass destruction…and that they have proof of it, let them present it to the UN inspectors and the [UN] Security Council,” Putin said about the United States.


“Claims that the proof exists, but is classified and cannot be presented to anybody are below criticism. This is plain disrespect for their partners,” Putin said during a trip to the far eastern city of Vladivostok.


The White House released on Friday a report blaming Assad’s regime for the attack, which cited “human, signals and geospatial intelligence,” as well as open source materials such as social media reports and videos of the alleged attack. The report explicitly stated that it omitted certain classified evidence, which was only made available to the US Congress.


Putin said Saturday that Russia denounced the use of chemical weapons and was ready for “consolidated participation in drafting measures to oppose such acts.”


He also denied discussing possible US military strikes on Syrian targets with his US counterpart Barack Obama on the phone.


But Putin said he was hoping to take up the Syrian issue with Obama during the upcoming G20 summit in Russia’s St. Petersburg on September 5-6.


Obama has explicitly blamed Assad for the attack and threatened missile and bomb strikes against selected Syrian targets in retribution for using weapons of mass destructions. He denied plans for a ground invasion of Syria or Assad’s overthrow.


Official Damascus has called the attacks a provocation by rebels it is battling since 2011.


A UN investigative team was dispatched on the site of the attack and is expected to present its findings by mid-September, but its mandate is limited to establishing whether the attack took place, not naming the guilty parties.


The British parliament ruled Thursday against supporting a possible US military operation in Syria. Putin said Saturday he was “astonished” by the move, which, he added, was made by people “motivated by nation’s interests and common sense.”


More than 100,000 died in internal strife in Syria since the conflict’s outbreak, according to UN figures.



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$360 Mln Promised to Russian Flood Victims

2013/08/31

MOSCOW/VLADIVOSTOK, August 31 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian government considers allotting 12 billion rubles ($360 million) to victims of a massive flood that ravaged the country’s far eastern reaches, a spokeswoman for the Russian emergency services said Saturday.


The money, which will come from a state emergency fund, is to fund rebuild efforts and compensations for flood victims, Irina Rossius said in Moscow


President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday the government must begin payments to victims by September 10.


Putin, who is currently touring the flooded areas, has also blasted local authorities for what he called subpar work accommodating the flood victims.


“[The refugees] are writing that they are fed some sort of gruel that children can’t eat. What’s this? Do I need to put someone on a diet of gruel so that there would be no gruel [in the refugee camps]?” said Putin, who is known for his habit of personally involving in affairs of selected citizens in need of state help.


The government has so far allotted 3.6 billion rubles ($110 million) to flood cleanup, including planned compensations for the 100,000 flood victims, many of whom lost their houses to the unprecedented calamity.


As of Saturday, water level in the Amur River stood at an all-time high in the 120 years of meteorological observations in the area and continued to rise. The month-long flood has affected five regions in Siberia and the Russian Far East, with damage estimated at 30 billion rubles ($1 billion).


Putin sacked Saturday his envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District, Viktor Ishayev, appointing in his place presidential aide Yury Trutnev, who was also promoted to deputy prime minister. Ishayev also lost his job as Far East Development Minister, though a Kremlin spokesman denied the sacking was linked to the flood.



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‘Albert Einstein’ Pulls Up ISS

2013/08/31

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) – Russian mission control successfully adjusted the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday using thrusters of the unmanned European spacecraft ATV-4 “Albert Einstein” docked with the station.


The perigee height of the ISS is now 412 kilometers (256 miles) and apogee height 418 kilometers (260 miles), a mission control spokesman told RIA Novosti.


The orbit adjustment was to make easier the upcoming docking of a Soyuz spacecraft that is to bring a new crew to the ISS next month, the spokesman said.


The crew comprises Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky and NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins. Their spacecraft will blast off for the ISS on September 25.



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Telecoms Offices Attacked in Chechnya over Mosque Voting

2013/08/31

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) – Mobs attacked offices of two leading Russian cell phone operators in Chechnya, pelting them with eggs in protest against alleged fraud at an online voting contest for best national landmark where a Chechen mosque was denied victory.


Attacks on Friday targeted the offices Megafon and Beeline, two of Russia’s “big three” of cell phone operators, in Grozny, the capital of the North Caucasus republic.


Footage of at least one attack was available on YouTube, the video showing dozens of young men energetically throwing eggs and other objects at a closed office building, while others film them on their own cellphones.


Beeline said Saturday it has temporarily closed all its offices in Chechnya over safety concerns.


The scandal broke out when Grozny’s Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque narrowly lost the second round of the Russia 10 contest, aimed to select Russia’s best unknown landmarks in order to give a boost to domestic tourism and “geopatriotism,” as the organizers attested it.


The mosque ended up some 400,000 votes short of the Kolomna kremlin, a medieval castle in heartland Russia, despite leading the vote most of the time thanks to a massive promotion campaign spearheaded by Chechen leadership.


The mosque scored more than 38 million votes thanks to a rule that allowed repeat voting through text messages, but Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov claimed millions of votes for the prayer house – named after his late father – were never accounted for.


Kadyrov blamed the lost votes on fraud, through representatives for the contest spoke about a technical malfunction that affected votes for all contest entries.


Kadyrov demanded money back for text messages with uncounted votes on Friday and said he was pulling the mosque from the third and final round of the contest, which kicks off on Sunday.


He also said he would stop returning calls by Megafon and Beeline users, urging fellow Chechens to switch instead to local operator Vainakh Telecom.


Chechnya, a mountainous region with a predominantly Muslim population of 1.3 million, saw relative peace after two bloody separatist uprisings in the 1990s and 2000s, but critics say it was only accomplished through ruthless authoritarian policies of the Kremlin-backed Kadyrov regime.



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Russia Delays Arms Supplies to Syria over Money – Paper

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is postponing supplies of fighter jets and S-300 missile defense systems to Syria because official Damascus failed to pay for them, Kommersant newspaper said Saturday.



© RIA Novosti.




The 12 MiG-29M/M2 jets that Russia agreed to sell to Syria will not be supplied before 2016-2017, the daily said, citing an unnamed source at Russian state arms exports monopoly Rosoboronexport.


Though the deal was sealed in 2007, shipping was delayed over technicalities and then put on hold because Syria has only paid Moscow 30 percent of what it owes for the jets, Kommersant said.


Earlier media reports said six of 12 MiGs were expected to be shipped by the end of this year.


A 2010 deal to supply Damascus with S-300 missile defense systems, initially frozen over US and Israeli complaints, also remains on hold due because Syria has so far failed to provide an advance payment, the report said.


“Supplies of S-300 are out of question until we see real money,” the newspaper cited an unnamed official at the Russian military-industrial cooperation complex as saying.


The S-300 were initially expected to be delivered by July 2014, but shipping would be delayed until 2015 or 2016 unless the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad pays up soon, the report said.



© RIA Novosti.




The state-of-the-art anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems could be a serious obstacle for a potential bombing of Syrian state targets currently planned by the United States in punishment for Assad regime’s alleged chemical attacks on civilians.


Russia is also only planning to ship six of 36 Yak-130 combat trainer jets Syria contracted it for in 2011 because this is all that official Damascus paid for so far, the report said.


Rosoboronexport has not commented on the report. A military expert cited by Kommersant said that Assad’s forces, which are battling insurgents since 2011, have more need for tanks, armored vehicles and helicopter gunships than fighter jets.



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Some 8,400 Evacuated From Flooded Areas in Russia’s Far East

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) - Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday its forces have evacuated about 8,400 people from flood-hit areas in Russia’s Far East.


“Since the start of the flooding, the Russian Defense Ministry units charged with disaster response and assistance to local residents have evacuated about 8,400 people and 75 vehicles from the flooded areas,” the ministry said.


Currently, over 5,200 servicemen, 941 military vehicles, nearly 50 aircraft and 40 motor boats are involved in the rescue effort.


Russian health minister Veronika Skvortsova said more than 37,000 people sought medical assistance in four mobile hospitals deployed in affected regions. She said over 3,000 patients were hospitalized, most of them were diagnosed with stress-related conditions, chronic illnesses and minor injuries.


As rescue efforts proceed, water in the region’s Amur River continues to rise, gaining 12 centimeters (4.7 inches) in the past 24 hours.


As of Saturday morning, Amur water stood at 782 centimeters (25.6 feet), almost six feet above the critical point of 600 centimeters (20 feet).


“By September 1-4, the water is expected to reach the 800-centimeter point,” the local weather service said.


Several weeks of flooding, which according to Russian meteorologists were the worst in the region in 120 years, have affected the Amur Region, the Jewish Autonomous Region, and the Khabarovsk and Primorye territories, as well as in the Siberian republic of Yakutia. A deputy presidential envoy to the Far East, Vladimir Pysin, said on Tuesday the overall damage is currently estimated at 30 billion rubles ($1 billion).


Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov visited the flood-hit Amur Region, made a helicopter trip above the affected areas on Saturday and presided a special meeting of Russian ministers and local officials to discuss disaster response and recovery measures.





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©Emergencies Ministry


Far East Flood: Bear Evacuation





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(1:11 / 7.61Mb / просмотров видео: 281)


Emergencies Ministry



Far East Flood: Bear Evacuation





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Europe’s ATV-4 Spacecraft to Raise Space Station’s Orbit

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) - Specialists of Russia’s mission control center will adjust the International Space Station (ISS) orbit on Saturday by switching on thrusters of a European spacecraft.


“A maneuver to adjust the ISS orbit is scheduled for August 31, it is planned to be carried out by thrusters of Europe’s ATV-4 “Albert Einstein” resupply spacecraft docked with the station,” a mission control spokesman said.


The adjustment is scheduled to begin at 11:33 Moscow time (07:33 a.m. GMT) and will last about three minutes, giving the station a boost of 0.42 meters per second (1.4 feet per second).


As a result, the station’s altitude above the Earth surface will be raised to 412.7 kilometers at the lowest point of its orbit and 418.7 kilometers at the highest point.


Such adjustments are carried out regularly to compensate for the Earth's gravity and to facilitate the successful docking and undocking of spacecraft.


Saturday’s maneuver will be held to create the best conditions for the docking of Russia’s Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft carrying new ISS crew members - Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky of Russia and NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins.



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Snowden Leaked No Documents While in Russia - Lawyer

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) - Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden observes the terms of his asylum and has handed no secret information to Western media since his arrival to Russia, his Russian lawyer said.


Russian President Vladimir Putin said Snowden “must stop his work aimed at harming our US partners” if he wants to stay in Russia. The presidential spokesman later said that Snowden had pledged to stop the leaks when applying for asylum in the country.


“As far as I know, Snowden hasn’t leaked anything from here,” lawyer Anatoly Kucherena


said in an interview published by Russia’s Kommersant daily on Saturday, adding that it were media outlets who had made the decision on what information previously leaked by Snowden should be made public.


Kucherena, a prominent Russian lawyer, started assisting Snowden in his bid for a temporary asylum in Russia on July 12, and has since remained his representative and the only connection with the outside world.


He said the recent publications by The Guardian, The Washington Post и The New York Times were based on files provided by Snowden before his arrival to Russia. “Even if anything is published, it is all based on the information that he had handed over to the media while in Hong Kong,” Kucherena said.


The Washington Post reported Friday that secret “black budget” data leaked by Snowden shows the United States has built a global “espionage empire” employing over 100,000 people in 16 spy agencies and costing tens of billions of dollars annually.


On Saturday the paper said U.S. intelligence services carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011. Nearly three-quarters of them were against top-priority targets, which former officials say included Iran, Russia, China and North Korea.


The stories are latest in a string of revelations in newspapers based on Snowden’s documents. Earlier this month, British security forces seized some 58,000 classified documents from David Miranda, a Brazilian national who has been working with Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald on Snowden’s intelligence leaks.


UK national security adviser Oliver Robbins said these documents, also provided by Snowden, might threaten U.K. national security, damage the economy and lead to “widespread loss of life,” Bloomberg reported.


Snowden, 30, a former US intelligence contractor, is wanted by the United States on espionage and theft charges after leaking classified information about the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) sweeping telephone and electronic surveillance programs. He arrived to Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23 and received a temporary asylum after spending 40 days in the transit zone of the Russian capital’s Sheremetyevo airport.


The lawyer refused to disclose Snowden’s present whereabouts, saying only that he was “in a safe place” and was undergoing an “adaptation course” by studying Russian and reading Russian books in English.


“His further actions will be decided at a family council, when his father arrives to Russia. This meeting would bring some certainty,” Kucherena said.


According to the lawyer, Snowden has earlier refused to meet with envoys of the US Department of State.



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Russia’s Famed Aerobatic Team Tests New Su-30SM Fighter Jets

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosit) - Pilots of Russia’s famed Russkiye Vityazi (the Russian Knights) aerobatic display team on Friday tested new Su-30SM multirole fighter jets, the aircraft’s manufacturer said.


“During the flights, pilots of the famed aerobatics team performed a series of aerial stunts and familiarized themselves with unique super-maneuverable capacities of the Su-30SM fighter jet. They spoke highly of the plane’s performance,” said Alexander Uvarov, a spokesman for the plane’s manufacturer, the Irkut Corporation.


The test flights were performed during the fourth day of the MAKS-2013 air show under way in the city of Zhukovsky just outside Moscow. On Friday, the first day when the event was open to public, more than 69,000 people visited the show.


Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s deputy premier in charge of defense industry, said last year that Russia’s two famous aerobatic teams - Russkiye Vityazi and Strizhi (the Swifts) - will receive new aircraft in 2015-2016.


The Swifts, who currently fly the MiG-29 fourth-generation fighter jets, will receive Mig-35 fighters and Yak-130 combat trainers. The Russian Knights, who now have Su-27 in service, will fly Su-30 and Su-35 jets instead.


The Su-30SM is the latest development of the twin-seat Su-30 jet fighter family, a derivative of the long-serving single-seat Sukhoi Su-27, one of the air force's most important warplanes.


The new aircraft has better radar and communications capabilities, an improved friend-or-foe system, a new ejection seat and new weapons. It also has thrust-vectoring engine nozzles, providing super-maneuverability at low airspeeds.



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Obama-Putin Meeting Not on G20 Summit Agenda - White House

2013/08/30

WASHINGTON, August 31 (RIA Novosti) - A bilateral meeting between presidents of Russia and the United States is not on the agenda of the G20 summit in St. Petersburg due in early September, a senior US administration official said on Friday.


“At this time there is no bilateral meeting or pull-aside expected between the presidents, although…the [US] president and President Putin are going to have many opportunities to engage during the course of the G20 session” the official said.


Barack Obama cancelled his scheduled meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, planned for early September, after Russia gave temporary asylum to US intelligence leaker Edward Showden. Relations between Moscow and Washington were further strained by differences over last week’s reported chemical weapons attack in Syria.


The Syrian issue will undoubtedly be raised by the G20 leaders during the summit, the White House official said.


“There’s, at this point, no formal session or event that would involve Syria, but we know that leaders will be talking about it,” he said.



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US Strike on Syria Inadmissible, Even if ‘Limited’ - Moscow

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) - A military strike on Syria not sanctioned by the UN Security Council would be inadmissible no matter how “limited” it is, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.


US President Barack Obama said earlier in the day that a potential military strike on Syria would be a “limited” operation aimed at punishing the Syrian government for a chemical weapons attack it allegedly carried out last week.


“Any unilateral military sanction bypassing the UN Security Council, no matter how “limited” it is, will be a direct violation of the international law, [it will] undermine the possibility to solve the conflict in Syria by political and diplomatic means, [and] bring about a new round of confrontation and casualties,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement late on Friday.


He said that even some of US allies suggest that all decisions on Syria should be postponed until a team of UN chemical weapons experts completes its work in the country. The same proposal had earlier been voiced by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.


“Threats of striking Syria are being issued instead of implementing the decisions of the G8 summit in Lough Erne [and] subsequent agreements to provide the UN Security Council with a comprehensive evaluation by UN experts, who investigate the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria,” the spokesman said.


Britain backed the US incursion into Iraq in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein, but the British parliament on Thursday rejected military involvement in Syria.


At the same time, Turkey, a key US ally in the region and Syria’s neighbor, said a "limited" action against Syria will not be enough to satisfy Ankara and a full-fledged military intervention in Syria, similar to the one in Kosovo in 1999, is needed.


"A limited military action will not satisfy us. It [the intervention] should be like in Kosovo," Turkish daily Hurriyet quoted Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying.


The UN secretary general cut short his official visit in Europe on Friday and returned to New York for consultations on Syria with UN members. He said on Friday that the study of data and samples collected by the UN investigators on the site of the alleged attack might take about two weeks, Reuters reported citing diplomatic sources.


The UN team, deployed in Syria last Sunday, is set to leave the country on Saturday. A high-ranking team member, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Angela Kane, is expected to brief the UN chief on the work of the mission later that day.


Earlier on Friday, the White House released a declassified intelligence assessment of an apparent Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs, which the administration asserts “with high confidence” was carried out by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.


The report states that 1,429 people were killed in the alleged assault, including at least 426 children, though it said that assessment “will certainly evolve as we obtain more information.”


The Syrian authorities have repeatedly rejected all accusations. The country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement read out on State TV on Friday that the US report was "entirely fabricated."


"What the US administration describes as irrefutable evidence... is nothing but tired legends that the terrorists have been circulating for more than a week, with their share of lies and entirely fabricated stories," Agence France-Presse quoted the statement as saying.



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No Defense Deals With Iran While Litigation Continues - Rogozin

2013/08/30

VLADIVOSTOK, August 31 (RIA Novosti) - Russia won’t negotiate any defense contracts with Iran as long as the Islamic Republic continues its litigation with Moscow over a failed S-300 air defense systems deal, a Russian deputy premier said on Friday.


Under the $800-million contract signed at the end of 2007, Moscow was to supply five S-300PMU-1 battalions to Tehran. On September 22, 2010, Russia cancelled the contract in line with UN sanctions banning supply of conventional weapons to Iran.


In April 2011, Iran’s Defense Ministry and The Aerospace Industries Organization have launched a $4 billion lawsuit against Russia’s state-run arms export company Rosoboronexport in an international arbitration court in Geneva.


“All negotiations will be possible when lawsuits directed against Russia are put on hold,” said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of Russia’s defense and space industry.


Rogozin, however, said that even if Russia resumes its defense cooperation with Iran, Moscow would strictly adhere to norms of the international law and respect the sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic.


“We have never crossed the borders [specified] by the [sanctions] list, but we are ready to cooperate with Iran within the framework of acceptable military and technical cooperation,” the Russian premier said, expressing hope that the country’s new political leadership would improve ties with Russia.


Commenting on the Rogozin’s statement, a source in the Iranian embassy in Moscow told RIA Novosti that Tehran would reply to any proposal from Moscow when it is submitted via official diplomatic channels.


“Mass media are not a [suitable] platform for political talks,” the Iranian diplomat said. “In this respect, we are waiting for the Russian side to officially put forward this proposal.”



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Obama Says ‘No Boots on Ground’ in Possible Syria Strike

2013/08/30

WASHINGTON, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – US President Barack Obama said Friday that a potential military strike on Syria would be a “limited” operation aimed at punishing the Syrian government for a chemical weapons attack it allegedly carried out last week, comments that came amid flagging support from American citizens and allies for such an operation.


“We’re not considering any open-ended commitment. We’re not considering any boots-on-the-ground approach,” Obama said Friday in the White House, adding that he had “not made any decisions” about what actions the United States would take.


Obama made the statements an hour after the White House released a declassified intelligence assessment of an apparent Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs, which the administration asserts “with high confidence” was carried out by the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.


The report states that 1,429 people were killed in the alleged assault, including at least 426 children, though it said that assessment “will certainly evolve as we obtain more information.”


The report said its assessment was made based on “human, signals and geospatial intelligence,” as well as open source materials such as social media reports and videos of the alleged attack that have flooded the Internet over the past week.


“We have a body of information, including past Syrian practice, that leads us to conclude that regime officials were witting of and directed the attack on August 21,” the US government said in the report, adding that it has intelligence showing that preparations for the purported assault had been underway during the three days before it was allegedly carried out.


“It’s important for us to recognize that when over a thousand people are killed, including hundreds of innocent children, through the use of a weapon that 98 or 99 percent of humanity says should not be used even in war, and there is no action, then we’re sending a signal,” Obama said.


“That is a danger to our national security,” he added.


But with US forces on the brink of launching a strike against Syria, Obama is facing pushback from a war-wary electorate at home and a rebuke from key ally Britain concerning possible joint intervention in the civil war.


Britain backed the US incursion into Iraq in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein, but the British parliament on Thursday rejected military involvement in Syria, though French President François Hollande offered support in a Le Monde interview published Friday, saying last week’s alleged attack “must not go unpunished.”


“Otherwise, it would be taking the risk of an escalation that would normalize the use of these weapons and threaten other countries,” Hollande told the French daily.


Meanwhile, 50 percent of Americans said the United States should not take military action against the Syrian government in response to the alleged chemical weapons attack, according to an NBC News poll published Friday, with 42 percent approving a military response.


Nearly 80 percent of Americans believe the White House should obtain approval from the US Congress for taking military action in Syria, according to the poll.


US lawmakers this week have also been fiercely critical of a potential US attack against Syria. Sen. Rand Paul told Fox News on Friday that it appears Obama is “saving face” because of repeated statements he has made about chemical weapons being a “red line” that must not be crossed in the Syria conflict.


“That’s why you ought to be very careful of drawing lines in the sand or red lines because now he feels that he looks weak to both his colleagues in the United States as well as his international colleagues,” Paul said. “But I don’t think that’s enough reason to go to war.”


Addressing “a certain weariness” among the American public following decade-long US military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama said Friday that he “very much appreciate[s]” a “certain suspicion of any military action.”


“I assure you nobody ends up being more war weary than me, but what I also believe is that part of our obligations as a leader in the world is making sure that when you have a regime that is willing to use weapons that are prohibited by international norms on ... people, including children, that they are held to account,” he said.


Obama added Friday that he had not made a final decision on how the United States might respond, but national security experts said it is highly unlikely that Washington would not proceed with a strike on Syria.


“A pullback under the right conditions might be possible, but it would be very, very hard,” W. Andrew Terrill, a Middle East expert at the US Army War College, told RIA Novosti on Friday.


Terrill said the alleged attack could have been a test by Assad’s government to see what the West’s response to a chemical weapons attack would be, and that a failure by the United States to send a message to Assad could encourage an expansion of similar attacks.


“And I don’t know how else to make it clear to [Assad],” Terrill said.


But retired US Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, told Bloomberg on Friday morning that a US attack in Syria could be a fatal mistake by the White House, citing parallels with the Iraq war.


Wilkerson, who reviewed intelligence on Iraq for Powell in the run-up to that war, has since called his role in justifying a US incursion to Iraq “probably the biggest mistake of my life.”


“If you think you can send cruise missiles and drop a few bombs on Syria and then wash your hands of it, or think that Assad will obey what you say after that, you are smoking something,” he told Bloomberg.



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Putin Against Delaying Elections in Flood-Hit Far East

2013/08/30

KHABAROVSK, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – President Vladimir Putin said Friday that elections scheduled for September 8 in Russia’s flood-hit Far East should not be postponed, despite talk that they could be held next year instead.


“I agree with those who said elections should not be put off,” Putin said at a meeting with Amur Region senior officials. “The election results will be the best assessment of your work.”


Earlier, the head of the far-eastern Jewish Autonomous Region, Alexander Vinnikov, asked Putin to postpone the September elections in the region by one year due to the flooding. Putin said he would consider the request.


Several weeks of flooding, which according to Russian meteorologists are the worst in the region in 120 years, have affected the Amur Region, the Jewish Autonomous Region, and the Khabarovsk and Primorye territories, as well as in the Siberian republic of Yakutia.



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‘Russian Obstructionism’ Pushing US to Act on Syria Without UN

2013/08/30

WASHINGTON, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – US Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that Russian “obstructionism” in the UN Security Council has pushed Washington to act against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, which the United States has blamed for a deadly chemical weapons attack last week, without waiting for a UN resolution.


“Because of the guaranteed Russian obstructionism of any action through the UN Security Council, the UN cannot galvanize the world to act as it should,” Kerry said in a speech at the State Department, hours after British lawmakers voted against any British involvement in action against Syria.


“President Obama will ensure that the United States makes its own decisions, on its own timeline, based on our values and our interests,” Kerry said, adding that Washington has commitments from several allies, including the Arab League, Australia, France and Turkey, for action against the Assad regime.




© White House



A map released by the US government to go with its intelligence report of the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons in an attack last week



Any US intervention in Syria would be “tailored” and limited to “ensure that a despot’s brutal and flagrant use of chemical weapons will be held accountable,” he said, ensuring Americans “weary of war” that any US action in Syria would “not involve any boots on the ground, will not be open-ended, and it will not assume responsibility for the civil war that is already well under way.”


“Fatigue does not absolve us of our responsibility,” Kerry said. “Just longing for peace does not necessarily bring it about.”


To better make its case for retaliating against the Syrian government for using chemical weapons, Washington on Friday released details of its intelligence assessment of the Aug. 21 attack.


Information gathered by the US intelligence community showed that the rockets used in the attack on a Damascus suburb that the Assad regime was trying to “rid of its opponents… came only from regime-controlled areas,” Kerry said.


Kerry said the administration had “high confidence” in the intelligence that he said showed it was the Assad regime that carried out the chemical weapons attack. He added that it was “highly unlikely” that opposition forces were responsible.


At least 1,429 Syrians, including 426 children, were killed in the attack, Kerry said, sharply increasing earlier tolls, which had put the number of dead at around 355, with hundreds more wounded.


The United States remained committed to resolving the three and a half year of conflict in Syria through political negotiations, not military action, Kerry said, insisting that allowing “a thug and a murderer like Bashar Assad” to get away with gassing “thousands of his own people with impunity” would hurt the credibility of the United States and its allies and put the world at greater risk from attacks by other rogue regimes.


“Our choice today has great consequences. It matters to our security and the security of our allies,” especially countries in the Middle East which are “a stiff breeze away from Damascus” and would be threatened by Syria’s chemical weapons if no punishment is meted out to the Assad regime.


“It matters deeply to the credibility and future interests of the United States and our allies,” he said, warning that other countries that might seek to “challenge international norms… are watching.


“They want to see whether the United States and our friends mean what they say. They are watching to see if Syria can get away with it because then, maybe they too can put the world at greater risk,” Kerry said.



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Endangered Persian Leopard Cubs Born in Sochi

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – An endangered Persian leopard gave birth to two cubs in the Sochi National Park in southern Russia, the World Wide Fund for Nature said Friday.


The mother – for whom it was her first litter – abandoned one of the cubs, but that newborn was rescued and nurtured by park staff who hope to replenish the North Caucasus’ now-extinct wild Persian leopard population, the WWF said in a statement.


The luckier of the two cubs, along with two others born to another female last month, is tentatively scheduled for release into the wild in 2015, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who oversees the government’s leopard conservation effort, said Friday.


The abandoned cub will never be able to live in the wild but will be used for breeding, the WWF said. There are only 108 Persian leopards, descended from less than a dozen forebears, at zoos and breeding centers around the world, and the population is in need of new genes.


Of the three leopard couples brought to Sochi’s Persian leopard reintroduction center since it opened in 2009, only one is still able to produce offspring, the WWF said. That couple took about two years to get along – mainly because the young female cat mistook the male’s sexual advances for attacks.


Between 870 and 1,290 Persian leopards still live in the wild in Iran, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. In Russia’s Far East lives a separate subspecies of Amur leopards, whose estimated population is 50, up from 30 in 2007.



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Hunt for Stray Crocodile Called Off in Russia’s Urals

2013/08/30

YEKATERINBURG, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – Police have called off the hunt for a stray crocodile spotted in the unofficial capital of Russia’s Urals region, with local media citing expert opinion that the reptile stands little chance of surviving in the wild.


“Nobody is looking for it specifically anymore simply because the law enforcement officers have a lot of real things to do,” a Sverdlovsk Region police spokesperson told RIA Novosti.


However, police will try to capture the crocodile if they happen across it, the spokesperson said on Thursday afternoon.


Local police earlier complained that they no formal instructions on crocodile hunting, but pledged not to shoot on sight.


The crocodile was first spotted Wednesday, when somebody filmed it darting through the grass near the River Iset in downtown Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-biggest city with a population of 1.4 million.


It remains unclear how the crocodile ended up on the loose in Yekaterinburg. The city circus denied any link to it. Police said a local resident might have bought it as a pet and then changed their mind.


The cold-blooded animal stands little chance of surviving in the Russian climate, even in summer, Moskovsky Komsomolets daily cited a Moscow Zoo spokesperson as saying.


It is unlikely it will find enough fish in the River Iset to feed on, and besides, crocodiles need a water temperature of at least 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit), the spokeswoman said.


No figures were available for water temperature in the Iset River as of Friday afternoon, but it was 18 degrees Celsius in the city.



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Kiev, Moscow Finalize Deal on An-124 Heavy-Lift Plane

2013/08/30

KIEV, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine and Russia are set to sign off on a joint production deal to modernize the An-124 heavy lift transport aircraft, with the final document to be signed in September, a Ukrainian government news bulletin said Friday.


The technical details were agreed during the MAKS 2013 airshow just outside Moscow, and the two countries will ink the final deal at a high-profile bilateral meeting in September, the bulletin said.


Ruslan planes that are nearing the end of their service life will be modernized and upgraded with new, Ukrainian-made, D-18T engines to be installed at Russia’s Ulyanovsk plant. The navigation system, landing gear and avionics will also be replaced, extending the An-124’s service life through 2025.


Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Yuriy Boiko said that a report by audit firm Ernst&Young indicated production should be profitable provided orders come in for more than 40 aircraft.


Boiko noted that Ruslan, in its basic modification, costs $300 million, and that there are currently optional orders for 61 aircraft, 50 of which from Russia’s Volga-Dnepr carrier.


Experts estimate market demand to 2030 for this aircraft at approximately 200.


A single Antonov An-124-100 can carry up to 120 tons of cargo, including ‘outsize’ cargo.


In December 2012, Ukraine’s Antonov design bureau said that NATO had called the heavy lift plane “unique” and said it would continue using it through 2014.



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Russian Official Demands Minsk Releases Fertilizer Firm’s CEO

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian presidential aide demanded Friday the "immediate release" of Vladislav Baumgertner, the chief executive of Russia’s largest fertilizer company, whose detention in neighboring Belarus earlier this week has apparently sparked the latest in a long line of trade wars between the two neighbors.


“We demand [Baumgertner’s] immediate release,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov said.


Baumgertner, CEO of Uralkali, the world’s largest producer of potash, was detained Monday in the Belarusian capital Minsk. He is also a member of the oversight board of Uralkali’s former Belarusian partner, Belaruskali.


Baumgertner was charged this week with abuse of power and official duties and faces up to 10 years in jail. The Belarusian authorities have accused him and four other Uralkali executives of causing the state losses of about $100 million by pulling the company out of a cartel in late July it operated with Belaruskali, Bloomberg reported.


The pull-out caused global prices for potash, one of Minsk’s most vital exports, to crash, and the value of Belaruskali to plunge.


But Belarus showed little sign of softening its stance, reiterating Friday that it might start an investigation into Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, who owns 21.75 percent of Uralkali’s stock. A criminal investigation into Kerimov might be “launched in the nearest future,” Belarusian Investigative Committee spokesman Pavel Traulko said.


Earlier this week, Moscow hit back at two mainstays of the Belarusian economy by imposing cuts on oil exports to Minsk and threatening food imports from Belarus, while denying the moves were connected to Baumgertner's plight.


Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft said it planned to cut oil supplies to Belarus by 400,000 metric tons for September, slashing 20 percent of Belarus’ total monthly oil imports. Belarus relies entirely on Russian oil to supply its two major refineries.


Russia’s chief sanitary inspector Gennady Onishchenko criticized the quality of Belarusian milk products Thursday and cast doubt upon their safety for Russian consumers.


Russia and Belarus have a long history of quarreling over economic matters. Russia, keen to prop up one of its last political allies, has in effect subsidized the Belarusian economy with cheap oil and gas and loans, but Moscow appears to be increasingly impatient with what it sees as Belarus abusing that largesse.



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Just 15% of Russians Say Moscow Attractive Place to Live – Poll

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – A recent opinion poll has shown that only 15 percent of Russians think that Moscow is an attractive city to live in, while another 25 percent prefer small-town life.


Some 60 percent of respondents said they could not see any “good qualities” in the average Muscovite, considered arrogant (19 percent), greedy (9 percent), rude (9 percent), mean (7 percent) and callous (5 percent).


The survey, by the state-run Russia Public Opinion Research Center, also revealed that just 11 percent of Russians would want to live in the country’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg.


More than half of respondents (65 percent) said they preferred to live outside of Moscow because of the big city’s pollution. Fifty-three percent said that small towns seemed safer.


About a tenth of Russia’s 143 million population lives in Moscow, according to official statistics. In a similar opinion poll in 2006, about a fifth of respondents said they preferred to live in Moscow.


The recent poll was conducted earlier this month using a nationwide sample of 1,600 adults across 130 residential areas.



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Kremlin Unaware of Syrian S-300 Missile Contract Payment - Aide

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – Moscow has no knowledge of Syria having made payments for Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, a Kremlin aide said Friday.


“We don’t know about that,” presidential aide Yury Ushakov said, when asked whether the Assad regime was making payments under a previously signed contract for Russian surface-to-air missile systems.


All previously signed military supply contracts with Damascus are being honored, he said, adding “this is common practice for any state” and is “not in conflict with any international rules.”


“There are no bans in place, and our collaboration in the military technology sphere is proceeding ahead,” Ushakov said.


Earlier in the day, Russia’s state arms exporter Rosoboronexport said Moscow has signed no new arms supply contracts with Damascus since the start of the civil war in Syria. Corporation Deputy CEO Viktor Komardin said his company is currently implementing contracts signed prior to 2011, which are “100 percent defensive.”


Syrian President Bashar Assad claimed in an interview with Izvestia published Monday that all the contracts Syria has previously signed with Russia were being implemented, despite pressure from the West, but did not clarify the status of a deal for Moscow to deliver advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Damascus.


Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed in June a deal had been signed with Damascus for the S-300 system, but said Russia had not shipped the weapons for fear of disrupting “the balance of power in the region.” Russian media reports said Moscow and Damascus had signed a $1.1 billion deal for the S-300 systems.


The S-300 would be a largely useless weapon for use in the civil war that the Syrian government has been waging since 2011 because the Syrian rebels have no air force, but would be a huge obstacle to Western powers opposed to the Assad regime if they tried to carry out air strikes against Damascus, analysts have previously told RIA Novosti.


Russia is currently locked in commercial arbitration with Syria’s ally and neighbor Iran over a suspended contract for delivery of S-300 missiles.



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Inmates Escape Using Blankets as Decoy

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – Police are on the hunt for two escaped convicts who got away from a correctional facility in Russia’s southern Volgograd region after fooling the guards into thinking they were still in bed.


The escapers, who were being held at a medical correctional facility in the city of Uryupinsk, were named by police as Alexander Bayev, born in 1982 and serving eight years for theft, and Alexander Sevostyanov, born in 1994 and serving two and a half years for theft and car burglary.


Police said the men’s absence was discovered at 4 a.m. during a regular night check. The two had stuffed blankets on their beds to make it appear that they were still fast asleep under the covers.


The breakout follows another escape from a Moscow maximum-security prison in May, when 33-year-old Oleg Topalov broke out of the Matrosskaya Tishina pretrial detention facility by using a spoon to widen a ceiling air vent. He was caught the next day in Moscow’s Izmailovo park with the help of a police dog.



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Muslims Cry Foul as Russian Mosque Misses Top Spot in Poll

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – An apparently innocuous contest to select Russia’s best unknown tourist landmark has descended into acrimony after a North Caucasus mosque gathered tens of millions of votes, but narrowly lost at the last moment, prompting allegations of vote rigging from outraged Muslims.


A 16-century kremlin, or castle, in the city of Kolomna 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Moscow, won the second round of the Russia 10 contest, which ended on Friday, with 38.6 million votes, according to the contest’s website.


It scored just 400,000 votes more than the Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque in Chechnya’s capital Grozny, which had led the running for most of the time since the contest started on July 1.


The Russia 10 vote sparked a war of words between Russian nationalists and Muslims on the Russian blogosphere and social networks, with heated debates raging about whether a mosque could qualify as a top Russian landmark.


The Chechen vote was actively promoted by republican authorities, including Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, the son of the republic’s late president Akhmad Kadyrov who gave his name to the mosque.


Kadyrov claimed early Friday that cell phone operators had ignored some 4 million votes cast in favor of the mosque, denying it victory.


“This was nothing but fraud,” he said in a comment next to a photo of the mosque on Instagram, adding that Chechen lawmakers in the federal parliament will seek a criminal investigation into the matter.


A representative for the contest confirmed to RIA Novosti that Russia 10 had problems with tallying the votes cast through cellphone text messages (with repeat voting allowed), but claimed Chechnya was not the only region affected.


Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim region with a population of 1.3 million, went through two wars between separatists and federal Russian forces in the 1990s and 2000s. The insurgency was eventually suppressed under the Kadyrovs, though critics say that Ramzan Kadyrov only achieved peace in his republic by establishing a ruthless authoritarian regime with the Kremlin’s blessing.


Residents of the North Caucasus are often seen as something close to foreigners outside their home turf in Russia, historically a majority Christian country with a predominantly Slavic population.


The top sights in the Russia 10 voting also included a sculpture park called Legend in Penza Region in central Russia, as well as another mosque and one more kremlin, two other Christian landmarks, a Buddhist temple, a volcano and Lake Baikal, the world’s biggest body of fresh water by volume.


The controversy about what really is Russia’s finest unknown tourist sight is unlikely to fade soon, given that voters get their chance for a last say on the issue in third and final round of the vote that kicks off Sunday.



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Russian Medics Help 300 People Lining Up to See Islamic Relics

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – About 300 people needed medical attention after standing in a huge line to see Muslim holy relics exhibited in the capital of Russia’s North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan, an official said Friday.


An exhibition featuring a hair and a footprint of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, his clothes and a vessel he drank from – along with more items that belonged to his offspring and early followers – opened in Makhachkala on Tuesday.


“People sought medical help because of the heat and a long wait” Thursday, a representative of Dagestan’s Interior Ministry told RIA Novosti. Only one person was hospitalized, and others received help on the spot, the representative said.


The exhibition’s organizers said they expect some 3 million visitors within the first week of the exhibition.


Dagestan is Russia’s most multi-ethnic republic with a predominantly Muslim population of almost 3 million. It is home to some of the oldest Islamic monuments on Russia’s territory, including Russia’s oldest mosque in the southern city of Derbent that dates back to 733.



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Russia Signed No New Weapons Deals With Syria – Arms Exporter

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – Russia has signed no new arms supply contracts with Damascus since the start of the civil war in Syria, the deputy CEO of Russia’s state arms export corporation Rosoboronexport said Friday.


“Russia is now fulfilling contracts signed prior to 2011. These [contracts] are 100 percent defensive in character,” Viktor Komardin said, adding that Russia is only shipping air defense and naval defense systems to Syria under previously signed deals.


The systems being supplied include Tor and Buk air defense missile systems, and also the Bastion coastal missile systems, he said.


Syrian President Bashar Assad claimed in an interview with Izvestia published Monday that all the contracts Syria has previously signed with Russia are being implemented, despite pressure from the West, but did not clarify the status of a deal for Moscow to deliver advanced S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Damascus.


The S-300 would be a largely useless weapon for use in the civil war that the Syrian government has been waging since 2011 because the Syrian rebels have no air force, but would be a huge obstacle to Western powers opposed to the Assad regime if they tried to carry out air strikes against Damascus, analysts have previously told RIA Novosti.


The unrest in Syria began in March 2011 and later escalated into a civil war. More than 100,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far, according to United Nations estimates.



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Live Broadcast of MAKS-2013 Aerobatic Shows

2013/08/30

MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti) – RIA Novosti is broadcasting live the aerobatic program of the MAKS-2013 airshow, beginning with flights by the Strizhi (Swifts) and Russkiye Vityazi (Russian Knights) fighter jet teams.


The Berkuty (Golden Eagles) attack helicopter team is also set to showcase their close-formation flying skills.



© RIA Novosti.





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First Show of the Two Russian Combat Vehicles

2013/08/29



MAKS 2013 air show is not only a good place to show wonderful aircrafts in the sky but also to demonstrate the new automotive vehicles on the ground. This post is about two of them.







The first of them is an anti-aircraft missile system of medium-range S-350 “Vityaz” in the export modification (S-350E). It is shown to public for the first time.


There are three vehicles from the complex of “Vityaz” at the show: a elf-propelled launcher 50P6E with twelve antiwar missiles container launchers, a multifunctional radar station 50N6E and a combat control system 50K6E. All the vehicles are on eight-wheel chassis made in Russia.
















Links to explore:


See even more of English Russia:




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