The Kremlin has said Moscow wants to work with the British on investigating the nerve agent but that London has shown no interest so far [PPIO]
A delegation from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will visit the UK over the next two days to assess the nerve agent Novichok which was allegedly used in the assassination attempt of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.
Putin remains president until the next election in 2024 [PPIO]With voter turnout at more than 67 per cent, Russian president Vladimir Putin has been re-elected with an overwhelming majority in Sunday’s election.
Putin won 76 per cent of the vote, with 99 per cent of ballots counted, Russia’s Central Election Commission reported.
That’s an increase from his 62 per cent win in the 2012 election.
Communist party candidate Pavel Grudinin came in second with only 11.82 per cent while hardline nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky won 5.7 per cent.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was the first to congratulate Xi [PPIO]
Chinese President Xi Jinping was re-elected as the country’s leader by unanimous vote during the 13th National Party Congress on Saturday.
He was also selected as the chairman of the Central Military Commission.
This election, which appears to have no term limit, effectively makes Xi the most powerful political player in China.
Russian President Vladimir Putin quickly called to congratulate Xi.
Russia says that it is only targeting areas that are being used by Islamist rebels to launch shelling of the capital Damascus [Image: Defense Ministry of Russia]
The Russian military says that more than 20,000 people fled the fighting between Syrian government forces and Islamist rebels in Eastern Ghouta in Damascus on Sunday.
The civilians have been using humanitarian corridors agreed to by the Russians and Syrians for the past two weeks, but the numbers sometimes slow to a trickle leaving the city amid air strikes and shelling.
Some UK officials are accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of direct involvement in the assassination of Skripal [PPIO]
Tensions between Russia and the UK were heightened on Saturday when Moscow ordered the British Council and British Consulate General in St. Petersburg closed.
UK Ambassador to Russia Laurie Bristow was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Moscow and told of the closures as well as the expulsion of 23 UK diplomats in a retaliatory response to similar measures taken in London earlier in the week.
Russia’s defense ministry has fired back at remarks by UK defense secretary Williamson [Xinhua]
The Defense Ministry in Moscow has fired back at UK Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson characterizing him as having “an extreme degree of intellectual impotence” for saying Russia “should go away and shut up”.
On Thursday, Williamson made his statement during a press query about Russia’s response to allegations it was involved in the murder attempt of former spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England.
Lavrov said Russia had nothing to do with the alleged murder attempt of former spy Sergei Skripal [Xinhua]
Russian Ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko has called Prime Minister Theresa May’s order to expel some 23 Russian diplomatic staff “absolutely unacceptable” and a “provocation”.
He said the 23 and their families are not involved in the alleged murder attempt by nerve agent of Sergei Skripal in the city of Salisbury.
India’s energy needs are to grow congruent with its growing economy and improving lifestyle for tens of millions of people [Xinhua]
India will become the world’s greatest growth market of energy by 2040, a report from British Petroleum (PB) Energy.
The report, released earlier in the month in New York, forecasts growing influence of emerging economies on world energy markets and said they would become major players as living standards improved there.
Demand for oil and energy sources will be symbiotic with this improved living standard, the report said.
May said the attack on Skripal in the UK put innocent citizens at risk [Xinhua]
Russian officials have called UK Theresa May’s address to Parliament a “circus” and her implication that Moscow was behind the poisoning of a Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter “yet another new fairy tale”.
On Monday, May said that police investigations indicated that Skripal’s attempted murder in Salisbury was either “a direct act by the Russian state against our country,” or that Moscow had lost control of its nerve agents to unidentified groups.
India’s landless, for hundreds of millions of poor farmers and for so-called tribal communities who often live in resource-rich areas where lucrative mining operations are causing massive environmental damage [Image: People’s Archive of Rural India]
The Indian government and the state of Maharashtra has promised tens of thousands of protesting farmers that it will expand the loan-waiver regimen and the transfer of forestland titles in their names.
