Nature – The town of Ozersk, deep in Russia’s remote southern Urals, hides the relics of a massive secret experiment. From the early 1950s to the end of the cold war, nearly 250,000 animals were systematically irradiated. Some were blasted with ?-, ?- or ?-radiation. Others were fed radioactive particles. Some of the doses were high enough to kill the animals outright; others were so low that they seemed harmless. After the animals — mice, rats, dogs, pigs and a few monkeys — died, scientists dissected out their tissues to see what damage the radioactivity had wrought. They fixed thin slices of lung, heart, liver, brain and other organs in paraffin blocks, to be sliced and examined under the microscope. Some organs, they pickled in jars of formalin. Read article
Guardian – Russian riot police have broken up an Occupy-style protest against President Vladimir Putin, forcing dozens of people out of a central Moscow park where they had staged a sit-in for a week and detaining at least 15. The dispersal of the makeshift encampment is the latest step in a government crackdown on protests over Putin’s return to the presidency on 7 May for a six-year term following four years as prime minister. Read Article
PressTV – The cousin of the British Queen, Prince Michael of Kent, has received £320,000 ($514,000) from a Russian ex-politician who fled to London in 2000. Read article
BBC – Mr Putin, who was inaugurated as President this week after an absence of four years, told US officials he was busy finalising his cabinet. He will send the outgoing president, Dmitry Medvedev, who replaces him as prime minister, instead. The two presidents will now hold talks at the G20 meeting in Mexico in June. Read article
Reuters – Opposition leaders Alexei Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov are detained again while leading a peaceful demonstration in Moscow against political leaders. Read article
At least six people were taken to hospital, and around 15 riot police injured, while many opposition leaders were among nearly 600 people to be detained. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Moscow police had acted “softly” and should have been even more forceful. Read article
BNO – Two car bomb attacks hit a police post in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan on late Thursday evening, killing at least twelve people and injuring more than 25 others, local media reported. The first attack happened at around 10:10 p.m. local time when a suspected suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laden vehicle at a police field post on the outskirts of Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s Dagestan. As emergency teams arrived at the scene to attend to the victims, about ten minutes after the initial attack, a second blast followed. Police said the second blast was likely caused by an explosive device planted in a van near the police post, according to the Itar-Tass news agency. Read Article
BBC – Several European leaders have cancelled visits to Ukraine amid growing concern over alleged mistreatment of the jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko. Both EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding will boycott the Euro 2012 tournament in Ukraine. German Chancellor Angela Merkel may do so too. A spokesman said any such visit would depend on Ms Tymoshenko’s fate. Read article
Russia is the largest and most powerful of the states to emerge from theformer Soviet Union, an empire that existed for over 70 years. Russia wielded tremendous power both within the U.S.S.R. and in the international sphere, but the Soviet Union collapsed and was formally dissolved in December 1991; leading to a period of nation state building and the reshaping of the eastern European region.For a comprehensive view of world news about Russia and the Former States; its people, politics and economy read our news archive of 612 articles CLICK HERE
Gazeta.Ru – Experts from the science and research center of Russia’s Defense Ministry are testing a unique electromagnetic weapon with non-lethal effects, Interfax news agency reported Tuesday. As the center’s director, Dmitry Soskov said, the weapon would be most effective in local conflicts, where there is no solid frontline. It would also be very useful while suppressing mass riots in cities. “The new weapon is designed to have non-lethal effects on humans. It has a striking factor in the form of electromagnetic radiation of very high frequency. The directed ray causes intolerable pain,” Soskov said. Read Article
AP — Up to 2,000 tons of oil have spilled from a major field in northern Russia after workers struggled to contain the leak for two days, officials said. The accident happened at the Trebs oil field in the Nenets Autonomous District on Friday following work on an exploratory well. The oil had been gushing for nearly two days before the workers finally capped the well Sunday morning, Emergency Ministry officials said. Read article
RTT – Russia on Monday began a five-day aerial exercise in the country’s maritime territory near the Japanese border in which some 40 strategic bombers are taking part, the Defense Ministry said. The long-range aviation exercise includes aerial bombings and launching of airborne cruise missiles from the Litovka test range, Russian state media quoted Ministry spokesman Col. Vladimir Drik as saying. Other training missions will include aerial patrol and midair refueling. About 30 crews of Tu-95MS Bear strategic bombers, some ten crews of Tu-22M3 Backfire bombers and two Il-78 aerial tankers will be taking part in the drill which has caused concern for Japan. Read Article
Independent – Britain is bargaining with one of the world’s most brutal dictators because we need to use his country as a transit route to bring thousands of tons of military equipment home from Afghanistan. Senior officials admitted yesterday that Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov had the UK “over a barrel”, after his country emerged as the favoured route home when British forces are withdrawn from Afghanistan by 2014. Read article
WND – The Russian military anticipates that an attack will occur on Iran by the summer and has developed an action plan to move Russian troops through neighboring Georgia to stage in Armenia, which borders on the Islamic republic, informed Russian sources say in a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin. Russian Security Council head Viktor Ozerov said that Russian General Military Headquarters has prepared an action plan in the event of an attack on Iran. Dmitry Rogozin, who recently was the Russian ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, warned against an attack on Iran. Read Article
BBC – Moscow has condemned the US prison sentence for arms dealer Viktor Bout as “political” and says the case will be a priority in relations with Washington. Read article
Editorial Comment – Only two skyscrapers have ever collapsed due to fire, and ironically both did so within hours of the fires starting and occurred on the same day, 11th September 2011
Reuters – U.N. officials have compiled a list of Syrian figures suspected of crimes against humanity in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, but opposition from Russia and China means the accused are unlikely to appear in the dock at the international war crimes court any time soon. As world powers press for an end to the violence that has racked Syria and claimed thousands of lives, pressure is building over accusations that Assad’s security apparatus has committed crimes in suppressing the year-long revolt. Read Article
Ria Novosti – Azerbaijan purchased a variety of weaponry, including aerial drones and an advanced anti-missile capable radar, from Israel under a $1.6 bln contract signed in 2011, the APA news agency said on Tuesday, citing data provided by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). According to the SIPRI Arms Transfers Database, Baku bought an unknown number of Gabriel anti-ship missiles, five Heron and five Searcher UAV’s, a Barak-8 air defense system with 75 missiles, and an EL/M-2080 Green Pine radar. Israel uses Green Pine for its national missile defense system. Analitika.az website speculated that the purchases could be linked to a cooling in relations with Iran, after ties between Baku and Tehran deteriorated recently. Read Article
Bloomberg – Russia’s state debt relative to economic output will be less than forecast in 2014, according to a marketing presentation for the government’s sale of sovereign Eurobonds obtained by Bloomberg News. Debt as a percentage of gross domestic product will increase to 15.7 percent by the end of 2014 from 9.8 percent last year, according to the document, prepared by Russia’s Finance Ministry and the central bank. Read Article
Bloomberg – Russia is sending a “temporary detachment” of troops into the southern region of Dagestan, whose border lies about 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of Iran, to combat terrorism, the Interior Ministry said. “We are talking about a temporary deployment and coordination to prevent and counter terrorism and extremism across the whole territory of Dagestan,” Vyacheslav Makhmudov, a spokesman for the regional Interior Ministry, said from the republic’s capital city, Makhachkala. Read Article
ABC – A Russian military unit has arrived in Syria, according to Russian news reports, a development that a United Nations Security Council source told ABC News was “a bomb” certain to have serious repercussions. Russia, one of President Bashar al-Assad’s strongest allies despite international condemnation of the government’s violent crackdown on the country’s uprising, has repeatedly blocked the United Nations Security Council’s attempts to halt the violence, accusing the U.S. and its allies of trying to start another war. Read Article
BBC – Russian police have arrested dozens of people picketing Moscow’s TV tower over footage that accused the opposition of paying anti-government protesters. Read article
Independent – The money and blood pit that is Afghanistan – where the US and Britain have expended more than 2,100 lives and £302bn – is about to start paying a dividend. But it won’t be going to the countries which have made this considerable sacrifice. The contracts to open up Afghanistan’s mineral and fossil-fuel wealth, and to build the railways that will transport them out of the country, are being won or pursued by China, India, Iran, and Russia. Read Article
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