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MOSCOW, November 19 (RIA Novosti) – Two district courts in St. Petersburg granted bail Tuesday to several more Greenpeace activists awaiting trial, signaling a possible softening in the authorities’ stance over the case. Nine activists, including nationals of Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Italy, New Zealand and Poland, can leave their detention facilities after they have posted bail of 2 million rubles ($61,500) each, the courts ruled. A group of 28 Greenpeace activists and two reporters was initially charged with piracy for attempting in September to scale an Arctic Sea oil platform owned by an affiliate of energy giant Gazprom...

BELGRADE, November 13 (RIA Novosti) – Russia and Serbia signed an agreement Wednesday on military cooperation as part of further development of the strategic partnership between the two countries. The deal was overseen in Belgrade by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, whose visit is being seen as a prelude to a possibly imminent deal on the sale of Russian fighter jets to Serbia. Shoigu said contacts between the countries had recently reached new heights. The agreements reached Wednesday included provisions, among other things, for collaboration in peacekeeping operations under the aegis of the United Nations. Russia and Serbia have agreed...

WASHINGTON, November 13 (RIA Novosti) – The United States has scrapped plans to purchase additional helicopters from state-run Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport amid pressure from federal lawmakers over Russian arms deliveries to Syria, a top US senator said Wednesday. “I applaud the [US] Defense Department’s decision to cancel its plan to buy 15 additional Mi-17 helicopters from Rosoboronexport,” US Sen. John Cornyn said in statement, The Associated Press (AP) reported. Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, has been leading a push in Congress to oppose the Pentagon’s purchase of Russian helicopters for deployment in Afghanistan due to Moscow’s weapons shipments to...

MOSCOW, November 7 (RAPSI) – Some participants of the Greenpeace raid on a Gazprom drilling platform, dubbed the “Arctic 30”, may face new charges in the ongoing trial, the Investigative Committee’s official spokesman Vladimir Markin said on Thursday. “Some of the raiders, in addition to the hooliganism charges, will be charged with resisting law enforcement officials," Markin said in an online interview to Gazeta.ru. The Arctic Sunrise ship was seized by Russian border guards on September 19 in international waters, within Russia's exclusive economic zone, a day after two Greenpeace activists scaled the Prirazlomnaya drilling rig in the Pechora Sea,...

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN TOPS FORBES’ 2013 RANKING OF THE WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE

Though 49ers pass rusher Aldon Smith is hardly having an easy time of things these days -- he's still away indefinitely from football -- a report claims that the Santa Clara police provided the defensive lineman with favorable treatment when he was arrested. NBC Bay Area uncovered records that show Smith, after being booked on suspicion of driving under the influence at 9:40 a.m. PT, was released at 11:20 a.m. PT, a mere 1.5 hours later. Smith enjoyed an expedited trip through the Santa Clara County Jail, according to court records and information uncovered by the NBC Bay Area Investigative...

Russia has shrugged off Dutch legal action over its detention and prosecution of Greenpeace activists for piracy as protesters took to the streets internationally to call for the 30 detainees to be freed. The Netherlands launched legal proceedings against Russia on Friday, saying it had unlawfully detained activists and others on the Dutch-registered ship last month as it protested against drilling in the Arctic. Two Dutch citizens were among 30 people on board the Arctic Sunrise, which was seized by Russian authorities near the Prirazlomnaya offshore oil platform. Also onboard were Kiwis David Haussmann and Jonathan Beauchamp.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday accused the United States of blackmailing Russia over a tough UN resolution against Syria, and said the West is blinded by the idea of regime change in the war-torn country. "Our American partners are beginning to blackmail us: if Russia won't support a resolution under Chapter VII in the UN Security Council, then we will stop the work in the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons," Lavrov said in a Channel One interview, according to Russian agencies. He said the OPCW is "about to make a decision" on Syria but the process is...

Senator John McCain accused Vladimir Putin on Thursday of allying himself with tyrants and ruling through violence and repression, in a retort to a New York Times editorial by the Russian President earlier this month. In an editorial published on the news website Pravda.ru, McCain criticized the Russian leader's policies at home and in Syria where he has protected President Bashar al-Assad. "(Putin) is not enhancing Russia's global reputation. He is destroying it. He has made her a friend to tyrants and an enemy to the oppressed, and untrusted by nations that seek to build a safer, more peaceful and...

Russia has climbed 10 places since 1995 in a global ranking of economic freedom, while the United States has fallen 13 spots over the same period, according to a report from a Canadian public policy think-tank released Wednesday. Russia ranked 101st out of 151 nations, up 10 places from 1995 and 12 places better than its ranking in 2000, in the “Economic Freedom of the World” report, compiled by Canada’s Fraser Institute. After ranking as the world’s third freest economy behind Hong Kong and Singapore for most of the two decades from 1980-2000, the United States began to lose ground...

US lawmakers are calling for a crackdown against leading Russian lenders VTB, Vnesheconombank (VEB) and Gazprombank for allegedly helping Syrian President Bashar Assad circumvent sanctions, accusations the state-owned banks sharply denied Wednesday. “The Syrians could not conduct this war without Russian financing,” US Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said Tuesday at a policy discussion in Washington, Politico reported. Blumenthal was one of four senators who sent a letter to US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew last week calling for sanctions against the three banks, accusing the lenders of enabling Assad to finance a war against rebel forces. The senators...

Until now, there was mostly speculation and conjecture that among the Syrian "rebel" parties assisted by the Obama administration and the west in their attempt to overthrow Assad, are various groups either supported or comprising of factions consisting of Al Qaeda, Jihadists and other extremist Islamic group. That speculation is now fact according to extracts from a British defense study published in Monday's Daily Telegraph, according to which Jihadists and members of hardline Islamist groups make up almost half of forces fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. As AFP reported, the analysis by defense consultancy IHS Jane's, due to be...

MOSCOW, September 15 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian state TV host has invited US Senator John McCain to take part in his show and discuss his stance on Syria. Popular Russian TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov said Sunday that the Republican senator known for his critical views on Russia’s leadership can appear in his show to respond to President Vladimir Putin’s recent article in the New York Times on Syria. “On our behalf, the broadcaster and myself invite Senator McCain, who wanted to respond to Putin’s letter … to the Sunday Night program,” Solovyov said on Sunday. McCain said earlier that...

MOSCOW, September 14 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Communist Party newspaper, the Pravda, has tentatively agreed to publish an op-ed penned by US Senator John McCain, well-known for his vociferous criticism of the Russian leadership, the US publication Foreign Policy reported. The agreement has been prompted by McCain’s interview with CNN on Thursday where the senior Republican senator slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s op-ed in The New York Times criticizing Washington’s push for military action in Syria. McCain, who had earlier called Putin’s piece “an insult to the intelligence of every American,” joked “I would love to have a commentary in...

Deposed Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi is to stand trial on charges of committing and inciting violence, a state prosecutor decided on Sunday, an escalation of the army-backed authorities’ crackdown on his Muslim Brotherhood. The prosecutor, Hesham Barakat, referred Morsi and 14 other Brotherhood members to a Cairo criminal court on charges of “committing acts of violence, and inciting killing and thuggery”, the state news agency reported.

The Syrian military have discovered a warehouse with chemical agents in a suburb of Damascus. Correspondent of the Al-Ihbariya Syrian information channel Yara Saleh who was among the journalists who inspected the site of the scary find has given an exclusive interview to The Voice of Russia. She says that the discovered warehouse was at the same time a laboratory where shells were stuffed with poisonous chemicals. The Syrian military found chemical weapons in the rebels’ tunnel located in the Jobar suburb of Damascus. Later the Syrian state TV showed the discovered poisonous agents and medical drugs. Journalist Yara Saleh...

DAMASCUS, Syria (The Associated Press, Albert Aji) — Syrian state media accused rebels of using chemical arms on Saturday against government troops trying to storm a contested neighborhood of Damascus, claiming a major army offensive in recent days had forced the opposition fighters to resort to such weapons "as their last card." State TV broadcast images of plastic jugs, gas masks, vials of an unspecified medication, explosives and other items that it said were seized from rebel hideouts. It did not, however, show any video of soldiers reportedly affected by toxic gas in the fighting in the Jobar neighborhood of...

Irritated by Starbucks’ decision to remain neutral and not ban lawful carry, anti-Second Amendment organizations in North Carolina have developed plans to boycott the chain this Saturday. Dubbing their misguided effort “Skip Starbuck’s Saturday” antis hope to punish the brand nationwide. “As North Carolina’s HB 937 is implemented, it will become increasingly important for us to clearly stand behind restaurants who do not interfere with expanded carry under state law,” - the Ammoland.com resource stated, which is, as the site name clearly indicates, the advocate of the Second Amendment. They also claimed that they needed to show that North Carolina...

Reports alleging the use of chemical weapons in Syria may be aimed at disrupting the preparation of an international conference on Syria in Geneva, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Thursday. The Syrian opposition has accused the government of killing scores of people in a massive nerve gas attack in Damascus on Wednesday, with death toll estimates varying from a hundred to more than a thousand people. The Syrian government promptly denied the reports as baseless. “It all looks like attempts to use any means to persuade the UN Security Council to take the side of the opponents of the...

Amnesty International on Monday described as “unlawful and unwarranted” the detention by British authorities of the significant other of a journalist who worked with Edward Snowden. “It is utterly improbable that David Michael Miranda, a Brazilian national transiting through London, was detained at random, given the role his husband has played in revealing the truth about the unlawful nature of NSA surveillance,” said Widney Brown, the organization’s senior director of international law and policy. Miranda was detained while in transit in Heathrow Airport and was held in detention for nearly nine hours under the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows officers...