Monday, February 13, 2012

Russia

Russian Prosecutors Reverse Decision On Rybkin

Moscow, 9 February 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Russia's prosecutor general has cancelled a murder inquiry into the disappearance of presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin.

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February 09, 2004

That announcement from a spokeswoman today came less than an hour after prosecutors announced the opening of a murder investigation. A deputy prosecutor in Moscow said the decision was annulled "due to insufficient evidence."

Rybkin, running as an independent, is one of seven candidates involved in the presidential election taking place on 14 March.

Rybkin went missing after he left his apartment in Moscow on Thursday evening. Moscow police launched a manhunt for the candidate yesterday after his family filed a missing-person report.

Rybkin is known as an outspoken critic of president Vladimir Putin. He is a former Duma speaker and was president Boris Yeltsin's national security council chief.

Syrians in the northwestern town of Kfar Nubul pose with a cartoon depicting Russia

Angry Over Syria, Arab World Threatens Russian Boycott

Groups in a number of Arab states, angry over the Russian-Chinese veto of a UN resolution aimed at stopping the violence in Syria, have called for a one-day boycott of Russian and Chinese goods on February 12. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More

Protesters gather behind a banner reading "Honest Elections" during a demonstration in Moscow on February 4.

How To Rig An Election

A whistle-blower in Samara explains how the authorities fixed the Duma elections in December -- and plan to do the same in the presidential vote in March. More