As Iranians prepare to vote in parliamentary elections on February 21, we look at some of the prominent candidates running, those who are not, and hopefuls who were disqualified.
Students in St. Petersburg say teachers censored their tribute band because the song chosen -- I Want To Break Free by the British band Queen -- "promotes homophobia and homosexuality.” The incident is the latest example of how a 2013 law against gay “propaganda” may be driving censorship in Russian society.
A member of the Russian Orthodox Church's Commission on the Family has provoked animated ire by likening women who live with their partners outside of marriage to "unpaid prostitutes." Responding to the outcry, the church said the priest's remarks "were not aimed at women but at those who debase and use them."
He wanted a cup of tea and ordered it in Belarusian in the Belarusian capital, Minsk -- but the server wanted to speak Russian. Journalism student Aramais Mirakian says the incident has brought a hail of invective and threats from Russia, where a member of parliament has called on Belarusian authorities to take action against what the lawmaker asserts is discrimination against the Russian language.
Steven Seagal may not be running for the State Duma. But a colorful new crop of political parties is set to spring up in Russia ahead of parliamentary elections in 2021, in what critics say is a Kremlin-overseen process aimed to put a veneer of political competition on a vote that will not be free and fair.
Independent experts examine Washington’s claims that Iran is using its civilian space program as cover to secretly develop a nuclear-capable ICBM.
A pair of marmots at a St. Petersburg zoo surprisingly rolled out of hibernation in Russia this week, confirming predictions of a way-too-early spring made earlier in other parts of the country by several other animals that should be in deep slumber for at least another month.
Nearly 400 people in the picturesque northern Russian city of Veliky Ustyug have been bilked out of over $3 million by an unscrupulous pyramid scheme, prosecutors say. Widely seen as a relic of the so-called "lawless 1990s," such swindles seem to be making a comeback deep in the Putin era.
The Turkmen president says his government has an urgent duty to encourage young people to play national games and learn Turkmen traditions -- instead of wasting their time on mobile phones.
Polls pointed to declining trust in Vladimir Putin at home and abroad, while a less formal survey involving a portrait in a Moscow elevator provided a laugh-inducing lesson on shifting attitudes toward the Russian president. On the darker side, long prison terms for defendants who alleged they were tortured in a trumped-up terrorism case drew comparisons to Stalin's show trials.
Four top executives in Belarus's once-lucrative sugar industry vanished without a trace. Two weeks later, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka announced they were being held by police on suspicion of masterminding what he suggested was the biggest scam the country has ever seen
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