Russia

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Russia Plane Crash Kills 44
 Russia Plane Crash Kills 44 
Jun 21, 2011 1:17 AM CDT

Russia Plane Crash Kills 44

RusAir Tu-134 comes down on highway in heavy fog

(Newser) - A passenger plane slammed into a highway in Russia last night, killing 44 people and critically injuring eight others. The Rusair Tupolev-134 aircraft crash-landed in heavy fog a mile short of the runway at Petrozavodsk, 400 miles north of Moscow. A 10-year-old boy and a girl who may be his...

Belarus Behind on Bills ... So Russia Cuts Its Power

Russia's power supply accounts for 10% of country's power

(Newser) - You know what happens when you don't pay your electricity bill. What happens when a country doesn't? Basically the same thing: Russia has cut electricity supplies to Belarus in half over unpaid bills, and may shut off supplies—which fulfill 10% of Belarus's needs—completely. Belarus is...

Bomb-Proof Toilets Coming to Russia

New concrete johns will be nigh indestructible

(Newser) - Take comfort, tourists: Russia's public toilets will soon be bomb-proof. The country plans to roll out some nigh-indestructible über-johns by the end of the year; they'll be made of fibrous concrete, with fittings fashioned from a mixture of steel and heavy-duty plastic, CNN reports. “If somebody...

New Russian ATMs Can Spot Liars

System will eliminate need to interact with a person to get a credit card

(Newser) - Russia’s state-owned Sberbank is about to roll out ATMs with such ridiculously strong security features that customers will be able to get a new credit card without actually speaking to a human. The machines will have the ability to read fingerprints, scan passports, and take 3D images of a...

It's Official: Germans Least Funny in the World

But Americans aren't so amusing, either

(Newser) - Maybe something’s just lost in translation: A poll of 30,000 people in 15 countries found Germany to be the world’s most unfunny country. But we’re not so amusing either: Russia and Turkey came in as the second and third least-funny, while Britain and the US rounded...

Russian Buries Himself Alive
 Russian Buries Himself Alive 
Jun 2, 2011 2:20 AM CDT

Russian Buries Himself Alive

He ends up dead after grave mistake

(Newser) - A Russian man who decided to spend a night buried alive for "good luck" didn't make it out of the ground alive. The 35-year-old villager dug a hole in a garden and climbed into an improvised coffin with holes for air pipes, bringing a phone and a bottle...

Russia May Ditch Liberal Abortion Laws

Church, lawmakers team up to propose restrictions

(Newser) - Russia's Orthodox Church teamed with Conservative parliamentarians yesterday to push legislation that would radically restrict abortions in a nation struggling to cope with one of the world's lowest birthrates. The legislation would ban free abortions at government-run clinics and prohibit the sale of the morning-after pill without a...

Russia Does About-Face, Says Gadhafi Must Go

Medvedev affirms at G8 summit as NATO raids intensify

(Newser) - The news got even worse for Moammar Gadhafi today: Longtime ally Russia looks to be cutting ties, reports the Guardian . "He should leave," Dmitry Medvedev said at today's G8 summit in France. "I proposed our mediation services to my partners. Everyone thinks that would be useful....

Cracks Form in Putin-Medvedev Partnership

Lower-ranking politicians fired as tensions flare ahead of Russian election

(Newser) - After three years of relative harmony, cracks are emerging in Russia’s dual leadership ahead of this year’s presidential elections—and the country’s elite has “spent the whole last month on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” unsure who to support, wrote a Russian economist. Divisions...

Hundreds Quit Syria's Government

Even as UN fails to condemn the violence

(Newser) - More than 230 members of Syria’s ruling Ba’ath party resigned in protest today over the government’s violent crackdown on protests, even as the UN failed to condemn the massacre, the Guardian reports. The death toll from the crackdown has now reportedly climbed to at least 500. But...

&#39;Dead Alien&#39; Video Goes Viral
 'Dead Alien' Video Goes Viral 
Apr 20, 2011 3:02 AM CDT

'Dead Alien' Video Goes Viral

ET, phone your friend

(Newser) - Add this to your X Files. A figure looking amazingly like ET has been posted on a self-described "intergalactic news site" and has grabbed 1.5 million viewers on YouTube in the last three days. The "creature" was filmed lying on snow in the Russian Republic of Buryatia...

Jewel Thieves Borrow Sherlock Holmes Plot

Russian gang copies heist scheme from story

(Newser) - Russian cops think they have some literary jewel thieves on their hands. The gang borrowed the plot of a Sherlock Holmes story, tunneled into a jewelry shop, and made off with hundreds of gold bars and silver gems, reports the Telegraph . The thieves paid a 74-year-old woman to stay out...

Boy Finds 24-Year-Old Message in a Bottle

Letter was written by 5-year-old German boy in 1987

(Newser) - There's no romance and no Kevin Costner, but nearly a quarter-century after a German boy tossed a message in a bottle off a ship in the Baltic Sea, he's received an answer. A 13-year-old Russian, Daniil Korotkikh, was walking with his parents on a beach when he saw something glittering...

Same Nations Shelling Gadhafi Peddled Him Weapons

Before the uprising, France, UK, Italy and Russia all vied to make sales

(Newser) - Some of the very same European countries now leading the charge to destroy Moammar Gadhafi’s weapons were pushing each other out of the way to sell him those same weapons just months earlier, according to a survey of international arms sales. France, the UK, Russia, and Italy have all...

Russia Warns Against Ice Baptisms

Video of child being forced into ice hole sparks outrage

(Newser) - Chucking unwilling children into holes in the Siberian ice isn't the great idea some Orthodox believers appear to think it is, Russian authorities warn. The trend for "ice baptisms"—usually carried out during the Russian Orthodox festival of Epiphany in January—has been in the spotlight since video...

Bomb Squad Sent to Defuse Sex Toy

Russian cops find vibrator in 'suspect package'

(Newser) - Russia has been tense since the Moscow airport bombing earlier this year, but a bomb squad in Petrozavodsk got something to laugh about yesterday. The city's main postal building was evacuated and surrounded by security forces after a worker reported a suspicious package with a ticking noise. The bomb squad...

Russians Cry Foul Over Vote for 2014 Olympic Mascot

Fans of psychedelic blue frog complain

(Newser) - The Russian people have spoken, and their mascots for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi will be: a snow leopard, a polar bear, and a hare. More than a million people cast their votes during a live program on Russia's top broadcaster. Rejected mascots included a dolphin, a robin and...

Russia Decides Beer Is ... Alcohol

Change will allow country to regulate its sale

(Newser) - Historic changes in Russia: Beer, long classified as "foodstuff," is about to get upgraded to alcohol, "dragging Russian alcohol regulation into the 21st century," quips the Telegraph . Beer consumption has tripled in Russia in the last 15 years thanks to the fact that it's been cheap...

Gorbachev Slams Russia's 'Sham Democracy'

Ex-Soviet leader attacks 'conceited 'Putin regime

(Newser) - Mikhail Gorbachev has launched his most blistering attack yet on Vladimir Putin's regime. The last Soviet leader, speaking at a press conference ahead of his 80th birthday, described Putin's Russia as a sham democracy, the Guardian reports. "We have everything—a parliament, courts, a president, a prime minister and...

Putin's Seaside Palace: 8 Million Square Feet

Residence has casino, movie theater, amphitheater, pool, helipad...

(Newser) - With the Russian government described in leaked US cables as a "mafia state" in which bribery constitutes a "parallel tax system," it makes one wonder: What do the plutocrats do with all that cash? For Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, one previously reported answer to that question...

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