The State of Affairs in Russia

[Syt]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/news/article/gruesome-family-killing-highlights-russian-domestic-abuse-problem/527070.html

Gruesome Family Killing Highlights Russian Domestic Abuse Problem

Shortly before her violent death, Yulia Belova submitted a handwritten complaint to the police, saying her husband had threatened to kill and dismember her and her children, according to investigators.

It was one of many police reports she filed between October 2014 and July 2015 saying that her husband, Oleg Belov — who now stands accused of killing his six children and his mother, as well as his pregnant wife — had been beating and threatening the family, the Investigative Committee said in a statement Wednesday.

Police shelved the complaints, according to investigators.

Details of the family's disputes, including Belova's handwritten statement, now listed among the case materials, began to emerge after Belova's dismembered remains, along with those of her children, were found in the family's apartment in the city of Nizhny Novgorod this week. The gruesome murder horrified many in Russia and prompted much scrutiny of police handling of the complaints, and much finger-pointing.

The Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case on charges of negligent homicide against the local police chief, his deputy, a department head and two officers in the city for allegedly ignoring Belova's complaints. The last complaint dates from July, according to the Investigative Committee, just days before her death.

"The claimants' arguments for several months were left without due investigation, and district police officers, with the agreement of their chiefs, issued decisions declining to open a criminal case," the Investigative Committee said in a statement.

"The criminal negligence by police officials has allowed Belov to commit the cruel crime," the statement said.

Domestic violence complaints are rarely taken seriously in Russia, where many men — and even some women — believe that a husband who occasionally slaps his wife around is acting within his authority and should not be treated as a criminal. Meanwhile, police "try to not interfere with family scandals," in the words of a report by the Moscow Helsinki Group.

According to Interior Ministry figures cited by ANNA National Center for the Prevention of Violence in a 2010 report, about 14,000 women in Russia die every year "at the hands of husbands or other relatives," while violence of some form occurs in one out of four families in the country, and domestic disputes account for two-thirds of all homicides.

The figures may still under-represent the scope of domestic violence in Russia, according to the Moscow Helsinki Group, because many battered women avoid filing police reports, fearing they would be ignored anyway.

Suggestions that Russian women should not make a big deal out of domestic abuse has come even from children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov.

"The constant excessive use of the term 'domestic violence' is a way of brainwashing, turning into zombies, intimidating families and parents," Astakhov wrote on his Instagram page this spring. "The family is the safest place. A lot more crimes are committed in public places, on transport and in stores. Let's treat the family with care."

Belov, the suspect in the latest multiple murder case, had a history of violence, was known to local social workers and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to his mother-in-law Valentina Zaitseva, state news agency TASS reported.

He was arrested near Zaitseva's home in the Vladimir region, about 220 kilometers from Nizhny Novgorod, prompting media speculation that he might have been heading to kill his mother-in-law as well.

[The Brain]

Could we nuke it from somewhere?

[Syt]

The recent headlines on RT's Russian Politics news section:

- Duma chief blames US for instigating global instability through intrigue
- New face of Russian foreign policy: 1st woman appointed as Foreign Ministry spokesperson
- Most Russians oppose ban on Soviet symbols - poll
- Agriculture Ministry rejects proposal to ban Coke, Pepsi in Russia
- Russian govt drafts bill allowing reciprocal seizure of foreign nations' property
- Russian senator urges international tribunal into US-Vietnam war
- Intl tribunal should try 1945 US nuke attacks on Japan - Duma chief

[Syt]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/news/article/russian-translators-denounce-use-of-unpatriotic-onomatopoeia-in-comics/527651.html

Russian Translators Denounce Use of 'Unpatriotic' Onomatopoeia in Comics

The use of words such as "bang," "crash" and "wow" in Russian comic books is unpatriotic and should be avoided, Russian translators said.

Russian newspaper Izvestia reported on Monday that a group of translators of Russian comics penned a letter addressed to the Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences suggesting that all onomatopoeic words be replaced with indigenous versions.

"In comic books you can often encounter words imitating sounds," the translators were quoted as saying. "How can one express the sound of a phone ringing, of a creaky door, or a soda can being popped open, or the crinkle of an ice cream wrapper, or the sound of a motorcyclist's foot rubbing against the ground?" the letter said, according to Izvestia. "Often translators simply transliterate the English words."

The translators proposed a list of words borrowed from the official languages of the Russian Federation that could replace the "unpatriotic" options, the newspaper said. According to the suggestions, words derived from Lezgian — a language spoken in southern Dagestan and northern Azerbaijan — such as "chorkh" and "khurt-khurt" could be used to express scratching and water swallowing respectively.

Izvestia, which says it has the letter in its possession, attributed the initiative to translators from the Center of Comics and Visual Culture. But the center subsequently dismissed the claim in a Facebook post, stating that translators working with the annual KomMissiya comics, graphic novels and manga festival were responsible. "The Center of Comics and Visual Culture is in no way related to this," the post said. "In our department there are basically no translators."

[Valmy]

- Intl tribunal should try 1945 US nuke attacks on Japan - Duma chief

Who exactly are they planning on putting on trial here?

[Syt]

- Intl tribunal should try 1945 US nuke attacks on Japan - Duma chief

Who exactly are they planning on putting on trial here?

The State Duma speaker says it's necessary to create an international court to look into the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, noting that America's modern policy has borrowed a lot from the cynical approach of its former leaders.

Speaking at a roundtable meeting in the Moscow Institute of International Relations on Wednesday, Sergey Naryshkin said the US nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not necessary for the military campaign against Japan. He added that the thousands of civilians killed by the atomic bombs had not been involved in crimes of the Japanese military.

READ MORE: 'Third World War would be last for humanity' – Duma speaker

The lower house speaker suggested that the participants of the roundtable imagine the situation in which Nazi Germany completely destroyed the population of one or several European cities, for example by means of chemical weapons.

"Would this have been included in charges pressed during the Nuremberg trial? Of course, it would!" he said.

Naryshkin also accused the modern leaders of the United States of intent to silence the real reasons behind the nuclear bombings.

"The current US authorities want to conceal not the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this would be impossible, but the hypocrisy and cynicism of their leaders of these times. This happens because such behavior casts a shadow on the modern American policies which, of course, retain the legacy of exceptionalist ideology and the position of own infallibility and arrogant force."

Deputy Duma Speaker Andrey Isayev supported the initiative, saying that there were enough grounds for such step. Isayev also noted that the single and universally-recognized legal assessment of the 1945 attacks was the most important thing that could be done by the international tribunal.

In December 2014, Naryshkin voiced the idea of an international investigation into the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the session of the presidium of the Russian History Society. Back then he also said that the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hardly justifiable from a purely military position, as the defeat of Japan was practically decided after the Soviet Army's victories in Manchuria.

READ MORE: State Duma chief suggests trying US for WWII nuke attacks

The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki took place 70 years ago, in early August of 1945. They resulted in the deaths of between 150,000 and 250,000 people, mostly civilians. The two attacks, especially the Hiroshima bombing, have been repeatedly denounced by the international rights community as fundamentally immoral and violating the spirit of conventions that banned the use of weapons of mass destruction against an enemy's civilian population.

[Valmy]

So they want to put the current leadership on trial for the 1945 bombings because they continue their legacy? Intriguing.

Back then he also said that the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hardly justifiable from a purely military position, as the defeat of Japan was practically decided after the Soviet Army's victories in Manchuria.

It will be an interesting precedent to prove in a court of law that August 20th occurs before August 6th but perhaps not in a Russian court.

[Syt]

Haven't you learned that you shouldn't doubt stories of national heroism (see above article "Russian Archives Cast Doubt on Legends of Soviet War Heroes")?

[The Brain]

Duma and Dumaer.

[Queequeg]

Why are you guys surprised? If anything surprises me, it's the implied insistence of some people here that, somehow, Russians should embrace Western values. Russia is an Asian country.

"Asian country" is not a coherent concept. 

[The Brain]

Why are you guys surprised? If anything surprises me, it's the implied insistence of some people here that, somehow, Russians should embrace Western values. Russia is an Asian country.

"Asian country" is not a coherent concept.

Now in stereo!

[Admiral Yi]

"Asian country" is not a coherent concept.

[Queequeg]

"Asian country" is not a coherent concept.

I don't think Israel and China have much in common just because you could hypothetically travel from one to the other on land.

[Solmyr]

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov muttered some swear words into an open mike during a press conference: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/lavrov/527827.html

Video (in Russian and Arabic): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iNp3oWWMf4
(Lavrov swearing at 0:22 and asking "are we disturbing you?" at 1:05)

[Syt]

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov muttered some swear words into an open mike during a press conference: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/lavrov/527827.html

Video (in Russian and Arabic): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iNp3oWWMf4
(Lavrov swearing at 0:22 and asking "are we disturbing you?" at 1:05)

The Moscow Times commented:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russian-foreign-minister-swears-during-news-conference/527827.html

Forty minutes into the conference, while Lavrov's speech is being translated into Arabic, Russia's foreign minister can be heard quietly but distinctively muttering "imbeciles," before adding an obscene five-letter word widely used in Russia. The Moscow Times cannot publish the word due to a law that bans the use of obscene language in media outlets.

The new spokeswoman said that while she was present at the press conference, she didn't hear any such utterances, and therefore couldn't comment.