Follow South China Morning Post - Russia & Central Asia, filter it, and define how you want to receive the news (via Email, RSS, Telegram, WhatsApp etc.) https://follow.it/scmp22 Mon, 27 Sep 2021 16:22:23 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGPY_9sDZ2b5ailmFkX7M1Jw Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes recovered from a terrible start at the Russian Grand Prix in Sochi to become the first Formula 1 driver to reach 100 wins after rain helped his cause in Sunday's closing laps.“It's taken a long time to get to 100 and at times, I wasn't sure it would come,” Briton Hamilton said after prevailing late on after leader Lando Norris had spun in the sudden rain.The seven-time world champion now leads the drivers' championship, two points ahead of Max Verstappen of Red Bull,…]]> Sun, 26 Sep 2021 21:37:31 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGPY_9sDZ2b5ailmFkX7M1Jw https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGOyIMKvfzNRGClmFkX7M1Jw The United States, China, Russia and Pakistan are working together to ensure that Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers keep their promises, especially to form a genuinely representative government and prevent extremism from spreading, Russia’s foreign minister said on Saturday.Sergey Lavrov said representatives from Russia, China and Pakistan had travelled to the Qatari capital of Doha and then to Afghanistan’s capital Kabul to engage with both the Taliban and representatives of “secular…]]> Sat, 25 Sep 2021 23:13:13 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGOyIMKvfzNRGClmFkX7M1Jw https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGMnGfbIwz36y5s0ohxaO6Yr Russian President Vladimir Putin praised last week‘s parliamentary elections as “free and fair” on Saturday, while hundreds of people gathered in Moscow to protest against the results of the polls that were overshadowed by massive accusations of fraud.“The elections themselves were held openly and in strict accordance with the law,” Putin said during talks with top politicians from all parties represented in the new State Duma. He pointed to the fact that a new, fifth force is now represented…]]> Sat, 25 Sep 2021 21:36:36 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGMnGfbIwz36y5s0ohxaO6Yr https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGMmzco8mCJtjZs0ohxaO6Yr Afghanistan is at risk of “imminent hunger” with winter approaching and services disrupted by the return to power of the Taliban, a UN official warned in an interview with Agence France-Presse.Natalia Kanem, director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said via video that the situation in the country was dire.“It would not be an exaggeration to say” that at least a third of Afghanistan’s population of around 33 million is affected by “imminent hunger,” Kanem warned.Harsh winters,…]]> Sat, 25 Sep 2021 19:18:42 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGMmzco8mCJtjZs0ohxaO6Yr https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGPiOUvzW0Nc8uT5HJgy6HUf The Taliban hanged a dead body from a crane in the main square of Herat city in western Afghanistan, a witness said on Saturday, in a gruesome display that signalled a return to some of the group’s methods of the past.Wazir Ahmad Seddiqi, who runs a pharmacy on the side of the square, said that four bodies were brought to the square and three bodies were moved to other squares in the city to be displayed.Seddiqi said the Taliban announced in the square that the four were caught taking part in a…]]> Sat, 25 Sep 2021 13:57:32 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGPiOUvzW0Nc8uT5HJgy6HUf https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGOVYAG8wUUsu-T5HJgy6HUf One of the founders of the Taliban and the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law when they last ruled Afghanistan said the hard-line movement will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public.In an interview with Associated Press, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, which sometimes took place in front of crowds at a stadium, and he warned the world against interfering with Afghanistan…]]> Thu, 23 Sep 2021 19:29:15 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGOVYAG8wUUsu-T5HJgy6HUf https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGN1dSz5HmG9DSejEQ2Mq9rY The Taliban have asked to address world leaders at the United Nations in New York this week and nominated their Doha-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen as Afghanistan’s UN ambassador, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday.Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi made the request in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday. Muttaqi asked to speak during the annual high-level meeting of the General Assembly, which finishes on Monday.Guterres’ spokesman, Farhan Haq,…]]> Tue, 21 Sep 2021 23:14:18 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGN1dSz5HmG9DSejEQ2Mq9rY https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGPTfYVt0rYhiOzdsCmHakzH Two days after the Taliban seized Afghanistan’s Kabul last month, 26-year-old artist Sara took the terracotta plates she’d painted with images praising inspirational Afghan women – and hurled them to the ground.“Art, for me, was to be able to express everything I couldn’t say with words,” she said from the capital. “It dealt mainly with violence against women.”The last Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001 saw women brutally suppressed, as well as music banned and the destruction of artworks and…]]> Tue, 21 Sep 2021 14:45:22 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGPTfYVt0rYhiOzdsCmHakzH https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGMvEU-kjKzHueT5HJgy6HUf The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found on Tuesday that Russia was responsible for the assassination of ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who died an agonising death in 2006 after being poisoned in London with a rare radioactive substance.Litvinenko, a defector who had become a vocal critic of the Kremlin, died three weeks after drinking green tea laced with polonium-210 at a plush London hotel.Britain has long blamed the attack on Moscow, and the European court in Strasbourg, France…]]> Tue, 21 Sep 2021 12:53:09 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGMvEU-kjKzHueT5HJgy6HUf https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGNH24NO_BD4riejEQ2Mq9rY In the faces of Afghans desperate to leave their country after US forces withdrew, Thuy Do sees her own family, decades earlier and thousands of miles away.A 39-year-old doctor in Seattle, Washington, Do remembers hearing from her parents how they sought to leave Saigon after Vietnam fell to communist rule in 1975 and the American military airlifted out allies in the final hours. It took years for her family to finally get out of the country, after several failed attempts, and make their way to…]]> Tue, 21 Sep 2021 07:32:20 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGNH24NO_BD4riejEQ2Mq9rY https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGNKXSUlXPzhwpVjH6qdYdAk Russia’s internet regulator is poised to significantly raise the fines it has slapped on US technology companies such as Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc as the Kremlin escalates its push to curb access to information online. Companies that refuse to delete content judged to be illegal in Russia could soon face amends of 5 per cent to 20 per cent of their annual local revenue, Roskomnadzor, the federal communications watchdog, said in an email Monday.“For a number of companies that have…]]> Tue, 21 Sep 2021 05:11:43 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGNKXSUlXPzhwpVjH6qdYdAk https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGOgTcTiWH31ipVjH6qdYdAk Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a series of deadly roadside bombs targeting Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan, raising the spectre of wider conflict between the country’s new Taliban rulers and their long-time rivals.A string of explosions struck Taliban vehicles in Afghanistan’s provincial city of Jalalabad over the weekend, killing eight people, among them Taliban fighters. On Monday, three more explosions were heard in the city, an Isis stronghold, with unconfirmed reports…]]> Tue, 21 Sep 2021 04:34:31 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGOgTcTiWH31ipVjH6qdYdAk https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGN2snJAaeUppaCY3L745TL_ A student opened fire at a university in the Russian city of Perm on Monday, killing at least eight people and wounding several, law enforcement said.The gunman was himself killed after the shootings at Perm State University, around 1,300km east of Moscow, said Natalia Pechishcheva, a university spokesperson.“He was liquidated,” she said. Footage from the scene showed his prone body on the ground outside.Earlier media footage from the scene showed students jumping from first-floor windows to…]]> Mon, 20 Sep 2021 11:22:01 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGN2snJAaeUppaCY3L745TL_ https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGNNE6C7-P1jFF1cWWor9YPv Russia’s ruling United Russia party was on course to secure a comfortable victory in a three-day parliamentary election despite losing some ground to its opponents, early results and an exit poll showed on Sunday.With nearly 13 per cent of ballots counted, the Central Election Commission said United Russia had won just over 40 per cent of the vote.Separately, an exit poll conducted by INSOMAR and published by Russia’s RIA news agency predicted United Russia would win a little over 45 per cent…]]> Sun, 19 Sep 2021 22:33:54 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGNNE6C7-P1jFF1cWWor9YPv https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGOWhfQ4Oe4ufyejEQ2Mq9rY Last week, when the newly appointed Taliban foreign minister called the ministry staffers for a briefing, a female desk officer hoped she would be able to retain her job and return to work. The desk officer, who did not want to be named, had served in the previous Afghanistan government for three years and was expecting to be posted overseas this year. But the Taliban takeover left her and other women colleagues worrying about the future of their careers. On Thursday, all hopes were dashed…]]> Sun, 19 Sep 2021 13:00:27 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGOWhfQ4Oe4ufyejEQ2Mq9rY https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGP6c3GJzWDiC6CY3L745TL_ Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers set up a ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice” in the building that once housed the Women’s Affairs Ministry, escorting out World Bank staff on Saturday as part of the forced move.It was the latest troubling sign that the Taliban are restricting women’s rights as they settle into government, just a month since they overran the capital of Kabul. During their previous rule of Afghanistan in the 1990s, the Taliban had denied girls and…]]> Sat, 18 Sep 2021 21:53:29 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGP6c3GJzWDiC6CY3L745TL_ https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGN6FDEPmoLWyqCY3L745TL_ A two-day international conference convened by the Russian government in the city of Khabarovsk in early September to re-examine the war crime trials that took place in the city in December 1949 has angered Japan’s conservatives who have accused Moscow of magnifying the imperial army’s atrocities to seek geopolitical gains. Back then, 12 men from Japan’s notorious biowarfare research base known as Unit 731 – based in northeastern China during the Sino-Japanese war – were found guilty of…]]> Sat, 18 Sep 2021 12:00:21 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGN6FDEPmoLWyqCY3L745TL_ https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGPf-MXBsAd-9iejEQ2Mq9rY The Pentagon retreated from its defence of a drone strike that killed multiple civilians in Afghanistan last month, announcing Friday that a review revealed that only civilians were killed in the attack, not an Islamic State extremist as first believed.“The strike was a tragic mistake,” Marine General Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, told a Pentagon news conference.For days after the August 29 strike, Pentagon officials asserted that it had been conducted correctly, despite 10…]]> Fri, 17 Sep 2021 22:09:14 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGPf-MXBsAd-9iejEQ2Mq9rY https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGPhY-wErzEeZJs0ohxaO6Yr Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google removed a protest-voting app from their Russian stores on Friday as parliamentary elections got under way, a move that pleased the Kremlin but drew swift anger from Washington and opposition activists.The US technology companies “have caved into the Kremlin’s blackmail,” Leonid Volkov, a top aide to jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, wrote on Telegram. The Putin critic’s supporters denounced the move as “a shameful act of political censorship”…]]> Fri, 17 Sep 2021 20:30:34 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGPhY-wErzEeZJs0ohxaO6Yr https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGPhY-wErzEeZF1cWWor9YPv The world’s first female chess grandmaster, Nona Gaprindashvili, has filed a US$5 million defamation lawsuit against Netflix over a line in its The Queen’s Gambit series which her lawyers say is false and sexist.The 80-year old Soviet chess icon, a hero in her native South Caucasus Republic of Georgia, was described in the show’s last episode as a female champion who had “never faced men”.The suit filed on Gaprindashvili’s behalf in a US federal court in Los Angeles said the reference to her…]]> Fri, 17 Sep 2021 20:02:19 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/2dUZqRvPEGPhY-wErzEeZF1cWWor9YPv