Russia's top online social network was banned on Friday from distributing content across the country, raising concerns of a clampdown on a forum used by President Vladimir Putin's opponents to organise protests. The ban on VKontakte follows more than a month of pressure on the company and its founder, Pavel Durov, who has drawn comparisons with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg for building an online network with 210 million registered users. VKontakte's web site (www.vk.com) was still working in Moscow, but some media reports said it had been blocked in parts of the country. No reason for the ban was officially given. Several hours later, however, a spokesman for Roskomnadzor, the Russian media supervision agency, announced the ban was a "mistake," again without further elaborating.

http://www.echo.msk.ru/news/1080782-echo.html

The landlord of a resident of New York City's famed Time Warner Center has
filed a complaint with the Supreme Court for the State of New York seeking
an order for renovations to be halted in a condominium reportedly belonging
to Russian billionaire and former senator Vitaly Malkin. While the court
documents refer to the owner of the property simply as 22 CC SY74B LLC., a
domestic limited liability company, local news source the New York Daily
News reports that the condominium is owned by a trust belonging to Malkin's
family. The complaint was filed by landlord AEH JAY Corp. Monday on the
basis of complaints made by tenant Samuel Nappi, a wealthy energy and
entertainment professional who rents the condominium directly beneath the
one reportedly owned by Malkin for $43,000 per month. According to Nappi's
affidavit, the noise endures each day from about 10 in the morning to four
or five in the afternoon, with a lunch break worked in. He laments: “There
is continual jack hammering, I believe, into the poured concrete floors
above. The sound is painful and it is inescapable. We cannot sleep in the
bedrooms or use the upstairs when the noise begins. We leave the upstairs
and either go downstairs, or we leave the building. Other times, we simple
[sic.] do not visit for fear of living in a noise hell.”



http://www.rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20130523/267535938.html

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday dismissed as “politicized” the
Religious Freedom Report recently published by the US Department of State
and said that such documents incite religious conflicts. The annual report,
released on Monday, mentions Russia among several countries around the
world including Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Cuba, Iran and China that it
says imposed restrictions on freedom of religion last year. Konstantin
Dolgov, the Foreign Ministry's special representative for human rights,
democracy and the rule of law, said in a statement that the State
Department's report “offers a distorted and politicized picture of the
state of religious freedoms in 2012, by replacing the thorough analysis of
reasons for religious intolerance with ill-founded accusations directed at
numerous states, including Russia.”

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130523/181314901/US-Religious-Freedom-Report-Politicized---Russia.html

About 300 people, mostly Crimean Tatars, were rallying outside the Russian
Consulate in Simferopol on Thursday, demanding that Russia Counsel Vladimir
Andreyev be stripped of diplomatic status and declared persona non grata.
In a recent TV interview, Andreyev accused Crimean Tatars of collaborating
with Nazi Germany during World War II. He criticized a movie about the 1944
deportation of Crimean Tatars to Central Asia by Soviet dictator Josef
Stalin, saying the film does not mention the alleged collaboration. “We
demand that the Russian leadership strip Andreyev of his diplomatic status
and recall him from Ukrainian territory within 24 hours. We also demand
that the Ukrainian government declare him persona non grata,” said Akhtem
Chiygoz, one of the organizers of the rally.A senior official of the
Russian Embassy in Ukraine was on Wednesday summoned to the Ukrainian
Foreign Ministry over the incident that Kiev said insulted Crimean Tatars.
The Ukrainian ministry said it hoped the Russian ministry would “properly
assess” the consul general's statements. Andreyev replied that he stood by
his opinion and would not retract his words, adding that he was not
questioning the wrongfulness of the deportation of Crimean Tatars by the
Soviet leadership. The Russian Foreign Ministry has admitted that recent
statements by Vladimir Andreyev, the Russian consul general in Simferopol,
Ukraine's Crimea, about Crimean Tatars were inappropriate. Moscow
“understands [Ukraine's] reaction to certain… incorrect wordings used by
the Russian representative without proper account for the sensitive issue
demanding… a weighted approach,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a
statement on Thursday. About 190,000 people – almost all the Tatar
population – were deported from the Crimea, then part of the Soviet Union,
in 1944 as punishment for the alleged collaboration of some Crimean Tatars
with Nazi Germany during the war. Tatars began to return to the Crimea in
the '80s and '90s, and today, the Crimea's Tatar population numbers about
260,000.

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20130523/181312132/Crimean-Tatars-Rally-to-Expel-Russian-Consul.html

Venezuela's state-owned oil and gas company PdVSA and Russian state oil company Rosneft have signed documents to form a joint venture, Petrovictoria, the giants told reporters. The venture will oversee exploration and production of hydrocarbons at two fields in the Orinico Oil Belt in Venezuela. Petrovictoria is expected to produce 120,000 barrels a day by 2016, and hopes to to eventually reach 400,000, Venezuela's oil minister, Rafael Ramirez, said during a televised meeting with Rosneft head Igor Sechin, The Wall Street Journal reported. Russia will control 40 percent of the joint venture, and plans to provide a $1.5 billion loan, and a separate $1.1 billion bond, to Venezuela for it.



http://en.ria.ru/business/20130524/181319666/PdVSA-Rosneft-Establish-Joint-Venture.html

Two high-ranking Georgian priests have been charged in connection with the
May 17 attack by conservative activists on a gay rights rally in downtown
Tbilisi, the News Georgia news agency reported on Thursday. The head of the
Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi, Antimoz (Tamaz) Bichinashvili, and the
head of the Ioane-Tornike Eristavi Monastery, Iotam (Irakli) Basilaya, have
been charged with using or threatening the use of force to infringe on the
right to peaceful assembly, the Georgian Interior Ministry said. They face
up to two years in prison if found guilty. Gay rights activists from the
Identoba (Identity) group planned to hold a rally outside the former
parliament building on the city's central Rustaveli Avenue last Friday to
mark the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia. Tbilisi
authorities had authorized the event. However, thousands of anti-gay
protestors, mostly Christian activists, priests and members of conservative
non-governmental organizations, gathered in the designated location before
the rally began, forcing gay activists to change the venue. Several dozen
gay rights activists who came to take part moved to a small area adjacent
to Freedom Square, about two hundred meters away from the initial site.
After it became known that the venue of Identoba's rally had been changed,
participants of the anti-gay demonstration moved toward Freedom Square,
breaking through police cordons on their way. A total of 28 people,
including three police officers and one journalist, were injured in ensuing
violence. Though the Georgian Orthodox Church has officially denounced the
attack, it said that its clerics and believers only reacted to “an event
that was provocative from the very beginning.”



http://en.ria.ru/world/20130523/181314483/Two-Georgian-Priests-Charged-Over-LGBT-Rally-Violence.html

A Russian court has denied parole to a member of punk band Pussy Riot who
has begun a hunger strike in jail. The court in Berezniki accepted claims
that Maria Alyokhina had systematically disobeyed prison authorities and
failed to repent for her crime, Russian media reported. Last month, fellow
band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was also denied parole. Internationally
famous musicians including Paul McCartney had been among those calling for
them to be freed. The women were jailed for two years in August for
breaching public order motivated by religious hatred. "This looked not like
a court hearing but like arm-twisting," Alyokhina's mother Natalia told
Svoboda Radio, which carried a live web video feed from the court. Continue
reading the main story “ Start Quote I believe that you granting this
request would send a very positive message to all the people who have
followed this case” Letter to judge from Paul McCartney and Peter
Gabriel "Clearly the court was not interested in the character of the
convict, because the decision was likely made in advance," she added.
Alyokhina announced a hunger strike on Wednesday after being refused the
right to attend her own parole hearing. She also ordered her lawyer to
boycott the hearing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22646011

Over a dozen people were injured and 80 buildings damaged after a rare
tornado ripped through the small town of Yefremov in central Russia. Most
injuries are caused by broken windows. The sate of emergency was announced
by the Tula Governor Vladimir Gruzdev, who arrived in the wind-swept town
on Wednesday night. “Now the region will be able to request help from
federal relief funds,” Gov. Gruzdev said at an operative meeting. The
regional authority said it was going to allocate $1,600 in damages to every
low-income resident hit by the mini twister.

http://lenta.ru/articles/2013/05/22/tornado/
http://english.ruvr.ru/news/2013_05_23/Russia-s-Tula-region-declare-emergency-after-microburst-scare-501/
http://www.reuters.com/video/2013/05/22/video-captures-tornado-ripping-through-s?videoId=242961409&videoChannel=1
(video)

Amnesty International has again criticized Russia in its annual report on human rights released on Thursday. The mounting protests in early 2012 have led to increased pressure from the authorities, the international rights group said. Human rights defenders and journalists have continued to experience pressure, and most investigations into past attacks showed no progress. According to Amnesty International, Russian courts do not comply with international standards of justice, and the number of politically motivated rulings has grown over the past year. Cases of torture and denial of adequate medical care in custody are not properly investigated, the report says. Furthermore, Russia reacts very aggressively to any external criticism of its human rights situation, the report said citing the response to the Magnitsky Act, where Russia came up with its own list of undesirable US officials and banned them from entering the country.

http://rapsinews.com/news/20130523/267525476.html

Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney has written letters to Russian authorities in
support of two members of Russian punk group Pussy Riot, who were jailed
last August on offical charges of hooliganism motivated by religious
hatred, his website says. The famous musician has asked the Russian
officials to consider release on parole for Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda
Tolokonnikova, who are serving two-year sentences for performing
a "punk-prayer" against President Vladimir Putin in the Christ the Savior
Cathedral in central Moscow in February 2012. “In the great tradition of
fair-mindedness which the Russian people (many of whom are my friends) are
famous for, I believe that you granting this request would send a very
positive message to all the people who have followed this case,” McCartney
wrote in a letter regarding Alyokhina. "I have had a long relationship with
the Russian people, and, with this in mind, I am making the following
request in a spirit of friendship for my many Russian acquaintances who,
like me, believe in treating people - all people, with compassion and
kindness,” he wrote in a letter regarding Tolokonnikova.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130523/181300692/Paul-McCartney-Shows-Support-to-Jailed-Pussy-Riot-Members.html
http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/1079876-echo/ (document)