Georgia TV Station Creates Panic With Spoof Documentary Claiming Russian Invasion
From Variety:
A pro-government Georgian television station sparked widespread panic in the Caucasian country when it ran a spoof documentary claiming the Russians had invaded again. The half-hour show — which aired Saturday night — brought chaos to the country after it claimed Russian troops were already in the capital Tbilisi and aired “unconfirmed reports” that pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili had been assassinated.
Mobile telephone networks crashed, cinemas emptied as parents called their children home and people spilled out on to the street of towns and cities across the country to seek safety. But the report on Imedi-TV — once Georgia’s leading independent station until Saakashvili took it off air following the death of its owner, opposition figure Badri Patarkatsishvili in 2008 — was nothing but a hoax, apparently aired by a…
Teen Cannibals on Trial for Dismembering and Eating Their Four Friends
From Pravda:
Legal trial with regard to the notorious Satanists case has commenced in the regional court of Yaroslavl, Russia. Eight teenagers are being accused of cannibalism and brutal murder of their four friends. The Satanists spent a year and a half in a detention facility, and are now finally in court.
Last week, the first hearing was held. The case details are so shocking that the hearings are closed to the general public. Eight teenagers, sect members, murdered their friends, ate their hearts, dismembered their bodies and buried them in several places. The mothers of the innocent victims who are to find out all the case details have demanded that the judge gave the criminals a life sentence.
Indictments were handed out to Alexei Chistyakov, Konstantin Baranov, Ksenia Kovaleva, Nikolai Ogolobyak, Alexander…
Aliens Land In Russia
From Pravda:
Residents of the city of Perm, in Russia’s Ural region, say that they could see a strange object in the sky. The object, eyewitnesses said, was hanging in the air above the city, scanned the area with a beam of light and even let off several “passengers.” The people did not specify what kind of passengers they were exactly and how they disembarked from what seemed to be a spaceship.
A woman saw a strange object in the window at about 2-4 o’clock a.m. She woke up her daughter and asked her to take a look at the strange sight. The two women could see a disk-like object sending three glittering beams of light on the ground…
Russia Bans U.S. Poultry Over Chlorine
By Dan Flynn for FoodSafetyNews.com:
With as much as 30,000 tons of American poultry in the pipeline to Russia, the government in Moscow imposed a ban on future U.S. poultry imports on New Year’s Day.
Russia joins the European Union in prohibiting the use of chlorine as an anti-microbial treatment in poultry production, which is commonly used in the United States.
As for birds in the pipeline, USA Poultry and Egg Export Council President Jim Summers said he thinks based on earlier assurances from the Russian Veterinary Service that poultry in transit will be allowed to enter.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture defended the use of chlorine by the American poultry industry.
“Since chlorine has been used as an anti-microbial treatment for more than 25 years, this resolution effectively blocks U.S. exports of poultry to…
Russia’s Armageddon Plan to Save Earth from Asteroid Collision
More interesting news from Russia to set your mind at ease. Via the Guardian:
Space scientists in Russia are preparing to boldly go where no man has gone before, except for the actor Bruce Willis.
The head of the Russian space agency said today that it was considering a Hollywood-style mission to send a spacecraft to bump a large asteroid from a possible collision course with Earth.
Anatoly Perminov told the Russian radio station Golos Rossii: “People’s lives are at stake. We should pay several hundred million dollars and build a system that would allow us to prevent a collision, rather than sit and wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people.”
The mission would be aimed at an asteroid called Apophis, he said, which is expected to pass close…
Russia’s Leech Boom
What will be the new burgeoning industry of the twenty-first century? Many in Russia are betting it’s leech farming. Cosmetics made from leeches are said to soften the skin and fight aging, and use of leeches to detoxify the blood is growing in popularity.
Will Russia lead the way to a revolution in leech farming? English Russia has a collection of jaw-dropping pictures that may make you queasy:
Lawmaker Urges NATO to Consider Arms for Georgia
DESMOND BUTLER writes in the Associated Press:
A senior Republican senator is urging the Obama administration and European allies to consider rearming Georgia, an action that would inevitably upset Russia.
The recommendation comes from Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, a lawmaker who has long cultivated cooperation with Russia. Lugar has been a key ally for President Barack Obama on his pursuit of an arms control deal with Russia…
Read More on the Associated Press
Russia To Send A Monkey To Mars
Urmee Khan writes in the Telegraph:
Although the ape will be looked after by a robot on the mission, the decision is expected to spark controversy with animal rights groups.
“We have plans to return to space,” said Zurab Mikvabia, director of the Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy in Georgia which supplied apes for the programme in the 1980s.
The Institute is in preliminary talks with Russia’s Cosmonautics Academy about preparing monkeys for a simulated Mars mission that could lay the groundwork for sending an ape to the Red Planet, he said.
Such an initiative would build on Mars-500, a joint Russian-European project that saw six human volunteers confined in a capsule in Moscow for 120 days earlier this year to simulate a Mars mission.
Mr Mikvabia said: “Earlier this programme was aimed at…
Russian Cyber Gang Steals Tens of Millions From Citibank
Is there no end to the run of mishaps at Citibank? Remember, as the U.S. Government owns a massive stake in Citi, paid for with our tax dollars, the Russian hackers stole your money. The latest, from the Wall Street Journal:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing a computer-security breach targeting Citigroup Inc. that resulted in a theft of tens of millions of dollars by computer hackers who appear linked to a Russian cyber gang, according to government officials.
The attack took aim at Citigroup’s Citibank subsidiary, which includes its North American retail bank and other businesses. It couldn’t be learned whether the thieves gained access to Citibank’s systems directly or through third parties.
The attack underscores the blurring of lines between criminal and national-security threats in cyber space. Hackers also assaulted…
The New Jesus Of Siberia
From the Guardian:
“I am Jesus Christ. It was promised in Israel 2,000 years ago that I would return, that I would come back to finish what was started.”
Meet the Messiah of Siberia, Vissarion Christ, as he is known to his thousands of disciples, who are convinced that he is the reincarnation of Jesus of Nazareth, come back to earth to save the world.
To his critics who accuse him of brainwashing and embezzling his followers, Vissarion is a charlatan [who leads] “a destructive, totalitarian sect”. More prosaically, he is Sergei Torop, a 41-year-old former traffic cop from southern Russia, who moved to Siberia as a youth, experienced his awakening a decade ago, and now leads one of the biggest and most remote religious communes on the planet.
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