Main News of July 27

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD:

 

* The father of Edward Snowden, the former US intelligence contractor who leaked secret documents on US surveillance programs, lashed out at US President Barack Obama and other top officials and vowed that the story his son sought to tell is “far from done.”

* It is perhaps the single best-known Russian brand. But as US gay groups call for boycott of Stolichnaya vodka to protest new Russian laws on homosexuality, the beverage’s owner is racing to convince them that “Stoli,” as it is popularly known, is not Russian at all.

* Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili said he stands for the restoration of diplomatic relations between his country and Russia and hoped to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

 

RUSSIA

 

* Russia’s former influential Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov, who stepped down in May, said in an interview that it was his own “emotional decision” to leave the government, and that Vladimir Putin became Russia's president on God's will

* Russia’s Interior Ministry said that Moscow expects Interpol leadership to explain its decision to turn down its request seeking to locate and arrest Hermitage Capital head William Browder

*Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the “spiritual unity” between Russia and Ukraine and urged closer integration between the two nations

* A self-styled “sextremist” group of feminist protesters said that three of its activists were assaulted and kidnapped in the Ukrainian capital along with a photojournalist shortly before the group’s rally against high-profile religious festivities in Kiev