Main News of January 27

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

WORLD

 

* Anti-government demonstrators left the Justice Ministry building in Kiev occupied on Sunday night, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said.

* National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has claimed in an interview with a German television channel that US intelligence agencies are involved in industrial espionage.

* A court in Kazakhstan began the retrial in the case of a former senior Senate official accused of ordering the high-profile murder of a leading opposition figure.

 

RUSSIA

 

* Russian lawmakers proposed expanding the so-called ban on “gay propaganda” to all kinds of sex, although even an ultraconservative senior legislator said it was overkill.

* Russian President Vladimir Putin honored the victims of the Siege of Leningrad, including his brother, at a ceremony in St. Petersburg.

* Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that government officials should be appointed to the boards of state-owned companies, in an apparent reversal of a signature reform he carried out during his presidency.

* Moscow City Court has removed five jurors from a new jury panel in the Anna Politkovskaya murder case, the court's spokesperson Ulyana Solopova said.

* Russian and US experts are planning to join efforts in protecting our planet against thousands of potentially hazardous near-Earth space bodies, Russia’s emergencies minister said.

* Russia will seek the release of one of its nationals from the United States’ notorious Guantanamo prison, the Foreign Ministry's human rights envoy Konstantin Dolgov said.

* Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has spoken about his life in jail in detail for the first time in a wide-ranging interview published in daily newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets.

 

 

DEFENSE

 

* Russia’s state arms exporter Rosoboronexport sold $13.2 billion in weapons and military equipment to foreign buyers last year but expects no short-term growth, its director said in an interview published Monday.

* Russia could begin to sell weapons to Britain for the first time under a pioneering defense treaty between the former Cold War enemies, the Daily Telegraph reported.

 

BUSINESS

 

* Russia’s top monetary authority slammed digital currencies, warning that Bitcoin use can lead to criminal charges in the country.

* The ruble continued its fall in Monday trading, reaching a historic low of 47.5 rubles to the euro.

* Retail sales growth in Russia fell to 3.9 percent in 2013, down from 6.3 percent a year earlier, the State Statistics Service said.

* A Russian businessman has filed a $600 million lawsuit against Russia's second largest bank, VTB, with London’s High Court, Russia’s Vedomosti business daily reported.

* Russia’s largest carmaker AvtoVAZ has devised a plan to encourage employees to quit their jobs in an effort to restore the company to profitability, a Russian newspaper reported.

 

SPORTS

 

* British officials have warned of the high risk of terrorist attacks in Russia between now and the end of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, the BBC reported.

* Triple Olympic gold medal-winning ski jumper Thomas Morgenstern was included in Austria’s Olympic squad, despite being hurt in a terrifying crash this month.

* Maria Sharapova fell to fifth place in the Women's Tennis Association rankings after her surprise fourth-round exit from the Australian Open.