Putin visiting Hungary, attending World Judo Championships

August 28, 2017

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Hungary for the second time this year on Monday, attending the World Judo Championships being held in Budapest. Putin, who made an official trip to Hungary in February, sat in a VIP box at the Laszlo Papp Budapest Sports Arena with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and other officials.

Discussions between the two leaders were expected to center on energy issues, such as Russia's construction of new reactors for Hungary's Soviet-built nuclear power plant and Hungarian imports of natural gas from Russia.

Hungarian opposition parties protested Putin's trip amid concerns that Orban has become too close to the Russian leader. Orban used to be highly critical of Russian influence in the region. Activists from the Together party blew whistles as Putin's motorcade arrived at the arena and held up a banner in the stands reading "We Won't Be A Russian Colony" before police escorted them out of the building.

A few supporters of Momentum, a new party whose recent campaign led Budapest to withdraw its bid for the 2024 Olympic Games, donned Putin masks and wore T-shirts with the slogan "Let's go freedom of speech, let's go Hungarians."

Critics say the nuclear project is rife with corruption risks and increases Hungary's dependency on Moscow. "Putin is looking for colonies in the former Soviet bloc, not allies," political activist Gabor Vago said. "Only Russia benefits from the nuclear deal, which ties Hungary for decades to an obsolete technology."

Russia has loaned Hungary 10 billion euros ($11.9 billion) for the nuclear development plan, an amount expected to cover about 80 percent of the costs.

Small town miles from Moscow sees a political awakening

August 24, 2017

VYKSA, Russia (AP) — Russia's political opposition faces an uphill battle against President Vladimir Putin in next year's election. But it is finding some support sprouting up in unlikely places — the sleepy provincial towns like Vyksa.

In the "Image" hair salon where patrons are greeted by the high-pitched whine of blow dryers, they also are met by a poster promoting the candidacy of Alexei Navalny, Russia's most popular opposition politician. "Navalny 2018: Trust people, don't let Moscow call the shots," it says.

The 41-year-old anti-corruption campaigner currently gets most of his support from intellectuals and youths in the big cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, while Putin draws his 80 percent approval rating from the sleepy provinces and industrial cities across Russia's 11 time zones.

That's why Navalny has planted political seeds in the provinces, opening campaign offices in dozens of cities and town in the vast country. Some of his supporters even have launched grassroots efforts on their own, including in Vyksa.

Home to 53,000 people, Vyksa is so small it isn't even served by trains, let alone airlines. The town, 300 kilometers (about 190 miles) east of Moscow, draws its relative prosperity from the steelworks that makes pipelines for Russia's natural gas monopoly Gazprom. But Vyksa's businessmen are increasingly worried that Putin's aggressive foreign policy, which has battered the ruble and cut consumer demand, is ruining their livelihoods.

In Moscow and St. Petersburg, Navalny's longshot campaign is populated by trendy, Instagram-loving youths who carry tote bags emblazoned with his name and watch videos on YouTube channels that broadcast his message outside of the monopoly of state-owned television.

In Vyksa, two middle-aged, self-employed men — store owner Vyacheslav Burmistrov and attorney Igor Kakonin — sat in an office next door to the hair salon earlier this month, plotting how to fight a local ban on canvassing for their candidate.

Town officials in July banned canvassing, saying the campaign has not formally begun. Navalny supporters contested the ban in court and lost, and now are waiting to appeal. Navalny himself is barred by law from seeking office until 2021 because of convictions on what he called trumped-up fraud charges. And he faces steep odds in trying to unseat Putin, who in addition to controlling state-run TV enjoys strong support from regional governors and has vast financial resources.

But Navalny, who inspired anti-Putin rallies in 2011-12 and organized protests of official corruption this year, is pushing ahead anyway. He figures he can pressure the Kremlin to allow him to run and is building a network of supporters to secure the 1 million needed signatures.

Like many in Vyksa, the 57-year-old Burmistrov once worked at the steel mill. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and the factory was in disarray, Burmistrov began selling bootleg music tapes in a local market to make a living.

Then he opened a hardware store, and another. The two-story Kontinent, with 40 employees, stands on the outskirts of Vyksa, in a neighborhood of log cabins where Burmistrov was born. The decline of the economy and the bite of Western sanctions have taken a toll. Consumer demand crashed in 2014 and Burmistrov had to rent out one of the stores. Sales fell from one laptop a day to six per month, an employee said.

Burmistrov also served six years in the local legislature, where he said he saw how Vyksa sent most of its taxes to Moscow, while town officials did not have the power or money to address local issues.

"I began to realize that change in Russia is possible only from the top," he said. "We need to devolve power so that we could be able to solve our problems locally." He has teamed up with Kakonin, a 49-year-old lawyer, to host Vyksa.Live, a weekly YouTube show modeled on Navalny's broadcast, which typically gets between half a million to 1 million views.

Sitting against a "Navalny 2018" poster, the stern-looking Burmistrov and the jovial Kakonin said their show discusses problems like roads with potholes, dried-up wells and rundown playgrounds. Several times after raising an issue, town officials rushed to fix it, Kakonin said proudly.

Campaigning for Navalny can be dangerous. He has had green dye splashed on his face that damaged his vision in an attack he blamed on a Kremlin supporter. Dozens of Navalny activists have been detained for handing out leaflets; in the southern city of Krasnodar, pro-Kremlin activists have repeatedly ransacked his campaign office; and the campaign coordinator for the Siberian city of Barnaul was stabbed.

For Burmistrov, the prospect of his business failing is scarier. "In 1991, we were all equal, we had nothing to lose," he said of Russia's political upheaval at the time. "Now I have something to lose, but we're doing it anyway, and we stopped being afraid. Businesses started shutting down. I realize that it will only get worse later on if we don't stop this decline."

Navalny's campaign is unprecedented in Russia, where political life has been dormant for nearly two decades since Putin came to power. While he pays campaign staff in the big cities, Navalny mostly relies on unpaid volunteers in places like the gritty coal-mining town of Vorkuta and the picturesque ski resort of Gorno-Altaysk.

Before the campaign ban went into effect in Vyksa, Burmistrov and others handed out leaflets on the street every weekend. Now wary of getting into trouble with the law, Burmistrov and seven other activists, some wearing "Navalny" T-shirts, sat on benches outside the town's main park on a recent evening, leaflets in hand.

Daniil Shytov beamed when asked how he would vote when he turns 18 next year. "Navalny. All of my friends support Navalny," said Shytov, who said they all watched the anti-corruption videos. But many in Vyksa mistrust Navalny, who is portrayed on state TV as a criminal. One story circulated in town that Navalny would close the steel mill. In fact, the factory's exports have been jeopardized by new U.S. sanctions approved earlier this month. European companies working with Gazprom might have to seek waivers from the U.S. government to go ahead with construction and repair projects on the Russian gas pipelines.

"The truth is, if the factory stops, it will stop because of the sanctions. And who brought us the sanctions? Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin)," Burmistrov said. Workers pouring out of the Vyksa Metallurgical Plant at the end of the shift last week were wary about talking politics and had little faith that life would improve.

Crane operator Anastasia Kozarova conceded there is "a grain of truth" in Navalny's reports of widespread government corruption, but she says she will stick with Putin. "I don't see people who are better at politics than him," she said. "I have a lot of issues with him, but he achieved a lot during his presidency."

Meeting at a roadside cafe on the outskirts of Vyksa, some of the Navalny supporters recalled how the town reacted to one of the biggest geopolitical events of their lives — the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev by Communist hard-liners in August 1991 that eventually brought the demise of the Soviet Union.

Nothing happened, they said. No street protests, no Lenin statues toppled or portraits taken down, no political activity. Now, however, they said Vyksa is waking up. "So many people are scared. I used to be scared, but now I just don't give a damn," said 52-year-old cafe owner Alexander Alexeyev, who described how he has had to slash his prices to keep customers.

Alexeyev said he went to the anti-Putin rallies in Moscow in 2012, but was disappointed that more did not join him from Vyksa. "If 50 people had come from Vyksa, 50 from another town and another, it (would have been) a million of us in Moscow," he said.

Russian flight attendant sues airline for discrimination

August 21, 2017

LOBNYA, Russia (AP) — "Old, fat and ugly" is what Yevgeniya Magurina jokingly calls a group of flight attendants of Russia's flagship airline Aeroflot who she claims have been sidelined in an apparent drive to make the cabin crew younger and more physically attractive. She is one of just two women who have taken one of the world's largest airlines to court for that.

A Moscow court is due to rule on Tuesday in Magurina's lawsuit against Aeroflot in which she maintains she was taken off the sought-after long-haul international flights because of her looks. The flight attendant's claim, which triggered a wave of support as well condemnation, has put the spotlight on how women in modern Russia are still often judged by their physical appearance.

The first warning shot rang for Magurina last summer when the 42-year old went to pick up a new uniform and discovered that Aeroflot no longer stocks any above Russian size 48 (U.S. size 10). Magurina, who says size 48 fits her on the hips but not on the breast, used to order a larger size and get it tailored. Then, all flight attendants were ordered to be weighed and photographed as part of a contest to staff a special business class crew. Several months later, Magurina, who had typically worked as senior attendant, arrived at the Sheremetyevo airport for her flight only to see she was assigned a junior role: "You scan your pass, the names of the crew light up and you see your position. No one has even told me."

Magurina, one of Aeroflot's 7,000 cabin crew staff, says about 600 flight attendants, mostly women, have been put on a list that she jokingly calls the "old, fat and ugly" and have been re-assigned for less prestigious flights. Like others, Magurina was taken off the long-haul international flights and put on the lower-paid domestic ones:

"No one cares about professionalism — you have to be young, slim and pretty," says Magurina who lives in the suburb of Lobnya near the airport, home to thousands of Aeroflot staff. Local courts in April dismissed Magurina's lawsuit as well as a similar claim by another flight attendant, Irina Ierusalimskaya. The Moscow City Court is expected to rule on Magurina's appeal on Tuesday.

Aeroflot in recent years has undertaken to transform itself from a drab post-Soviet airline to something that can rival the world's best airlines on comfort and efficiency. Its most recent efforts included a five-year partnership deal with FC Manchester United and enlisting well-known chefs to create menus for its business class passengers.

But there has been controversy, too. An online forum of flight attendants in 2010 published what appeared to be a mock-up of a calendar with a nude woman wearing a flight attendant's red hat and white gloves and posing by an Aeroflot plane and inside the cabin. The company promptly denied that it had commissioned the shoot and said it would investigate how a photographer and a model were allowed to get inside the plane.

The airline that posted 38.8 billion rubles ($650 million) in net profit last year has recently been rated four out of five stars by the Skytrax consultancy and has entered the world's top 20 airlines by the number of passengers carried.

Aeroflot has dismissed Magurina and Ierusalimskaya's lawsuits as "a routine employee vs. employer dispute that has been deliberately inflated to the scale of a public campaign aimed at tarnishing the airline's reputation," according to Vladimir Alexandrov, the company's deputy CEO for legal matters.

When asked whether the company has stopped stocking XL uniforms for female cabin crew staff, Alexandrov told the Associated Press that Aeroflot does not disclose its "internal rules and regulations" He added, however, that the cabin crew's job is "physically and psychologically demanding."

The two women's court battle with Russia's biggest airline has attracted a wave support from some and condemnation from others. At a news conference in April, a member of Aeroflot's public council argued it was "quite acceptable to pay for good looks."

"Aeroflot is a premium airline, and the staff's looks is definitely one of the things the clients pay for," Pavel Danilin, himself an overweight man, said. Aeroflot told the AP members of its public council do not speak on the company's behalf.

Often the one to voice a common but unpalatable public opinion, Ksenia Sobchak, a socialite turned prominent journalist, said that she understands why Aeroflot would not want to get rid of older and less physically attractive women.

"If you build a beautiful company, you have the right to demand that your staff look good," Sobchak said on the Dozhd television channel after the April ruling. "Why would you become a flight attendant if your butt is this big?"

Yulia Zakharova, a Moscow-based clinical psychologist, said the public reaction to the trial shows that Russia is still a largely patriarchal society despite the decades of Communist slogans of gender equality.

"New values are seeping in slowly but the patriarchy is still very much alive," Zakharova said. In Soviet times "women were 'equal' in a sense that she was to 'go and get a job' but then she would come home and make dinner. These expectations are still there."

The fact that the female flight attendants are reportedly expected to stay well below size L while men are allowed wear XL shows how underprivileged women are in Russia. "Society judges women with the eyes of a young man," Zakharova said.

Migurina, who keeps two sets of size 48 Aeroflot uniform in her closet, says she is upset that her decade of work as a flight attendant and seven years with Aeroflot has been cancelled out by a few inches.

"Right now there's a policy that a flight attendant has to be sexually attractive," she says. "But our role onboard is different: it's to ensure safety, not to be an object of sexual desire. This is wrong and hurtful."

Iranian president threatens to restart nuclear program

August 15, 2017

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's president issued a direct threat to the West on Tuesday, claiming his country is capable of restarting its nuclear program within hours — and quickly bringing it to even more advanced levels than in 2015, when Iran signed the nuclear deal with world powers.

Hassan Rouhani's remarks to lawmakers follow the Iranian parliament's move earlier this week to increase spending on the country's ballistic missile program and the foreign operations of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

The bill — and Rouhani's comments — are seen as a direct response to the new U.S. legislation earlier this month that imposed mandatory penalties on people involved in Iran's ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them. The U.S. legislation also applies terrorism sanctions to the Revolutionary Guard and enforces an existing arms embargo.

If Washington continues with "threats and sanctions" against Iran, Rouhani said in parliament on Tuesday, Tehran could easily restart the nuclear program. "In an hour and a day, Iran could return to a more advanced (nuclear) level than at the beginning of the negotiations" that preceded the 2015 deal, Rouhani said.

He did not elaborate. The landmark agreement between Iran and world powers two years ago capped Iran's uranium enrichment levels in return for the lifting of international sanctions. It was not immediately clear what Rouhani was referring to — and whether he meant Iran could restart centrifuges enriching uranium to higher and more dangerous levels.

He also offered no evidence Iran's capability to rapidly restart higher enrichment, though Iran still has its stock of centrifuges. Those devices now churn out uranium to low levels that can range from use as reactor fuel and for medical and research purposes, but could produce the much higher levels needed for a nuclear weapon.

Iran long has insisted its atomic program is for peaceful purposes despite Western fears of it being used to make weapons. However in December, Rouhani ordered up plans on building nuclear-powered ships, something that appears to be allowed under the nuclear deal.

Rouhani's remarks were likely an attempt to appease hard-liners at home who have demanded a tougher stand against the United States. But they are also expected to ratchet up tensions further with the Trump administration.

Iran has said the new U.S. sanctions amount to a "hostile" breach of the 2015 nuclear deal. "The U.S. has shown that it is neither a good partner nor a trustable negotiator," Rouhani added. "Those who are trying to go back to the language of threats and sanctions are prisoners of their past hallucinations. They deprive themselves of the advantages of peace."

But Rouhani also tempered his own threat, adding that Iran seeks to remain loyal to its commitments under the nuclear deal, which opened a "path of cooperation and confidence-building" with the world.

"The deal was a model of the victory of peace and diplomacy over war and unilateralism," said Rouhani. "It was Iran's preference, but it was not and will not remain Iran's only option."

Judge sends Indian guru to jail for 10 years for rape

August 28, 2017

ROHTAK, India (AP) — A judge on Monday sentenced a popular and flamboyant Indian spiritual guru to 10 years in prison on charges of raping two female followers. The sentence was pronounced amid intense security at a prison in the northern town of Rohtak where the guru, who calls himself Dr. Saint Gurmeet Singh Ram Rahim Insan, has been held since his conviction Friday.

The conviction sparked violent protests by the guru's followers that left at least 38 people dead and hundreds injured. Ahead of the sentencing announcement, train and bus services to Rohtak were suspended to prevent the guru's supporters from gathering in the town, located in Haryana state. A curfew was also imposed in Rohtak.

Local police said several layers of security were in place around the prison and that government troops had permission to use firearms if any violence erupted. All cars entering the town were being searched.

The guru has denied raping the two followers, in a case that stems from charges filed in 2002. Few details were immediately available following the sentencing, but the guru's lawyers can appeal the verdict to a higher court. The rape charges were investigated by India's Central Bureau of Investigation, and a special CBI court convicted and sentenced the guru.

The minimum sentence for the charges was seven years and the maximum was life in prison. The bling-loving leader is fond of red leather jackets, bejeweled hats, bicep-baring T-shirts — and cinema. He has started a film franchise in which he stars as the "Messenger of God," or MSG, with divine powers to save the world. In his most recent film, he plays a secret agent armed with a twirled moustache and an assortment of swords to fight aliens and UFOs.

Security was high Monday across Haryana and the neighboring state of Punjab, with schools and offices shut in many places. A curfew was also in place in Sirsa town, where the sprawling main headquarters of the guru's Sacha Sauda sect are located. Since Saturday, police have been asking followers to leave the ashram compound, and around 20,000 people left.

Local police spokesman Surjeet Singh said some people were still inside the compound, but that it was impossible to know how many. He said about 4,000 government troops, including army and paramilitary soldiers, were patrolling the tiny town and the area outside the ashram.

When the guru was found guilty on Friday, tens of thousands of his enraged followers set fire to government buildings, vandalized bus stations and government vehicles, and attacked police and TV journalists in Panchkula, where the verdict was announced.

The sect claims to have about 50 million followers and campaigns for vegetarianism and against drug addiction. It also organizes blood-donation and tree-planting drives. Religious sects like the Dera Sacha Sauda have huge followings in India. These sects and their leaders inspire intense devotion among their believers and also wield considerable political clout. Many maintain private militias for their protection.

The rape conviction isn't the guru's only brush with the law. He is awaiting trial on a murder charge over the death of a journalist, and is also under investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation over allegations of forcing several male followers to undergo castrations to bring them closer to God. He has denied the accusations.

Naqvi reported from New Delhi.

Large fire burns for 2nd day, threatens homes near Athens

August 14, 2017

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A large wildfire north of Athens is threatening homes as it sweeps through pine forest for a second day, uncontained due to high winds. Fire Service officials two planes and five helicopters are fighting the blaze at Varnava, 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of the Greek capital, while a main road in the area is closed to traffic to give fire trucks better access.

The fire burned out of control for a second day Monday after damaging at least 20 homes the previous day and forcing the evacuation of holiday campsites used in the area for children's vacations. No one was hurt, and Fire Service spokeswoman Brigade Manager Stavroula Maliri described all the evacuations as precautionary.

Wildfires rage on untamed in Greece, Portugal and Corsica

August 13, 2017

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Hot and dry weather stoked another round of wildfires burning across southern Europe on Sunday as firefighters in Greece, Portugal and the French island of Corsica struggled to corral the flames.

Greek authorities voiced suspicions that at least some of the several dozen fires that broke out on both the mainland and the island of Zakynthos over the weekend were started deliberately. Over 4,000 firefighters were battling more than 250 wildfires in Portugal, which requested assistance from other European Union nations.

On Corsica, fires that have raged since Thursday forced the evacuation of 1,000 people, authorities said. The latest blaze in Greece started Sunday afternoon in a pine forest and had damaged as many as 20 houses by night in a town north of the capital. Kalamos, a town some 44 kilometers (27 miles) north of Athens, is a favorite vacation spot for Athenians.

Authorities said they have shut down a large portion of the local road network as the blaze expanded in several directions, including toward Athens. They also evacuated two children's campgrounds. Portugal Civil Protection Agency spokeswoman Patricia Gaspar said the country set an annual single-day record for new fires on Saturday, when 268 separate fires started. That surpassed the previous year-to-date high mark of 220 fires reached Friday.

While the weather isn't helping, nature was responsible for igniting a minority of the blazes, Gaspar said. "We know that more than 90 percent of the fires have a human cause, whether intentional of from negligence. Both are crimes," she said.

Authorities believe a series of fires raging on several fronts on the western Greek island of Zakynthos were started deliberately. The country's fire service said there were "well-founded suspicions of foul play" after five fires broke out late Saturday and early Sunday, followed by another three later on Sunday morning.

Greek Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis, who is also the local member of parliament, said of the multiple blazes while visiting the island: "This is planned." The fire service said 10 of the 12 fires burning on Zakynthos were still unchecked, with high winds making it difficult to control the flames.

A total of 53 wildfires broke out in Greece on Saturday and several more did on Sunday, including on the island of Kefalonia, next to Zakynthos. Authorities said the multiple blazes had stretched firefighting capabilities to the limit. Firefighting planes and helicopters cannot fly at night, adding another degree of difficulty. In Zakynthos, authorities were monitoring the progress of the flames with a small camera-equipped drone, which provides information to firefighters on the ground, the fire service said.

Trouble controlling flames and forecasts calling for more hot and dry days ahead prompted Portugal's government to ask other countries in Europe for help, Minister of Internal Administration Constanca Urbano de Sousa said.

Portugal has been especially hard hit by wildfires, including one that killed 64 people in June, during a summer marked by high temperatures and a lack of rain. Wildfires in Portugal this year have accounted for more than one-third of the burned forest in the entire 28-country European Union.

The EU's Emergency Management Service said the amount of forestland blackened in Portugal as of Aug. 5 was about five times larger than the average recorded in the country between 2008 and 2016. In southern France, fierce flames have ravaged some 2,100 hectares (5,190 acres) of land since Thursday — with 2,000 hectares (4,940 acres) burned in Corsica alone.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said there have been no casualties from the fires thanks to the efforts by 1,200 firefighters and the air teams that carried out 300 water drops in 24 hours. While the mainland fires were tamed over the weekend, the Corsica blazes were ongoing and still required "major means," Collomb said.

Firefighters continued to fight wildfires in the Corsican towns of Manso and the hilly Pietracorbara. Northern Corsica Prefect Gerard Gavory said over 1,000 thousand residents and tourists have been evacuated.