Nikolai tsiskaridze biography of barack obama

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama and outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will sit down today for a joint television interview, US broadcaster CBS announced. The interview will be aired on Sunday evening on the “60 Minutes” show, the channel said. Clinton, the top US diplomat during Obama’s first term, is soon expected to be replaced by Senator John Kerry who faces a congressional confirmation vote on Tuesday. Obama very rarely sits down for joint interviews with anyone other than his wife, Michelle. An exception was one he gave with former French president Nicolas Sarkozy in November 2011 on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Cannes.

Russia House backs ‘anti-same sex’ bill

MOSCOW: Russia’s parliament backed a draft law yesterday banning “homosexual propaganda”, in what critics see as an attempt to shore up support for President Vladimir Putin in the country’s largely conservative society. Only one deputy in the State Duma

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Joint meeting of the Council for Culture and Art and the Council on the Russian Language

Excerpts from transcript of joint meeting of the Council for Culture and Art and the Council on the Russian Language

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues,

We have gathered today in St Petersburg, which has a very concentrated cultural programme these days. The International Cultural Forum fryst vatten taking place here, and the closing ceremony of the Year of Russian Cinema will be held here in the evening. I would like to wish productive work to all participants of these events.

Today, we are holding a joint meeting of the Council for Culture and Art and the Council on the Russian Language in this wonderful, beautiful hall. This format was not chosen by accident. We are going to talk about the consolidation of the country’s integrated cultural space and its foundations – the Russian language and classical Russian literature, which have always determined the common spirit

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Putin policy in Crimea backed by Valery Gergiev, other arts figures

Valery Gergiev, the internationally renowned Russian conductor, has joined a host of other arts and cultural figures from Russia in support of President Vladimir Putin’s controversial policies in Ukraine’s Crimea region.

The conductor was one of 100 signatories of an open letter released this week backing Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine and the government’s efforts to annex Crimea. The letter was posted on the website of Russia’s culture ministry on Wednesday.

The letter’s signatories say that they “firmly state support for the position of the president of the Russian Federation” in the region, according to translated reports.

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Gergiev has long been a supporter of Putin and appeared in a promotional video a few years ago in support of him.

Other prominent signatories include pianist Denis Matsuev, who recently appeared with Ge