Ukraine war: Who are Russia's war bloggers and why are they popular?
Vladlen Tatarsky, who died in an explosion in St Petersburg on Sunday, was one of Russia's "war correspondents". But who are these bloggers - and why are they popular?
The writers are a loose assortment of people supporting the war in Ukraine and reporting about it, often from the front lines. They have extreme anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western views.
The correspondents - known as "voyenkory" in Russian - usually claim to have specialist military knowledge and access to Russian troops.
Some are embedded with them - and some appear to be fighting alongside them.
The degree of their affiliation with the government varies. Some are employed by Kremlin-controlled media, but others blog on social media - apparently without any links to any media outlet.
Bangladesh fire: 600 firefighters tackle blaze in huge Dhaka clothing market
Bongo Bazar and three adjacent markets said to be gutted, as 11 people reported injured
Hundreds of Bangladeshi firefighters have battled an inferno that raged through a popular clothing market in the capital, Dhaka, and covered the city’s oldest neighbourhoods in black smoke.
No deaths have been reported, but shop owners and fire officials told reporters that the famous Bongo Bazar and three adjacent markets had been gutted in the dawn fire.
Tempers flared as the morning wore on, with a group of shop owners hurling rocks at firefighters, angered by the time it was taking to bring the blaze under control.
Finland officially becomes a NATO member
Finland has joined NATO, dramatically widening Russia's frontier with the trans-Atlantic defense alliance. The Kremlin has described the accession as an "assault on our security."
Finland became the 31st member of the NATO military alliance on Tuesday amid warnings of "countermeasures" from the Kremlin.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year prompted Finland — which has a 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border with Russia — and its neighbor Sweden to drop decades of military non-alignment.
How is the accession being marked?
On Tuesday afternoon, Finland's foreign minister handed the accession papers to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the keeper of NATO's founding treaty.
Finland's blue and white flag was then set to be hoisted alongside those of its new allies, alphabetically placed between the flags of Estonia and France, in front of NATO headquarters in Brussels.
During the ceremony, Blinken took a jab at Russian President Vladimir Putin.
St Petersburg café killing exposes Russia’s security woes
Moscow has blamed Ukrainian security services and supporters of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny for the killing of a prominent Russian ultranationalist blogger in a St Petersburg café. Kyiv and Navalny’s supporters have denied the allegations. But the attack on a figure with close links to the Wagner Group has underscored blowback threats from the war in Ukraine.
Street Food Bar No. 1 on Universitetskaya Embankment right by the Neva River was once considered a cool café for tourists visiting St Petersburg, the western Russian city also known as “the Venice of the North”. But that was long before it all blew up on Sunday evening.
The café was holding a “Cyber Front Z”, a weekend discussion club that draws supporters of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine who rally around the “Z” pro-war symbol.
Fukushima disaster pushed Sakamoto’s anti-nuke drive
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
April 4, 2023 at 17:02 JST
Anti-nuclear activists lamented the death of musical composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who held the belief that “nuclear and human beings cannot coexist.”
After the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Sakamoto started appearing at anti-nuclear and anti-war events nationwide.
In May 2016, he participated in a show with actress Sayuri Yoshinaga in Vancouver, where she recited poems related to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Yoshinaga also read poems written by people in Fukushima Prefecture with a piano obbligato by Sakamoto.
About 200 people listened to the performance.
Beijing promised to ‘fight back’ over Taiwan leader’s US visit. But this time it has more to lose
An anticipated meeting between Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California this week has sparked concerns of a repeat of the pressure campaign China launched last year when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei.
At that time, Beijing encircled the island democracy with unprecedented military drills – firing multiple missiles into its surrounding waters and sending dozens of warplanes speeding across a sensitive median line dividing the Taiwan Strait.
It also cut off contact with the United States over a number of issues from military matters to combating climate change, in retaliation for what it viewed as a violation of its sovereignty.
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