Neave Barker

Gaddafi's 'suicidal plan' for Tripoli

Hardly reassuring words from the man Russia's put in charge of mediating the conflict in Libya.

Mikhail Margelov, the president's special envoy to Africa, said in an interview with the Russian Izvestia newspaper that the regime of Muammar Gaddafi has "a suicidal plan” in place if rebels move to seize Tripoli.

“The Libyan premier told me, 'If the rebels take over the city, we will cover it with missiles and blow it up,'" he said.

Moscow expels British reporter

When the Guardian’s Moscow correspondent Luke Harding tried to re-enter Moscow this weekend he found himself detained at the city’s airport and put on the next flight back to London.  His valid visa was annulled and his passport only returned to him when he was onboard the aircraft.  A border guard reportedly told him “For you Russia is closed.”  Harding had been in the UK finishing a book about Wikileaks co-authored with investigations editor David Leigh.

Acclaimed journalist blasts Russian state media

Leonid Parfyonov is the former editor-in-chief of Russian Newsweek, a television host well-known for a stream of successful, mainly non-political programmes.

But after taking to the stage last Thursday to receive a prestigious award on Russian television, Parfyonov began a five-minute speech (Watch here) slamming federal television channels for sycophantically churning out propaganda in service of the state, all before a stone-faced audience of Russian TV royalty:

National television information services have become part of the government. Journalistic topics, like all life, have been irrevocably divided into those that can be shown on TV and those that cannot.

Heatwave may rekindle Chernobyl's curse

It was almost as a footnote to the catalogue of catastrophes Russians have faced over the last week when Sergey Shoigu, Russia's emergency situations minister, announced that there might also be a radioactive addition to the nation's woes.

It's already been the hottest summer in 1,000 years.

Wildfires have killed more than 50 people, wiping entire villages off the map and leaving Moscow blanketed for days under a layer of choking smog.

Since the heat wave began more than 30,000 forest and peat fires have ignited nationwide creating a massive plume of smoke big enough to be seen from space.

Today the winds have changed and the skies over the capital have cleared, a welcome respite for thousands of people doomed to spend sweltering nights in overheated apartments with the windows firmly closed.