The Kremlin on Thursday hailed as a triumph the result of a nationwide vote that handed President Vladimir Putin the right to run for two more terms, but an independent monitoring group said the vote had not been free and the outcome was flawed.
Russians appeared to have paved the way for Vladimir Putin to stay in power until 2036 by voting overwhelmingly for a package of constitutional changes which will also boost pensions, initial results of a nationwide vote showed on Wednesday.
The United States has called on the United Nations Security Council to extend an arms embargo on Iran that was due to expire in October in order for the Middle Eastern country to start behaving like a “normal nation”.
US Special Presidential Envoy Marshall Billingslea will travel to Austria on Monday and Tuesday to discuss “mutually agreed topics related to the future of arms control” with Russian Deputy Foreign Sergei Ryabkov, the US State Department said on Friday.
Lamine Diack, the former head of athletics’ governing body, thanked his supporters especially those in Senegal after coming out of a morning hearing in a Paris court on Monday.
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