Russia summons Azerbaijan envoy over journalist detentions, RIA reports
Tensions between Russia and Azerbaijan rose earlier on Monday after the Kremlin said it disagreed with a decision by Azerbaijan to cancel Russian cultural events in response to the arrest in Russia of a group of ethnic Azerbaijanis suspected of serious crimes.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Big plans, hopes cut short for 4 slain Idaho students in 2022
The lives of four University of Idaho students were cut short in 2022 when a masked intruder entered their rental house and stabbed them to death as they slept -- a crime that shocked the nation and ended their hopes and dreams. Madison Mogen was a marketing major who ran a social media campaign for the Greek restaurant where she worked. Kaylee Goncalves was a senior planning a post-graduation trip to Europe. Xana Kernodle was a marketing major who was the kind of person who lifted a room. And Ethan Chapin was a freshman whose fellow triplets also attended the university. Now, the man charged with the murders, 30-year-old Bryan Kohberger, will ask a judge Wednesday to accept a plea deal that would spare him the death penalty, said Shannon Gray, an attorney for Goncalves' family. The students' bodies were found stabbed to death on Nov. 13, 2022, at a rental home across the street from the university campus in Moscow, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southeast of Spokane, Washington. Chapin, Kernodle's boyfriend, was there visiting on the night of the attack. All of them were friends and members of the university's Greek system. The killings left many of their classmates and residents reeling with grief and fear. Autopsies showed the four were all likely asleep when they were attacked. Some had defensive wounds and each was stabbed multiple times. Here are profiles of the students: Madison Mogen Madison Mogen, 21, a senior, worked with Kernodle at a Greek restaurant in Moscow. She was a marketing major who ran a social media campaign for the business. She also was a member of Pi Beta Phi. Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves grew up together in northern Idaho and were best friends. Along with photos, Mogen collected quotes on her Instagram page. 'It's not all sunshine and rainbows, but a good amount of it actually is,' read one post. Ben Mogen, Madison's father, told a crowd at a 2022 vigil in Moscow that she was his only child, so 'everything she ever did was such a big deal.' Talking about 'Maddie' was his pride, Mogen said, and the two loved attending music concerts together. 'When I would meet people ever since she was first born, and they would say, 'Tell me about yourself,' the first thing I would say is, 'I have this daughter — here's a picture of her, she's on the dean's list at college, she works hard, she has all these friends at her sorority,'' Mogen said. Kaylee Goncalves Kaylee Goncalves, 21, was a senior majoring in general studies. She had joined the Alpha Phi sorority and was planning a trip to Europe the following year. Kaylee and Madison met as sixth graders and became inseparable, Kaylee's father, Steve Goncalves, said at the 2022 vigil. 'They went to high school together, then they started looking at colleges, they came here together. They eventually got into the same apartment together,' he said. 'And in the end, they died together, in the same room, in the same bed.' 'It's a shame and it hurts, but the beauty of the two always being together comforts us,' he said. Kaylee Goncalves chronicled some of her history with Mogen in an Instagram post celebrating Mogen's 21st birthday in May 2022. 'I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to be the main character in all my childhood stories,' she wrote. Mogen replied, "love you more than life! My best friend forever and more,' with a heart emoji. Xana Kernodle Xana Kernodle, a 20-year-old junior from Post Falls, Idaho, was studying marketing and had joined the Pi Beta Phi sorority. Jazzmin Kernodle described her younger sister as lighthearted, saying she was the kind of person who always lifted up a room. 'You rarely get to meet someone like Xana,' her sister said. 'She was so positive, funny and was loved by everyone who met her.' For her high school graduation in 2020, Xana decorated her mortarboard with flower and butterfly cut-outs and the words, 'For The Lives That I Will Change.' Kernodle and Chapin were friends before they began dating, according to Chapin's mother, Stacy Chapin, and Kernodle spent time with the entire Chapin family. Ethan Chapin Ethan Chapin, a 20-year-old freshman from Mount Vernon, Washington, was a triplet. His brother and sister also attended the university and this spring the family celebrated their graduations in a social media post. The brothers were both members of the Sigma Chi fraternity. Chapin spent his last day with his siblings, attending a dance hosted by Chapin's sister's sorority, according to their mother. Ethan Chapin was his sister's date and their brother was her roommate's date, Stacy Chapin said. 'They all spent their last day together, all dressed up, and had a great time,' she said. 'We're all thankful that they spent that time together.' Stacy Chapin described her son as 'carefree' and said he could 'read any situation and make it better.' 'Since attending the University of Idaho, Ethan lived his best life,' according to his obituary. 'He loved the social life, intramurals and tolerated the academics. He also continued to play sports.' 'If he wasn't on the golf course or working, you could usually find him surfing, playing sand volleyball or pickle ball,' the obituary said. The Chapin family has created the Ethan's Smile Foundation in his memory to provide scholarships that enable others to follow their dreams.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Russia mocks Police Scotland policy on transgender ‘centaurs'
President Putin's regime has mocked Scotland for its 'transgender centaurs' after police said suspects could ask for separate searches of their top and bottom halves. Kremlin officials and supporters have long portrayed the SNP government, and other northern European administrations, as in the grip of decadent and even debauched liberalism. In their latest attack, Maria Zakharova, the official spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry, commented on the controversy surrounding Police Scotland guidelines for searching transgender people. Designed to accommodate people who have not completed a full surgical transition, it means detainees could ask for a woman to search their top half and a man to search below the waist — or vice versa.
Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Telegraph
India is an enemy, not a friend or a neutral
Today, India commissioned a new warship, the INS Tamal. She is the latest in a line of eight Talwar-class stealth frigates. Similar in displacement and length to our own Type 23 frigate, superficially at least, she has a similar array of weapons and sensors. The one exception being the BrahMos anti-ship and land attack missile, theoretically a beast of a weapon with a range over 500 miles at speeds up to Mach 3, which would be far in excess of anything we have. But there is a problem. Tamal was built by Russia in their Yantar shipyard in Kaliningrad. For those of you who follow the Indian Navy, that they have some of their ships built by Russia will not come as news. Already an aircraft carrier, 50 per cent of their submarines and the Talwar class accounts for about 20 per cent of their fleet. Many of these programmes date back decades but of course, the international climate has changed rather a lot. India's dependence on Russia for warships is at least reducing, but should it not already be close to zero? Meanwhile, India's trade in Russian oil reeks of duplicity. Despite Western sanctions, India's refiners guzzle discounted crude, often shipped by dark fleet vessels dodging and falsifying their AIS tracking. By actively engaging with this trade, New Delhi flouts global rules, reaping economic rewards while feigning neutrality. The government's coy silence on sanctioned oil flowing through Indian ports betrays a calculated dodge of accountability, undermining efforts to choke Russia's war chest. India is financing Putin's atrocities. Dark fleet ships thrive with India's tacit aid. Russian insurers secured New Delhi's nod in April 2025 to cover tankers shunned by Western firms. This greenlights sanctioned oil deliveries, breaching the G7's $60-per-barrel cap. India's lack of oversight lets these old and poorly maintained ghost ships flood its ports, with Russian crude imports hitting a 10-month peak in May. Meanwhile President Modi surveys all with eyes and mouth firmly closed. His Moscow visits in 2024–2025 saw dark fleet deals, only curbed after US prodding this January. Modi's refusal to address insurance loopholes or vessel opacity shows a man who doesn't care about right and wrong, only money. He is quite willing to finance Putin if it means cheaper oil: in this, he is an enemy of the West, not a friend and not a neutral. Militarily the dependence on Russian equipment doesn't make much sense either. We are increasingly seeing how poor some Russian kit is. I suggested that the BrahMos was an impressive missile system earlier and, on paper at least, it is. But manufacturers' brochures and warfighting reality can be very different things. Putin's supposedly unstoppable Kinzhal and Zircon weapons have both proven to be very stoppable using American made interceptors, and by no means their best ones either. To give another example, I sailed up the Elbe in company with the Tamal's sister ship, the INS Teg, on her maiden voyage back in 2012. It was very clear from my position 100 yards astern of her that she was unable to maintain the ordered speed of six knots required to keep formation. It was clear because every time she pulsed one engine to try and do so, huge plumes of black smoke belched out of her funnels and onto nearby sailing vessels. Speaking to one of her senior officers once alongside it became clear that 10 knots was her minimum sustainable speed (using just one engine) and that they had had to place sentries all the way up the funnels such was the risk of fire from the build-up of soot as they tried to move slower than that. Maybe she was running on a tank of Russian oil just to add insult to injury, I don't know. The point is, either by design incompetence, or political interference leading to the same, India had acquired a ship that was unable to move slowly through the water. This will never appear on a brochure but practically, of course, it is a serious problem: an anti-submarine frigate that cannot move slowly and quietly is not a great deal of use. Another problem is choosing a country currently that is at war to service your systems and parts. The contract to deliver the S-400 air defence units is seemingly going ahead despite the number of missiles Russia has burned through defending against Ukrainian counterattacks. And this before we get to how much less effective the S-400 has been in real life compared to the claims. Tanks, rifles, fighter jets and nuclear submarines can be added to missiles and ships on a list that looks set to endure for decades. In sum, Indian dependence on Russian weapons is slowly reducing but it could not be clearer that this isn't from any desire to do the right thing. New Delhi's unhelpful practices around illegal Russian oil are rapidly increasing. And, speaking to a recently retired senior official this morning, India's neighbours get the same message – it's India first and the rest of you be damned. Soon India is going to have to choose a side, or we're going to have to treat them the way they're basically treating us: as an enemy.
