Russian opposition leaders sentenced to jail

Police detain a member of the Left Front movement in downtown Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012. The cat-and-mouse game between protesters and police began on Monday, the day of Putin's inauguration at a formal ceremony inside the Kremlin. Hundreds of activists tried to protest near Red Square and along the route Putin's motorcade took to the Kremlin, but they were turned back or detained by thousands of riot police. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)

Police detain a member of the Left Front movement in downtown Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 9, 2012. The cat-and-mouse game between protesters and police began on Monday, the day of Putin's inauguration at a formal ceremony inside the Kremlin. Hundreds of activists tried to protest near Red Square and along the route Putin's motorcade took to the Kremlin, but they were turned back or detained by thousands of riot police. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)

MOSCOW (AP) ? Two of Russia's most prominent opposition leaders were sentenced Wednesday to 15 days in jail, while several dozen opposition activists who tried to stage a "people's stroll" through the city reportedly were detained.

The sentencing of Sergei Udaltsov and Alexei Navalny came after several days of attempts by opposition activists to hold unauthorized protests against Vladimir Putin, who was inaugurated for a third term as Russian president on Monday.

Udaltsov and Navalny were detained Sunday when participants in an authorized protest march tried to veer from their sanctioned route and head to the Kremlin. They were released after a few hours, but detained again Tuesday in another unauthorized demonstration. Navalny was released early Wednesday, then detained again a few hours later at another opposition gathering.

Both were sentenced for failing to obey police orders.

Separately, the state news agency RIA Novosti cited an unidentified law enforcement official as saying dozens of people were detained on Wednesday afternoon on Manezh Square adjacent to the Kremlin.

According to the report, opposition supporters wearing trademark white ribbons had earlier taken part in a rally by the Communist Party marking the Victory Day holiday, then tried to stage the so-called "people's stroll."

Police could not immediately be reached for further comment.

The wave of massive protests that broke out in Moscow after December's fraud-marred parliamentary elections had been marked by little interference from police. Demonstrators, whose numbers sometimes appeared to exceed 100,000, stuck carefully to approved venues and march routes; police presence at these rallies was extensive but restrained.

However, police have taken swift and sometimes brutal action to break up unauthorized demonstrations, while the opposition appears to be determined to try to maintain its momentum.

Associated Press

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Euro brand adds a chocolate boost | Scottish Grocer & Convenience ...

FOOD and drink wholesaler Booker has introduced a new Euro Shopper Energy Chocolate bar.
The bar gives profit on return of 30% for each bar at its price-marked rate of 35p ? the same price as Booker?s Euro Shopper energy drink.
The packaging has been developed to look the same as the Euro Shopper Energy Drink, to help shoppers identify it as being part of the same range of energy products. The bar has a flavoured truffle layer that tastes like the drink, says the firm.
Steve Fox, sales director ? retail, said he thought the Energy Chocolate will be as popular as the Energy Drink.

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Anja Rubik, Leg Pose One-Up Angelina Jolie

Supermodel Anja Rubik channeled (or tried to show up) Angelina Jolie last night by wearing a dress with a slit at the MET Costume Institute Gala in NYC.

And by "slit," we mean giant ass hole in the side.

Angelina debuted the infamous leg-thrust pose at the Oscars in February. Now it looks like Anja is paying homage ... and taking it to a whole new level.

Whose leg thrust pose was best? Vote below!

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Philly Police Union Looks To Oust Retired Cop (Theagitator)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

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Another courageous casualty in Pakistan, journalism's most dangerous country

Murtaza Razvi, an editor at one of Pakistan's leading English newspapers, was murdered in Karachi yesterday. He was one of many journalists I met on a recent trip who have refused to give up their work despite threats.

Two weeks ago I was in an office in Karachi, Pakistan, with a room full of journalists, including Murtaza Razvi, an editor at Dawn newspaper, discussing challenges facing the country?s vibrant media, including risks to covering Pakistan. Yesterday I was e-mailed that he had been murdered.

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Before I left for Pakistan a few weeks ago on a journalist exchange program sponsored by the East-West Center, I asked colleagues who reported in the country, both Pakistani and American, about their greatest challenge.

Americans complained of the government's game of ?smoke and mirrors,? a disinformation campaign that puts most other government propaganda efforts to?shame. The challenge for Pakistani journalists, on the other hand, was decidedly more severe. ?We have a completely free media in Pakistan, but no protection,? said one journalist based in Islamabad.

How severe? The country leads the world in journalist murders, the latest just yesterday.

Seven of the other eight Pakistani journalists at a meeting with my group proceeded to share stories of threats. It was common, they said, to receive a threat by a phone call from the Taliban for not getting enough quotes from them, from political parties for including the Taliban in a story or not being represented the way they saw fit, and even from Pakistan?s version of the CIA, the ISI.

But this wasn?t something that had them lining up to find a new job. It was just how things work. Most of the time the person on the other end of the line is bluffing, they said. They had gotten used to the fact that Pakistan was the deadliest country for journalists in 2010 and 2011, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. And killings there have been met with near-perfect impunity throughout the years. For some perspective, consider that there have been 19 unsolved murders of journalists since 2002. (see CPJ?s video)

When you put it that way, having to peer through smoke and mirrors to get to the heart of a story doesn't look so bad.

I visited the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting while I was in Pakistan. The ministry has jurisdiction over the rules and regulations relating to information, broadcasting, and the press. Like many Pakistanis we spoke to on this trip, the minister talked at length about how wonderful it was to have an active, independent, vibrant media that had absolutely no restrictions and how that was contributing to democracy in Pakistan.?

However, when we raised the question of safety and reported threats against journalist, Minister of Information Firdous Ashiq Awan (since replaced), without asking for details or pausing to smooth this over, said: ?Those are complete fabrications. It never happened. It?s not happening.?

We brought up the famous case of Syad Saleem Shazad, a prominent journalist who went missing after exposing Al Qaeda infiltration of the military. He had been ?warned? several times by the ISI for covering sensitive topics, according to his family. He was later found dead. The ISI, was implicated, though it denied involvement.

The minister dismissed the scenario of Shazad's murder as unproven. She did clarify that, "we condemn that sort of action." But she stuck with her statement that there were no threats or real dangers for journalists who were not "over smart." A former local journalist who now works in the ministry agreed with her.

At this point, Issam Ahmed, the Monitor?s Islamabad correspondent, who had been invited to the round table by the minister, shared a story about a time he had been reporting on a sensitive topic in northern Pakistan, when he was summoned into a car by agents to go meet with the ISI bureau chief. The car sped off at breakneck speed to the headquarters, where the chief warned him to ?not report critically.? So, Issam, said, it wasn't a death threat, but intimidation happens.

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DJ Platform Dubset Becomes Thefuture.fm, Doubles User Base To 100K

Naming your company Thefuture.fm is kind of a bold move. Sure, it's fun at first, but if things go badly, you're setting yourself up for lots of bad puns ("No future for Thefuture.fm," etc.). Luckily, the site seems to be off to a good start. Founder and CEO David Stein says the service first launched about eight months ago as Dubset, which he now describes as a beta test. After refining and iterating on that initial version, the site relaunched on April 25 under its current, awesomer name. In the first three days after the launch, Thefuture.fm claims to have doubled its user base to more than 100,000.

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HTC One V headed to the U.S. this summer

Alongside its Droid Incredible 4G LTE announcement, HTC also revealed that the One V, it's new entry-level smartphone, will be headed to the U.S. from a "variety of partners" this summer. No specific dates, prices or networks were announced. but the One V is a good bet for pre-paid or regional carriers.

Inside its chinny, Legend-like chassis, the One V sports a 1GHz single-core Snapdragon CPU, 512MB of RAM and a WVGA (800x480) SuperLCD2 display. As you might imagine, it's running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and HTC Sense 4 on the software side. There's also a 5MP HTC ImageSense camera, which we found performed better than any entry-level smartphone camera we'd tested, even putting the Galaxy Nexus's 5MP shooter to shame.

For more on the One V, be sure to check out our full review of the international version. We've also got the full press release from HTC after the break.

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