Reuters, Moscow
Russia staged a somber memorial ceremony on Thursday for Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey gunned down in Ankara on Monday by a man shouting “Allahu Akbar” and “Don’t forget Aleppo”.
Russia and Turkey have branded the assassination a failed attempt to derail a rapprochement between Moscow and Ankara which has seen them cooperate more closely over Syria, where they have backed different sides in the conflict.
Diplomats and family members gathered at the Russian Foreign Ministry, a looming Stalin-era skyscraper in central Moscow, to bid farewell to Karlov, who was 62.
Putin demands curbs on
surrogate alcohol
AFP, Moscow
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday demanded restrictions on the sale of surrogate alcohol after at least 62 people died in Siberia from drinking bath oil laced with methylated spirit in search of alcoholic highs.
The mass poisoning in Irkutsk, a hard scrabble city around 2,600 miles (4,000 km) east of Moscow, is the worst of its kind in recent years and has prompted nationwide soul-searching and condemnation.
Putin asked ministers to draft tighter rules for the production and sale of drinks, perfumes and other liquids with more than 25 percent alcohol content as well as medicines containing ethanol.
Released Pakistani goes missing in Germany
Dawn.com, Berlin
Naveed Baloch – the Pakistani asylum seeker who was detained in Berlin for his suspected involvement in a deadly assault in which 12 people died early this week, and who was said to have been released late on Tuesday for lack of evidence against him – has neither contacted his family nor reached the refugee shelter in the German capital where he was living.
Naveed’s father Hassan Baloch told Dawn on Wednesday that his son had gone missing. He said he had not been contacted by Naveed even though media reports said his son had been set free by the Berlin police on Tuesday night.
