Russians on Tuesday heard two different versions of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s New Year’s address after a “technical glitch” meant some inhabitants of east regions watched a pre-recorded broadcast that made no mention of the Volgograd suicide attacks this week.
The Far Eastern Kamchatka, Chukotka and Magadan regions, which are eight hours ahead of Moscow, were shown a version that showed Putin speaking from within the Kremlin walls in Moscow.
LOCATION
However, audiences one time zone to the west were then shown an entirely different midnight address where Putin spoke from the city of Khabarovsk and vowed to destroy the militants who carried out the Volgograd bombings that killed 34.
This is the version that was shown across Russia, culminating at midnight in Moscow.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted to Echo Moscow radio that there had been a rare malfunction in the Kremlin’s usually well-oiled PR machine.
“It was a technical glitch,” Peskov said, explaining the first version had been recorded before Putin had decided to visit Khabarovsk and record a new address.
He said that officials had simply failed to get the new version out to Russia’s furthest flung regions in time for when the clock struck midnight there.
‘NOT SPONTANEOUS’
The old version “was recorded, but then he went to Khabarovsk” he said, adding that the new version was “not completely spontaneous, it was prepared, but not much in advance.”
Putin said in the address that he was not speaking from the Kremlin — as is traditional — but from Khabarovsk as he wanted to show his solidarity with locals who suffered from devastating floods this summer.
The Russian leader’s annual address to the nation from the Kremlin at midnight on New Year is as much of a tradition in the country as the Christmas Day speech of Queen Elizabeth II in the UK.
On Dec. 31, 1999, former Russian president Boris Yeltsin announced he was stepping down and handing over the presidency to Putin, who then dramatically delivered the New Year’s address as acting head of state.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the