Page 19 - Current Time News Today

The husband of U.S. journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who has been detained in Russia, has given his first interview about her situation. Kurmasheva works for RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service, while her husband, Pavel Butorin, is head of Current Time, a Russian-language TV and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with Voice of America. Kurmasheva's detention, on October 18, has been condemned by Washington and international rights groups. Butorin was speaking to RFE/RL's Ray Furlong.

The husband of the RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who was detained in Russia on October 18, has said she is a "political prisoner." Kurmasheva holds both Russian and U.S. citizenship. Her husband, Pavel Butorin, also works from the RFE/RL offices in Prague, where he is head of Current Time, a Russian-language TV and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with Voice of America.

Russia maintains manpower and avoids a politically risky call-up by offering contract soldiers what the Kremlin calls “very, very attractive” terms for signing up to fight in Ukraine. But RFE/RL’s Russian investigative unit, Systema, found numerous cases in which the promised benefits never came.

Vladimir Putin, his regime and the Russian security forces all make use of the rising anti-Semitism in Russia to detract from governmental failures, create illusionary narratives about a sympathetic Moscow and for strategic purposes to win over the Global South. 

Ukraine will introduce mandatory registration for food export companies that is aimed at preventing abuses such as tax avoidance in the export of key agrarian goods.

People younger than 18 have been barred from visiting this year's World Press Photo exhibition in Budapest, after Hungary's right-wing populist government determined that some of its photos violate a contentious law restricting LGBT content.

RFE/RL spoke with Aleksandr Verkhovsky, an expert with the Sova research group and a former member of the Russian presidential advisory council on civil society, about what lies behind the recent spate of sometimes violent anti-Semitic incidents in the North Caucasus and what might lie ahead.

French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Kazakhstan on November 1, the first leg of his trip to Central Asia.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic dissolved the country's parliament on November 1 -- less than halfway through its four-year mandate -- setting early general elections and several local votes for December 17.

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