Page 197 - Icks News Today

The head of the Russian occupation administration in Crimea has signed off on a program of "preliminary military training" for students on the peninsula. Kyiv is castigating the move as an illegal attempt to wipe out Ukrainian identity and instill the perception that Ukrainians are an enemy.

A court in Moscow on December 1 sentenced former Russian lawmaker Magomed Magomedov and his brother, an ex-tycoon, Ziyavudin Magomedov, to 18 years and 19 years in prison, respectively, on embezzlement charges.

Imprisoned Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny has been placed in a punitive solitary confinement cell for the eighth time since August.

Maryya Kalesnikava, a leading opposition activist in Belarus who was sentenced to 11 years in prison last year, was transferred from an intensive care unit to a regular unit in a hospital after a surgery.

Iran has sentenced to death four people accused of collaborating with Israel, the semiofficial Mehr News agency reported.

A leaked document from the hard-line Fars news agency says Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has told security and military officials to try and disgrace a top Sunni cleric, who is a vocal critic of the government, instead of arresting him.

Ukrainian forces have repelled more Russian military attacks in the east as Moscow pounded civilian settlements in central and southern Ukraine, targeting energy infrastructure, the military and regional officials said as millions of people faced power and heating shortages at the onset of winter.

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has signed into law several documents on the delimitation of the border with Uzbekistan, including an agreement to jointly manage the Kempir-Abad water reservoir, a hot-button issue in the country.

The Primorye regional court in Russia's Far East has rejected an appeal filed against the extension of forced psychiatric treatment filed by a Yakut shaman who became known across Russia for his attempts to march to Moscow to drive President Vladimir Putin out of the Kremlin.

The European Commission has proposed that billions of euros of European Union funds allocated to Hungary remain blocked over the failure of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government to implement credible rule-of-law and anti-corruption reforms.