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AFP/Moscow

A row involving some of Russia’s biggest film stars tarnished a glitzy awards ceremony after the presenter accused an actress of making an election video for Vladimir Putin to protect her charitable fund.
The dispute took place at the prestigious annual Nika awards hosted by the Russian Academy of Cinema Arts, broadcast on state television late on Sunday and seen as Russia’s equivalent to the US Oscars.
The row erupted as an award was given to Chulpan Khamatova, one of Russia’s best-loved actresses who leads a respected charity and made a video endorsing Putin’s March 4 presidential election bid.
The host of the ceremony – the opposition-inclined television host Ksenia Sobchak – stunned the audience by openly asking Khamatova if she would have made the pro-Putin video if she had not had to worry about her charity.
Khamatova’s endorsement of the Russian strongman had unsettled some of her fans who saw the softly-spoken star as an unlikely cheerleader for Putin.
“Chulpan – you know how I bow before your talent and your human generosity and kindness,” said Sobchak. “It is because of this that here and now I want to ask you this. If you had not been involved in charitable work would you have supported Putin as a candidate or would you have stayed away from political activity?”
Her intervention prompted furious whistles from the audience and other actors to leap to the defence of Khamatova, whose charity is regarded with universal admiration in Russia for helping treat children with cancer.
“Why are you doing this?” fellow star actor Yevgeny Mironov, who was also on the stage after presenting an award, told Sobchak.
“It’s just a question. I admire you very much,” an uncomfortable-looking Sobchak told Khamatova, who did not answer the question and said the ceremony was aimed at recognising artistic achievement.
Even the Kremlin’s chief economic adviser Arkady Dvorkovich waded into the scandal to attack Sobchak, accusing her on Twitter of “hooliganism”.
Putin’s campaign team had wheeled out a succession of celebrities including Khamatova and conductor Valery Gergiev to take part in short campaign videos called “Why I am voting for Vladimir Putin”.
But despite the controversial nature of the incident, state-controlled Channel One television made no attempt to edit it out of their recorded broadcast.
With the furore showing no sign of dying down, Sobchak strongly defended her actions on her blog, saying that she had asked a question that “worried both me personally and I think many other people”.
“The reaction to the question stunned me,” she said.
Some bloggers hailed Sobchak for boldly asking a seemingly taboo question but even some liberal voices questioned her decision to so publicly interrogate an actress seen by many as a national treasure.
“It was low, vulgar and unpleasant,” wrote Alina Grebneva of the liberal Moscow Echo radio station.
Other commentators suggested it was Mironov who provoked the whole affair by saying in his introductory remarks that Khamatova had to put up with the “do-nothings, the bastards who sit on the couch and criticise you”.
“It was Mironov who turned the ceremony into a venue for polemics and he got his riposte,” the vice-president of the Russian media association MediaSoyuz, Elena Zelinskaya, told the RIA Novosti news agency.

Television show host Sobchak (right) accused esteemed actress Khamatova (above) of making an election video for Putin (left) to protect her charitable fund.

Former KGB agent wins poll in Georgia’s rebel region

AFP
Tskhinvali, South Ossetia, Georgia

A former top KGB agent has won a tense run-off to lead Georgia’s rebel pro-Russian region of South Ossetia after two earlier polls ended in turmoil and no recognition from the West.
The tiny republic’s former security chief Leonid Tibilov was congratulated by his rival in Sunday’s run-off and then promised to build a flourishing independent nation despite its exclusive reliance on Moscow.
“We have to build a new and successful legitimate state,” the 60-year-old Tibilov told his supporters early yesterday.
But he added after being declared official winner that “South Ossetia was, is and will continue being a trusted partner of the Russian Federation”.
The commission said Tibilov won 54.12% of the vote with all ballots counted against human rights commissioner David Sanakoyev’s 42.65%.
“We recognise the election and congratulate Leonid Tibilov on his victory,” Sanakoyev was quoted as saying earlier yesterday.
The peaceful end to the election contrasts sharply with the angry protests that followed a November 27 ballot in which a female candidate who opposed the local administration was disqualified after coming out ahead in the poll.
Alla Dzhioyeva was barred from the re-run election for alleged violations, and her supporters held 10 days of protests they dubbed the attempted “snow revolution”.
She was then hospitalised in February after being interrogated and allegedly beaten by police following allegations that she planned to seize power.
Dzhioyeva did not register for the second ballot held March 25. The local authorities for their part have agreed not to press any more charges against her.
The drawn-out election process has caused some embarrassment in Moscow amid signs it was having trouble keeping reins on a territory whose independence it recognised after waging a controversial five-day war with Georgia in 2008.
Georgia has already dismissed the election as a sham.
“It’s a continuation of farce and an imitation of elections in the Russian-occupied, ethnically cleansed region,” Reintegration Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili told AFP.
Tibilov promised yesterday not to hound his political opponents and try to heal old wounds in a region that is still struggling to recover from the war.
“I said in my election programme that I would not be dividing people into those who voted against me and those who supported me,” he said. “I will work on uniting and rallying together the people of South Ossetia.”
Officials reported a 71.26% turnout and a total participation figure of 28,504 people – a number watched closely due to Georgian claims that only 15,000 live in South Ossetia because of migration and war-time “ethnic cleansing”.
The separatist authorities claim a total population figure of 70,000 and yesterday’s polling numbers are in line with their estimate.
Most South Ossetian residents hold Russian passports and 15,000 also voted in Russia’s March 4 presidential polls. Official reports said 92.7% of them voted for president-elect Vladimir Putin.
The republic had been run with an iron fist since 2001 by Tskhinvali native Eduard Kokoity.
The one-time member of the championship winning Soviet wrestling team was a close Moscow ally who owed his career to Putin and at one stage declared South Ossetia’s desire to join Russia.
The move was dismissed by Moscow as premature and Kokoity was more recently accused by local politicians of misappropriating Russia’s financial aid.

Tibilov: promised not to hound his opponents.

French election campaign officially kicks off

AFP
Paris

The campaign for the first round of France’s presidential election on April 22 officially kicked off yesterday with candidates allowed to put up posters and given free air time on television.
Unofficial campaigning has already been underway for weeks, with incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy facing a tough challenge from Socialist frontrunner Francois Hollande.
As of yesterday, the 10 registered candidates were allowed to put up campaign posters in areas designated by local authorities, although they were not expected to go up until today, after the Easter holiday.
The posters must be of the same size and not use a white background, which is reserved for official announcements, or any combination of the blue, white and red colours of the French flag.
Public television and radio stations can now show campaign spots, with each candidate allowed a total of 43 minutes of air time until April 20.
All broadcasters have been required to provide equal air time to all candidates following their official registration on March 19.
Candidates will now also be allowed to mail campaign platforms to some 45mn registered voters, all restricted to the same size and format.
The campaign officially ends on April 21, with candidates barred from making public statements and no opinion polls allowed to be published.
Hollande is leading in the polls to win the May 6 second round but after months of trailing, Sarkozy has in recent weeks moved slightly ahead in first-round voting intentions.
The latest IFOP-Fiducial survey released on Friday showed Sarkozy ahead with 29% to Hollande’s 26.5% in the first round, though Hollande would win the run-off with 53%.
Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen of the National Front was third with 16.5%, followed by Left Front contender Jean-Luc Melenchon with 12.5% and centrist Francois Bayrou with 10%.

Italian political scandal claims another victim
Reuters
Rome

Italy’s Northern League party suffered another blow to its prestige yesterday when the son of its iconic founder became the latest victim of a growing scandal over misuse of party funds.
Renzo Bossi, 24, resigned as a regional counselor of the Lombardy regional government, four days after his father Umberto, 70, stepped down as national party leader.
Both resignations came in the wake of an investigation by Milan magistrates over misuse of funds the party received from the state for electoral campaigns.
Renzo Bossi, who was seen as an eventual heir apparent to lead the party that once held a pivotal position in Italian politics, was one of the beneficiaries of a party slush fund managed by the party’s former treasurer, according to media reports.
Magistrates suspect Renzo Bossi’s education at a private university in Britain was paid for by party funds and that he was also given use of two party cars for private use.
Prosecutors have already placed the party’s treasurer, Francesco Belsito, and two others under formal investigation.
Belsito, who has also resigned, is accused of channeling party funds to pay for the personal expenses of the Bossi family, including travel, dinners, education fees, hotel accommodation, expensive cars, and improvements to the Bossi house.
While both Umberto Bossi and Renzo are not yet being formally investigated, Renzo Bossi said that it was “opportune” for him to leave his post because the party was going through a “difficult moment”.
Some rank-and-file party members had planned to demand Renzo Bossi’s expulsion from the League at a meeting later this month, saying he was the beneficiary of nepotism.
The League, now part of the parliamentary opposition to Prime Mario Monti’s technocrat government, was once a key member of the centre-right coalitions of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. No viable centre-right government in Italy could be formed without it.
Another prominent League member who has been caught up in the scandal is Rosy Mauro, a vice-president of the Senate.
Several centre-left parties have demanded that she resign from the Senate because magistrates suspect that some of the party funds were re-directed to her personal use, such as medical and educational expenses.
The scandal has shaken the foundations of the anti-immigrant party, which once advocated that Italy’s wealthy northern regions secede from the rest of country because the national government in Rome could not be trusted with public money.
A League battle cry “Roma Ladrona”, (Rome the big thief) was for more than two decades wielded to symbolise the party’s charge that the central government in the Italian capital was squandering the tax revenues from the industrious north.
Since the scandal broke last week, posters have been plastered around Rome reading “Lega Ladrona” (the League is the big thief).

Pope pays tribute to women in Christian religion
AFP
Castel Gandolfo, Italy
Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute yesterday to the role of women in Christianity as he gave a post-Easter prayer at his residence in Castel Gandolfo outside Rome.
“Women have experienced a special tie with the Lord,” the Pope said, speaking in a firm but hoarse voice to several hundred worshippers gathered in the courtyard of his summer residence about 25km southeast of Rome.
“In all the gospels, women play a large role in the account of the appearance of the resurrected Christ and also in the passion and the death of Jesus.”
The Pope called women’s role “fundamental for the concrete life of the Christian community” not only in the church’s beginnings but in every era.
Benedict, who has been Pope since 2005, will be 85 years old on April 16.
After reciting the Regina Caeli, the special prayer that replaces the traditional Angelus during the Easter season, he greeted worshippers in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, drawing a shower of applause from Spanish-speakers who shouted “Viva el papa!”
Benedict recently returned from a six-day visit to Mexico and Cuba, his first-ever visit to Spanish-speaking Latin America.
In his Easter message on Sunday, the Pope appealed for peace and reconciliation around the world, particularly in Syria.
He also condemned discrimination and persecution of Christians, singling out Nigeria, where a car bombing near a church in the northern city of Kaduna killed 20 people on Easter.

Politician on hunger strike
AFP
Moscow
A Russian mayoral candidate who has been on hunger strike for three weeks protesting what he says were rigged local polls said yesterday that he would continue until the authorities call free elections.
“The 24th day of the hunger strike is over. Tomorrow will be day 25,” said Oleg Shein, who last month ran for mayor in the Volga city of Astrakhan, located 1,500km southeast of Moscow, and lost.
“We are not suicidal and we don’t see electing me mayor as our goal,” the 40-year-old Shein, who has been on hunger strike with two dozen other supporters, wrote on his blog. “Our goal is honest elections that will put an end to the mafia system in Astrakhan.”
Shein, a member of the populist A Just Russia party, lost to a candidate from the ruling United Russia party, garnering around 30% of the vote while the frontrunner received 60%.
Shein claims he should have won 47% and his United Russia rival 42% had the vote not been rigged.
He says he has documented evidence proving fraud.
Following the March 4 vote – where municipal polls coincided with the presidential election won by Vladimir Putin – Shein and 20 of his supporters have gone on hunger strike.
Several have dropped out for health reasons.