Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and her husband Joachim Zauer The husband of the Federal Chancellor of Germany Angels Merkel Joachim Zauer, a former chemist, said that he had never planned to escape from communist eastern Germany or to make a trip abroad and not return. "I was allowed to leave only from September 1988, a year before the border opening," Zauer said in a rare interview, which was published in the Christmas issue of the newspaper Berliner Zeitung.

Oppositionist Ilya Yashin, for promotions in the Lermontov Square in Moscow, called Russian President Vladimir Putin "the main political corruption". The current authorities "are afraid to lose even in the elections that control," the politician believes. Yashin supported the opposition Alexei Navalny, whom initiative groups in 20 cities of the country today were nominated in the presidential election .

News Radio Liberty: Final release

What would you say to Moscow junkers of the 17th year today? Conversation with historians Why did Moscow more than other cities resisted the Bolshevik coup? How is the memory of Moscow junkers and students who died in street battles in the fall of 1917, in modern public consciousness? Junker: The first victims of the Bolshevik terror or the first fighters of the white movement? Topography of Moscow battles and the alignment of forces.

News Radio Liberty: accuracy, efficiency, impartiality

Protests in the United States after the abolition of "network neutrality" In mid -December, the US Federal Commission for Communications took place on the fate of the principle of "network neutrality". Three of the five members of the commission voted to cancel the decree on the free Internet, adopted in 2015 under President Barack Obama. The commission also adopted a new document - the initiative to return the free Internet.

In the cities of Russia on Sunday, meetings of voter groups are held to nominate oppositionist Alexei Navalny as a presidential candidate in the elections in 2018. Voting in Moscow, preparation for which began early in the morning, has already taken place. Its participants supported the opposition nomination with more than 700 votes. The event was attended by official representatives of the Central Election Commission, the Radio Liberty correspondent reports.

On December 24, at noon on the Marse Field in St. Petersburg, registration of the meeting participants for the nomination of Alexei Navalny to the President of Russia began. The police did not interfere with the meeting. About two thousand people voted for the navigation of Navalny.

Every year we spend more and more time in social networks, checking our smartphones several thousand times a day. On the one hand, we got a lot of new opportunities, but on the other hand, economists and employers are alarming: labor productivity is falling, we are increasingly distracting from messages and news. Is a new type of personality - a distracted person? And how can we not fall into narcotic dependence on the Internet?

Oppositionist Alexei Navalny, speaking in Moscow at a meeting of voters in support of his nomination to the presidency, said that he was going to the elections, "to win, change power, form a government and work for citizens so that they become richer." The oppositionist added that in case of winning the 2018 elections of the current President Vladimir Putin, this will be the next six years lost to Russia.

Turkish President Recep Erdogan In Turkey, 2746 people were dismissed from the public service for allegedly involvement in terrorist activities. Ankara conducts cleaning after a failed military coup on the last year. According to the Decree of the Government, published in the "Official Herald" on December 24, the dismissed employees are 637 military personnel, 360 gendarmerie employees, 150 scientists and other university workers.

In Moscow, at the age of 82, the Soviet and Russian linguist Andrei Zaliznyak died. He was born in 1935, received a linguistic education in Moscow and Paris, taught at the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University and at several large European universities.

Kim Jong -un performs at the fifth conference of the heads of party cells of the Korea Labor Party, December 22, 2017 North Korea criticized the latest sanctions of the United Nations, imposed on prohibited programs of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, calling this step an “act of war”. On December 24, the DPRK Foreign Ministry said that "completely rejects the latest UN sanctions ...

In the Lermontovsky Square in Moscow, a “meeting of citizens” was held - in this form, Ilya Yashin, the head of the Krasnoselsky district, decided to hold a long -planned event on December 24, after the police prevented the scene for the “Free Elections Day” on Sunday morning. As a result, several hundred citizens gathered in the square (according to some sources - up to 2 thousand people), many of whom came with flowers.

In Krasnoyarsk, 630 of his supporters gathered to support Alexei Navalny in the presidential election. The event was agreed with the regional election commission and representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Activists of the headquarters of Navalny and other political forces acted on the improvised scene. They said that the elections should be honest and competitive. It was said that Navalny has the right to nominate his candidacy under the main law of the country - the Constitution.