Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is being targeted by a mock Twitter account lampooning him.
Just days after Mr Medvedev sent his first microblog from Twitter’s offices in California last month, an account called “KremlinRussia” appeared — and swiftly drew more than 1,000 followers, the Telegraph reported.
By Monday, it featured 130 tweets, most of them reacting to entries from Mr Medvedev’s KremlinRussia page. Although mock accounts like these are common in the West, Russian media outlets are subject to state pressure and street protests are often broken up by the police.
Several of the mock account’s entries predicted that the Kremlin’s modernisation efforts are doomed by Russian bureaucracy and corruption. “One needs to understand that money given to modernisation and innovation will be spent on corruption and swindling,” one tweet said. Another said a hi-tech hub Russia plans to build near Moscow to nurture innovation would be a haven for the more traditional businesses of gambling and prostitution.
***
S’pore soldier detained for Qaeda link
Singapore, July 6: Singapore has arrested a soldier for allegedly having links with Al Qaeda and showing willingness to carrying out jihad in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, the government said on Tuesday.
Twenty-year-old Mohammed Fadil bin Abdul Hamid was detained on April 4 under the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows detention without trial especially for persons posing national threat or the like of it.
The home ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that Mohammed Fadil, who was undergoing compulsory national service in the Singapore Armed Forces, had made online contact with a suspected Al Qaeda recruiter who encouraged him to fight in Afghanistan.
—PTI