Month: August 2020

More than 15,000 Russians on Sunday endorsed the candidacy of Alexei Navalny to take on Vladimir Putin in the 2018 election, which allowed him to file for registration as a candidate in the race.

Thousands backing the 41-year-old lawyer met in 20 cities from the Pacific port of Vladivostok to Saint Petersburg in the northwest to nominate him as a candidate in the presence of electoral officials to boost his chances of contesting the March ballot.

Mr Navalny submitted the necessary documents to the Central Election Commission (CEC) that same day.

“Representatives of CEC confirmed to us that they will accept our papers… and extended their working hours,” he said on Twitter earlier that day, right after the endorsement meeting in Moscow.

It remains unclear, however, whether the politician will be allowed to run – CEC chair Ella Pamfilova said earlier this year that Mr Navalny’s criminal conviction in an embezzlement case precluded him from running and registering as a candidate.

Mr Navalny maintains that the case was politically motivated, the conviction was unlawful and should not stand in the way of his presidential bid. He has been pressuring the authorities to let him run by holding campaign rallies in regional cities.

Pro-Kremlin figures have long marginalised the opposition as affluent city-dwellers with little support outside Moscow. But this year Mr Navalny has begun opening dozens of campaign headquarters and mobilising volunteers in the Russian hinterlands where President Vladimir Putin remains popular.

According to Mr Navalny’s blog, the meetings across Russia show he has a broad base outside the capital.

“We wanted to ruin this political tradition in which a candidate represents a small group of weird people in Moscow,” he wrote in a blog post on Sunday. “We are campaigning all around the country. We receive support all around the country.”

In Moscow, some 800 people gathered to support the politician, which is 300 people more than Russian law requires to endorse a candidate.

The meeting was observed by election authorities, and Mr Navalny’s team successfully filed for registration around 9pm local time on Sunday.  

“We’ve shown a real grassroots endorsement – 20 groups [of supporters] in 20 cities. No one else was able to do this,” Mr Navalny told reporters outside of the CEC headquarters in Moscow right after filing. “No one can contest the fact that we have the right to run in this election now, because we represent so many people.”

Earlier this month. Mr Putin shrugged off questions about a lack of opposition.

In a press conference, he said: “It’s not my job to raise competitors.” 

He later added that the opposition “shouldn’t make noise in the streets,” appearing to reference Mr Navalny’s rallies.  

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A security guard who died trying to save a woman falling from the 11th floor of a high-rise building in China has been nominated for a posthumous award for his act of bravery.

Li Guowu heroically tried to catch the woman as she fell from an apartment block in an apparent suicide in the city of Xi’an in central China.

The 43-year-old and the unidentified woman were both pronounced dead at the scene as a result of the impact of her fall.

Local media reports the woman was standing on a window ledge as the father-of-one pleaded with her not to jump. CCTV footage captured the incident.

“Li was shocked when the woman jumped,” said one witness, according to China Daily. “Then he stretched out his hands to catch her, only to be knocked to the ground himself.”  

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Another person at the scene said: “The man hesitated for a second but then he decided to [catch] the woman. Sadly she hit him with such a strong force they died.”

The country’s official military newspaper, the PLA Daily, wrote: “It’s not that he didn’t have the common sense, but he’d been a soldier.”

Mr Li’s employer has nominated him for a posthumous government award given to people who have demonstrated exceptional bravery.

His family has received 700,000 yuan (£79,000) in compensation for his death, while a further £20,000 has been raised through donations.

Mr Li’s daughter will also receive a monthly allowance from the government until she is an adult.

A memorial service was held for Mr Li on Monday.

In 2014, a man caught a one-year-old child as it fell from a second-storey window during a heavy thunderstorm in Guangdong Province. 

Numbers to call

Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan says Alex Albon’s current struggles have highlighted the need for the Milton Keynes team to supply its driver with “a better-balanced” car.

Albon’s deficit to teammate Max Verstappen this season in qualifying has thrown into doubt the British-Thai racer’s ability to perform on the same level as the Dutchman.

A perception reinforced by the 24-year-old’s failure to make the Q3 cut in Saturday’s qualifying for the British Grand Prix, while Verstappen was third fastest in the top-ten shootout.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner says the criticism directed at Albon has been “unwarranted and unfair”, and admits the car provided to Albon is far from “optimized”, an opinion shared by Monaghan.

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