MOSCOW: Russian lawmakers yesterday called for an American rock band to be barred from the country after its bass player put a Russian flag in his trousers during a concert in Ukraine.
The band Bloodhound Gang was turned away on Saturday when they arrived to perform in the popular Kubana festival in the Black Sea town of Anapa amid an outcry caused by the stunt.
At the concert earlier across the Black Sea in Odessa, Ukraine, the bassist stuffed a Russian flag into the front of his trousers, then pulled it out from the back. “Don’t tell Putin,” he told the audience, before throwing the flag from the stage.
Although the musician apologised for the stunt, pro-Kremlin lawmakers said Sunday that the group should be banned from ever coming to Russia again and darkly hinting at a conspiracy.
Mali candidate seeks ‘clear’ majority
BAMAKO: The most popular candidate in Mali’s presidential election first round urged voters yesterday to hand him a “clear and clean” majority in the run-off to ensure victory couldn’t be “stolen” from him.
Former premier Ibrahim Boubacar Keita made the appeal in his first public comments since winning a vote marred by accusations of widespread fraud after more than 400,000 ballots from a turnout of 3.5 million were declared spoiled.
Keita finished almost 20 percentage points ahead of runner-up Soumaila Cisse on July 28 but failed to get an outright majority in a field of 27 candidates.
The two go into a second round on August 11 to determine who will lead Mali out of a political crisis ignited by a military coup last year which toppled the country’s democratically-elected president.
Man arrested over $1.4m jewel theft
MARSEILLE, Bouches-du-Rhône: A suspect in the theft of jewellery worth $1.4m (¤1m) during this year’s Cannes Film Festival was arrested in June during a robbery on a Spanish island, sources confirming French newspaper reports said yesterday.
A 40-year-old French-Algerian man known as a notorious thief was caught in the act at a luxury hotel on the island of Mallorca on June 21 and taken into custody, Spanish police said.
According to the Journal du Dimanche, the man was “formally recognised through images taken by cameras at the Novotel,” the hotel in Cannes, France where the 1.4 million dollar theft occurred on May 17. The claim has not been confirmed.
“Comparisons were made” with theft from the Novotel, and the suspect was apparently “used to doing this kind of thing,” said a source close to the investigation.
Agencies
