Putin seeks Kremlin return as Russia votes

Moscow—russians voted on Sunday in presidential polls expected to return strongman Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin for a record third term, despite a wave of protests against his 12 years of domination. Voters from Vladivostok on the Pacific to the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic will cast their ballots in a marathon election stretched over 21 hours in which victory for 59-year-old EX-KGB spy Putin appears inevitable. But the newly-emboldened opposition has promised protests after the elections and the polls were proceeding amid heavy security with Moscow police drafting in 6,300 extra officers. “We are going to respond to provocations with the full force allowed by law,” warned Moscow police chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev in a briefing with Russian media. The looming protests mean Putin’s expected landslide victory against four rivals may be tainted by political uncertainty unknown during the current prime minister’s first two terms as president between 2000 and 2008. HUNDREDS of lawyers and survivors of the wreck of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, which capsized off the Tuscan coast in January, converged on Grosseto, Italy, on Saturday for the first evidence hearing in the criminal investigation against the ship’s captain and others. So many people had the right to attend that prosecutors had to move the hearing from the courthouse to a 1,000-seat theater. More than 4,230 people are considered parties in the case, and there were more than 50 lawyers at the hearing on Saturday. The giant cruise ship with about 4,200 passengers aboard hit a rock off the Tuscan island of Giglio, tearing a gash in the hull and partly sinking the ship, killing 32 people. TEHRAN, Iran—conservative rivals of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared on course to gain firm control of parliament after elections that could embolden Iran’s nuclear defiance and give the ruling clerics a clear path to ensure a loyalist succeeds Ahmadinejad next year. Although Iran’s 290-seat parliament has limited sway over key affairs—including military and nuclear policies—the elections highlight the political narratives inside the country since Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection in 2009 and sets the possible tone for his final 18 months in office. Reformists were virtually absent from the ballot, showing the crushing force of crackdowns on the opposition. Instead, Friday’s elections became a referendum on Ahmadinejad’s political stature after he tried to challenge the near-total authority of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to decide critical government policies such as intelligence and foreign affairs.