Russia shows no sign of going easy on arrested Greenpeace activists – Activists accuse the International Olympic Committee of throwing LGBT people under the bus – The new Iranian President’s words of peace to the UN are not necessarily being transmitted back home in Tehran.

A court in Murmansk, Russia has denied bail to 22 of the Greenpeace activists arrested in a commando-style raid by balaclava-clad, heavily armed security agents.  They’ll be held for two months pending an investigation by Russian authorities.  One of the 22 is Jon Beauchamp, an activist from Mallala, SA north of Adelaide.  The remaining eight activists were ordered held for three days for a new hearing.  Greenpeace says its lawyers would lodge an appeal seeking their immediate release.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) sys Russia’s controversial law banning “homosexual propaganda among minors” (sounds imaginary doesn’t it) does not breach the Olympic charter.  The IOC’s Jean-Claude Killy said this on a visit to Sochi, which he said was on schedule for “fabulous” games in February.  That’s right, he said “fabulous” while copping out on institutional homophobia.  The mind boggles. Rights campaigners said the IOC “had abandoned the gay community.”

The president of Italy’s Barilla Pasta Company managed to start an international boycott of his family business; Guido Barilla, fourth generation scion of people who managed to keep their bigotry to themselves, said he’d never allow a gay family to appear in one of his pasta ads, and if LGBT people don’t like, they can eat someone else’s pasta.  And they are.  Challenge accepted.  Within hours, the hashtags #boicottbarilla (in Italian) and #boycott barilla (in English) raged on the Internet.

When Italy’s Prime Minister Enrico Letta returns to Rome from the UN General Assembly, he’ll be faced with the threat of a crumbling coalition.  Conservative former prime minister Sylvio Berlusconi is threatening to pull his rightists out of government in protest of those who want him expelled because of his criminal convictions.  Berlusconi is guilty of tax fraud and buying the services of a child prostitute. 

For what it’s worth, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro did not go to the UN General Assembly because he believes the US is trying to kill him.  Maduro blamed two ultra-conservative former US officials as being behind alleged attempts to destroy his government:  Roger Noriega and Otto Reich.  Maduro also says he finds it unlikely that President Barack Obama doesn’t know about the plot, which he offered no evidence to support.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani Thursday delivered a speech to a US think tank, saying Iran should  “remove tensions” with the United States.  So far, Rouhani has been well received in New York, with the main focus of his visit being the UN General Assembly.  But the remarks that are getting good reviews in the west are being recast and in some cases completely rewritten in Iran’s state media; for example, the Tehran report claims that western media deliberately mistranslated his remarks in which Rouhani broke with his predecessor’s denial of the holocaust.

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot in the head by the Taliban for standing up for girls’ education, told world leaders at the United Nations on Wednesday to send books, not guns, to war-torn countries such as Afghanistan.  In the teen dynamo’s second address to the United Nations, Malala implored leaders, “Instead of sending tanks send pens. Instead of sending soldiers, send teachers. This is the only way we can fight for education.”

NATO member Turkey has chosen China to co-produce a US$4 Billion long-range air and missile defense system, rejecting rival bids from Russian, US and European firms.  The choice is raising some eyebrows, since NATO has already deployed the US-built Raytheon Patriot air and missile defense system there since 2012.