Ivan Rybkin now claims that his disappearance wasn’t entirely voluntary after all. Just to be on the safe side, he’ll stay abroad till the elections are over. (From the BBC.)

Ivan Rybkin wasn’t ‘disappeared’, it turns out. As the BBC reports, he simply disappeared of his own accord for a few days. Odd thing for a presidential candidate to do; what’s the ‘backstory’ here, one wonders?

Russian Presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin has gone missing. Police are now looking for him and he has not been seen since Thursday

The EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen is confident a deal can be struck to reunite Cyprus before it joins the EU on May 1st