The CIA pulled a spy with deep access inside the Kremlin out of Russia in 2017 because of leaks, and not because President Donald Trump had compromised the secret agent.

Oleg Smolenkov, the Kremlin aide named in Russia as the CIA's asset at the heart of Putin's regime tracks closely to a source described in the Steele dossier, claims Ilya Shumanov.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called a report Israel most likely spied on President Trump using devices that mimic cell towers a 'blatant lie.'

Russian president Vladimir Putin hailed Khabib Nurmagomedov as a 'strong, tough fighter' after the unbeaten MMA fighter retained his UFC lightweight title.

Sekinat Ibragimova was publicly shamed on TV for casting spells on Chechnya locals. Pro-Putin local ruler Ramzan Kadyrov had her detained and had her paraphernalia seized.

Saudi Arabia saw half of its oil production blown up Saturday when a suspected drone attack damaged its largest oil refinery and an oil field, despite its state-of-the-art air defence systems.

Alexander 'Sasha' Gabyshev, 60, nicknamed the 'new Rasputin,' in reference to the crazed monk who took a malevolent hold over the last tsar of Russia, was halted in Siberia.

Emily Thornberry today accused Donald Trump of 'trying to tear freedom apart' as she demanded the end of the 'strongman era' of world politics.

Rudy Giuliani (left) has pulled out of a scheduled appearance at a Russia-backed trade conference which Vladimir Putin (right) and his top advisor, Sergev Glazyev (center), would also appear at.

Claude Chirac bowed her head towards the tombstone at the Paris cemetery where France 's former head of state was laid to rest today.

Asked about Democrats' push for the publication of Putin-Trump calls, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded that 'the publication is possible only on mutual accord.'

Vladimir Putin is the only one who can green-light the use of the controversial gene-editing technology, and will have the ear of his daughter Maria Vorontsova, an endocrinologist.

Greta Thunberg, 16, changed her Twitter biography after Vladimir Putin called her 'a poorly informed teenager' who was being 'used by adults' at an energy forum in Moscow on Wednesday.

The unit is comprised of veterans from Russia's bloodiest wars, including hardened service personnel who fought in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Ukraine.

Siberian shaman Alexander 'Sasha' Gabyshev, 60, nicknamed the 'new Rasputin' has vowed to restart his two-year journey to 'exorcise' Vladimir Putin after he was arrested last month.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Saudi Arabia today, where he is set to seal oil agreements as well as use his influence to defuse rising tensions in the Gulf following a tanker attack.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said Turkey and its rebel allies had launched a large ground offensive against three villages today and forces thousands of civilians to flee.

Mazlum Abdi, the head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), phoned Moscow to 'thank Vladimir Putin (pictured yesterday) and Russia for their keenness in defusing the war'.

Conor McGregor (middle and right) has spoken about the bizarre time the bottle of whiskey he gave to Vladimir Putin (left) was removed by his security staff to check for poison.

A KGB profile belonging to Russian President Vladimir Putin has been released to the public at an exhibition of declassified documents at the central state archive in St. Petersburg.

'It's better to replace it with the Great Russian Encyclopedia in electronic form…here it will be in any case, reliable information in a good modern form.' Putin said in Moscow on Tuesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has asserted that Russia will continue to expand its weapons development during a meeting with top officials and prosecutors on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump said he is considering heading to Moscow to join the May 9 celebrations of the victory over the Nazis, saying he was 'thinking about it.'

Furious former Labour MPs have lashed out at Jeremy Corbyn after he signalled he would be willing to scrap the UK's Trident nuclear deterrent if he becomes prime minister.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (main) told widows of the scientists who died in a nuclear explosion earlier this year their husbands were working on an unmatched nuclear weapon.

Sergei Skripal had been warned. He had been a double agent, and in 2010, when the Russians released him from jail in a spy-swap, Putin made his intentions clear: 'Traitors will kick the bucket.'

The new site costing £20.7million will be a web version of the Great Russian Encyclopaedia and show 'reliable information in a good, modern way'.

Acclaimed director Rob Reiner (left), 72, tweeted on Saturday that President Trump's (top right) supporters have 'made a pact' with Russian President Vladimir Putin (bottom right).

NORMAN BAKER: If Putin wanted to kill him, why not get him back to Russia first? As for his daughter Yulia, she had only arrived in Britain 24 hours earlier and had been living in Moscow for years.

IAN HERBERT: The cries are laughable if anyone could find it within them to raise a smile about this mendacious, risible, pariah sporting nation.

Alexander Gabyshev was arrested two days into his planned 5,000-mile trek to Moscow, three months after his first journey was cut short when he was detained in September and flown back to Siberia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly persuaded President Trump that Ukraine meddled in 2016 election during a July 2017 meeting in Hamburg, Germany.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu informed Mr Putin that the first missile unit equipped with the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle entered Russian combat duty, the Defence Ministry said.

Mr Young (pictured with girlfriend Noelle Reno) died after plunging onto railings below his £3m London penthouse in 2014 after repeatedly warning police and friends that hitmen wanted him dead.

MARK ALMOND: He likes to take the world - and Russians - by surprise. Vladimir Putin's lengthy State of Russia speech yesterday was expected to be the usual tedious outline of statistics.

In an address to the nation, Putin - who should step down in 2024 under the current arrangement - described how power was being shifted from the presidency to parliament.

Putin appears to have set himself up to rule for life after announcing reforms that could see him grab the helm of a strengthened state council. His moves have been likened to that of China's leader.

Boris Johnson warned Vladimir Putin there is no prospect of normal relations between the countries until Moscow stops 'undermining the safety of our citizens and collective security'.

Bashir Dokhov fixed a large portrait of Putin to the lift in a Moscow residential block and recorded people's shocked reactions as they entered the lift.

At a meeting discussing amendments to the Russian constitution, Vladimir Putin said: 'As long as I'm president, we will have ''dad'' and ''mom''.'

Russian President Vladimir Putin faced what appeared to be a rare unscripted grilling from a Russian woman who asked him how much he earns on Wednesday.

Vladimir Putin was asked to confirm or deny years of rumours that he uses body doubles to avoid being assassinated, claiming that he was advised to do it back in 2000 but turned down the idea.

The Russian missile force - charged with guarding the country's nuclear weapons - has held a Makeup Under Camouflage event and female paratroopers have been required to sew.

Cameras followed Alexandra Tolstoy and Sergei Pugachev over five years for a documentary about their privileged lifestyle but as they were filming things began to fall apart.

The paratroopers reportedly jumped from a height of 10,000 metres (32,808 feet) from an Ilyushin Il-76 strategic airlifter.

Dmitry Bosov, 52, one of the richest men in Russia, was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head inside the private gym of his mansion in Moscow on Wednesday night.

The real estate development organizations that would demonstrate Agility, Discipline in Business, Decisiveness, Digitization & Responsiveness to Customers, shall reach new heights and make the sector lot more resilient, credible, customer & environment centric. It is time to become socially responsible towards planet & people as our fates are intertwined.

Working on finishes below during development and production will surely help to build up trust with the consumer.

Business Wire India

Monsoon Blockchain Corporation, Asia’s premier blockchain company pioneering the adoption of highly secure decentralized asset management, has partnered with Asia’s largest digital asset platform OSL of BC Group, DraperDragon Fund, CarbonBlue of BSN, and Academy Award Winning Studio Cross Creek Media. This deal signifies a major move for the blockchain, digital assets, and the expansion of global media and Hollywood. These partners create a global powerhouse in the Asia-Pacific region, which plan to harness industry-leading blockchain solutions for their business needs.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200505006164/en/

The Monsoon-OSL deal will explore opportunities to accelerate the drive towards the digitalization of assets, money, currencies, and decentralized blockchain ledgers (where all transactions, storage of payments and data will be inviolably recorded). Combining intellectual property, deal flow, large scale investors, and blockchain capabilities, Monsoon Blockchain is looking to create a digital asset powerhouse in the US and Asia.

OSL is the Hong Kong region’s most comprehensive digital asset platform, providing Software-as-a-Service, brokerage, exchange, and custody services for institutions and professional investors. OSL manages over $1.5B in transactions per month in digital asset trading. After reaching $171 billion this year, the value of business-to-business and cross-border payments carried out on blockchain systems is estimated to exceed an astounding $4.4 trillion by 2024.

Recently, Fidelity International, a spin-off from the U.S. financial services brand Fidelity Investments, invested in BC Group (stock code: 863 HK), the Hong Kong-based operator of crypto exchange OSL. Including custodial accounts, the firm reported $8.3 trillion in assets under administration - a spike from the reported $6.7 trillion in 2018.

Both Monsoon and OSL will participate in launching multiple digital assets and tokens including media and telecommunications tokens, Monsoon Token, and other branded assets within the Monsoon ecosystem. Monsoon has been making worldwide news in blockchain after partnering with China’s largest phone retailer, Dixintong (D.Phone), which generated a reported $2.5 billion in revenue in 2019.

Monsoon will be joining the Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), which was recently launched on the Chinese Mainland on April 25th, 2020 and will officially be available for global commercial use by June 25^th. China Mobile, China UnionPay, and Red Date Technology are the founding consortia partners that created the BSN protocol and infrastructure, which has been deployed in over 100 cities in China. The BSN is a global interoperability protocol that allows companies to connect to different blockchain ecosystems, as well as create and run new blockchain-as-a-service applications. The BSN will accelerate the development of digital economies and smart cities deployment by providing global interconnectivity and integrated blockchain cloud computing services for participants on the network.

Additionally, Monsoon has formed a new partnership with CarbonBlue Innovations to integrate cloud computing capabilities on top of the BSN protocol, allowing the creation of new low-cost blockchain cloud computing offerings suitable for developing regions of the world. CarbonBlue Innovations is a leading venture building and investment company that is focused on rapidly commercializing and scaling blockchain, fintech, and digital finance innovation around the world. Not only does CarbonBlue Innovations focus on both fintech infrastructure solutions, but also digital assets and investment banking services to allow the institutional adoption of regulated digital assets.

Michael Sung, Chairman of CarbonBlue Innovations asserted: “Monsoon’s unique cloud computing optimization technologies complement the existing multi-cloud offerings of the BSN and can further enhance our ability to customize blockchain cloud services for the developing world. With this partnership, we will be able to offer compelling low-cost solutions to enable SMEs (small and medium enterprises) globally to join the digital economy, which will massively drive self-sufficiency and financial inclusion in these developing regions.”

Monsoon will also be able to leverage the partnership with CarbonBlue Innovations to create innovative digital asset securitization and digital finance solutions for the market. Leveraging CarbonBlue Innovation’s strong academic and institutional finance affiliations, the new partnership will allow the creation of a vertically-integrated digital asset investment banking platform to address the massive opportunity in the future digitization of the world’s economy. CarbonBlue Innovations is able to provide full-stack solutions, vertically-integrating fintech technology infrastructure, legal/regulatory best practices, and institutional financial engineering expertise for digital finance.

Michael Sung added, “CarbonBlue Innovations has created a strong strategic partnership network consisting of the top digital asset companies leading the industry. Combined with Monsoon’s access to various industry ecosystems and pipeline of tokenization projects, our partnership will enable us to immediately scale to take a leadership position in the market and allow our clients to leapfrog into the future of finance.”

Partnering with Monsoon Blockchain, Cross Creek Media ($1.5B in the worldwide Box office) will expand its digital assets in film, television, and IP into the blockchain universe. The aim of the partnership is to achieve streamlined digital content management systems, and to gain broader access to worldwide audiences. Cross Creek has been a co-financier/producer of such films as Oscar winner Black Swan and has been behind hits American Made,Everest, Black Mass, Bloodshot, Hacksaw Ridge and the upcoming The Trial of the Chicago 7. Cross Creek is well positioned to be the next generation of production houses. Additionally, Cross Creek will announce a token style offering alongside Monsoon Blockchain Corporation. Timmy Thompson, CEO of Cross Creek Media stated: “We are very excited to work with Monsoon and continue developing award-winning properties. Furthermore, we believe Cross Creek's portfolio of new media technology investments perfectly positions us to take advantage of the new distribution paradigms.”

“We are very honored to work with such insightful leaders and innovators, the breadth of participants in this deal demonstrates the significant impact blockchain will have across a wide variety of industries,” Dr. Donald Basile added, “tokenization of asset classes has a tremendous upside on both the investment level and security level. Gartner’s prediction of over $3 trillion of business value added by blockchain seems increasingly likely.”

Monsoon Blockchain Corporation is focused on innovative cloud solutions in the blockchain ecosystem. Dr. Donald Basile, its CEO and founder, is the former CEO of Fusion IO, a company known for playing a major role in implementing the cloud systems at Apple and Facebook as well as partnerships with HP, IBM, and Dell. Recently, Monsoon Blockchain added advisory board members Ken Goldman, President of Hillspire (Eric Schmidt’s family office), and former CFO of Yahoo and Fortinet and Xiaoma Lu, former Dalian Wanda Investments CEO and former board member of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange to their team.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200505006164/en/

Business Wire India

Zynga Inc. (Nasdaq: ZNGA) today released financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2020 by posting management’s Q1 2020 Quarterly Earnings Letter to its Investor Relations website. Please see the attached Quarterly Earnings Letter or visit http://investor.zynga.com/financial-information/quarterly-results to access the letter.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200506005106/en/

“During this unprecedented time, Zynga's mission – to connect the world through games – has become even more meaningful for our company. As people around the world shelter-in-place, friends and families are turning to social games as an incredibly engaging and highly accessible way to connect,” said Frank Gibeau, Chief Executive Officer of Zynga. “I am proud of how Zynga’s teams have responded by continuing to deliver high quality live game services to millions of players worldwide. We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to provide fun and social connections, as well as a sense of community, during this pandemic.”

Zynga management will also host a conference call at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time (5:00 p.m. Eastern Time) today to discuss the company’s results. Questions may be asked on the call and Zynga will respond to as many questions as possible.

The conference call can be accessed at http://investor.zynga.com – a replay of which will be available through the website after the call – or via the below conference dial-in number:

• Toll-Free Dial-In Number: (800) 537-0745
• International Dial-In Number: (253) 237-1142
• Conference ID: 3119964

About Zynga Inc.

Zynga is a global leader in interactive entertainment with a mission to connect the world through games. To date, more than one billion people have played Zynga’s franchises including CSR Racing™, Empires & Puzzles™, Merge Dragons!™, Words With Friends™ and Zynga Poker™. Zynga’s games are available in more than 150 countries and are playable across social platforms and mobile devices worldwide. Founded in 2007, the company is headquartered in San Francisco with locations in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, India, Turkey and Finland. For more information, visit www.zynga.com or follow Zynga on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or the Zynga blog.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements, relating to, among other things, guidance projections for full year 2020 revenue and bookings. Forward-looking statements often include words such as “outlook,” “projected,” “planned,” “intends,” “will,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “target,” “expect,” and statements in the future tense are generally forward-looking. The achievement or success of the matters covered by such forward-looking statements involves significant risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Undue reliance should not be placed on such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date hereof. We assume no obligation to update such statements. More information about these risks, uncertainties, and assumptions is or will be described in greater detail in our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), copies of which may be obtained by visiting our Investor Relations website at http://investor.zynga.com or the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.

Editor’s Note

To download Zynga’s B-roll footage and key art for its games, please visit: https://bit.ly/ZyngaQ12020Earnings

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200506005106/en/