Dump Russian Vodka campaign spawns #DumpStoli hashtag even though Stolichnaya made in Latvia by a company based in Luxembourg

Despot surrounded in scenes more often associated with the likes of Harry Styles or Justin Bieber

“Gay propaganda” is now illegal in Russia after President Vladimir Putin signed a controversial bill into law today.

Russian police have arrested several gay rights activists and anti-gay rights demonstrators who confronted them at a rally in St. Petersburg.

The Duma has unanimously approved a bill that will prevent gay foreign couples, as well as single people from countries where gay marriage is legal, from adopting Russian orphans. The law comes after Russia banned all adoptions by US citizens this year, in retaliation against US sanctions on certain Russian officials.

Kim Jong-il had 20,000 Hollywood DVDs – but then North Korea loves cinema, a fascinating new documentary reveals

Propaganda has become a dirty word but it remains a much-employed tool, as this provocative show proves. Posters, films, cartoons and tweets expose the mind-boggling ways in which states from over the world have tried to exercise their powers of persuasion in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Gay activists attacked and arrested for protesting against bill that will ban ‘homosexual propaganda’ aimed at young people

Russia’s parliament will debate a controversial law on Tuesday that could see people arrested for behaviour that is deemed to promote homosexuality.

Wednesday

The battle for hearts and minds, from Alexander to Chairman Mao, is quite hard on the eyes

Plus: Propaganda's crowning moments at the British Library and the Chapman brothers first exhibition in China should go down well with local audiences

To many younger readers, Ian McEwan's super-smart Cold War entertainment will function as a history lesson as much as a delicious box of story-telling tricks.

London’s East End makes a fitting location for a duo obsessed with 1940s heroics, as on their War Room EP, much of which they play tonight.