Europe’s election watchdog on Friday scrapped plans to monitor Russia’s December 2 parliamentary vote blaming obstruction from Moscow, but Russia hit back saying it suspected Washington may have been behind the move.

Russia’s scheduled presidential election will take place on March 2 next year, local media quoted the speaker of parliament’s upper house as saying on Friday.

The head of the Turkish state lottery was shot dead in his office by a former lottery employee on Friday, the state-run Anatolian news agency said.