Russian advert featuring Obama sparks racism row

A Russian company has been heavily criticised for creating a racist ice-cream advert featuring Barack Obama.
 
According to Sky News, the advert for a chocolate and vanilla bar shows Obama standing in front of the US Capitol Building with the caption, Everybody's talking about it - Dark in White.

The advert sparked mass outrage when shown on the Ads Of The World website, with one blogger asking, "Is the ice cream as tasteless as the ad?"

Alexander Verkhovsky of anti-racism group Sova, based in Moscow, told Sky News: "Violations of political correctness in Russia are clearly acceptable and adverts like this just reinforce ethnic divisions.
 
"The fact this is a mainstream advert is potentially dangerous - the image is not aggressive in itself - but it can foment prejudice in a more insidious way," he added.

The company which produced the advert, the Voskhod advertising agency, said: "We see nothing wrong with this... We believe pointing to race is not racism.”