An Iranian official has rejected online rumors that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is gravely ill, saying that the 81-year-old cleric was going about his business as usual.

"By the grace of God and with the good prayers of devotees, the gentleman (Ayatollah Khamenei) is in good health and is busy vigorously carrying out his plans according to his routine," Mehdi Fazaeli, an official with an office tasked with publishing the supreme leader's works, tweeted on December 7.

The tweet followed reports by foreign news outlets that a visit between Khamenei and President Hassan Rohani had been canceled and the supreme leader's duties handed over to one of his sons, 51-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, who has no political position.

Ayatollah Khamenei was reportedly last seen in public on November 24, the date of his official Twitter account's last post.

Khamenei is the longest-serving head of state in the Middle East, having been Iran's supreme leader since 1989. Prior to his election to the position, which gives him a say in all matters of state, Khamenei was Iran's president from 1981 to 1989.

In 2014, Khamenei underwent successful surgery for prostate cancer.

On December 7, the IRNA state news agency blamed a fall in Tehran's bourse index on an unidentified "rumor."

According to Iran's Tasnim news agency, the rumor of Khamenei's declining health started with a "fake" tweet in Arabic attributed to a "separatist individual based in London."

State television has denied that a meeting of the Assembly of Experts, a body of clerics that is empowered with selecting the supreme leader, had convened.

Tasnim said that an image of the purported meeting circulating on social media was "fake."

With reporting by AP and Reuters

A young Russian businessman received a host of proposals to buy stakes in some of the nation’s largest companies shortly after marrying a woman reported to be President Vladimir Putin’s youngest daughter, a new investigative report shows.

Kirill Shamalov, who married Katerina Tikhonova in February 2013, had received at least four deals by April 2014 to buy shares in Russian companies in the telecommunications, real estate, oil services, and metals industry worth billions of dollars,a trove of his emails that were leaked to Istories and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and published on December 7 show.

The emails, which go back to 2003 and whose authenticity have been confirmed with multiple sources, may give an inside peek into how quickly people can acquire enormous wealth upon entering Putin's inner circle. Shamalov was just 30 at the time he married Tikhonova. Putin has never admitted that Tikhonova is his daughter.

Shamalov would eventually agree in August 2014 to buy a 17 percent stake in petrochemicals giant Sibur from Putin’s long-time associate Gennady Timchenko, who decided to cut his stake in the company after being sanctioned by the United States, the report said.

The emails do not state how much Shamalov paid for the Sibur stake. Shamalov would later claim that the company was worth $10 billion, potentially valuing the deal at $1.7 billion. However, Sibur is not a publicly traded company and its market value cannot be precisely determined.

The report says it is unclear how Shamalov would have been able to buy Timchenko’s 17 percent stake since he would not have had enough collateral for such a large loan. However, an earlier proposal may give some indication.

When Shamalov was given an offer to buy stakes in three telecommunications companies worth billions of dollars in May 2013, just three months after his marriage, his assistant suggested he borrow from "friendly financial institutions" like Gazfond, the pension fund of state-controlled Gazprom, which was headed by Shamalov’s brother, the report said.

Shamalov did not randomly meet Tikhonova. He had known Putin’s daughter since childhood, the report states. His father, Nikolai Shamalov, is one of Putin's oldest and closest friends.

Preferential Treatment?

Shamalov began working at Sibur in his 20s and, shortly after marrying Tikhonova, received a 3.8 percent stake in the company for just $100. The stake was potentially worth hundreds of millions at the time.

Sibur’s Chairman Dmitry Konov said then that Shamalov acquired the stake as part of a company stock-option program. Many large companies offer stock to management and employees at a discount to stimulate their performance.

However, the OCCRP report shows that other Sibur managers paid millions of dollars for their stock options, indicating that Shamalov received preferential treatment.

Shortly after Russia annexed Crimea, prompting the U.S. and Europe to impose sanctions on people in Putin’s inner circle, including Timchenko, Shamalov was offered the chance to buy a 51 percent stake in titanium producer VSMPO-Avisma to potentially insulate himself.

Since VSMPO-Avisma’s clients included major Western aerospace companies, Washington and Brussels would not sanction its controlling owner for fear of hurting its own economy, his assistant reasoned.

The United States would eventually sanction Shamalov in April 2018. However, by then, he had split up with Tikhonova after less than five years of marriage and had sold his stake in Sibur for an undisclosed price.

A court in Kyiv has upheld an extension of the pretrial detention of one of the suspects in the high-profile 2016 killing of journalist Pavel Sheremet in the Ukrainian capital.

The appeals court on December 7 ruled that the decision of the Shevchenko district court in Kyiv in October to hold Andriy Antonenko in pretrial detention until December 19 is valid.

Dozens of Antonenko's supporters rallied in front of the court on December 7.

Sheremet, a Belarusian-born Russian citizen who had made Kyiv his permanent home, was leaving his apartment to head to the studio where he hosted a morning radio show when an improvised explosive device planted under his vehicle exploded on July 20, 2016, killing him.

Embed share

Pavel Sheremet: The Life And Violent Death Of A Journalist

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:07:09 0:00

Antonenko and two others, Yulia Kuzmenko and Yana Duhar, were arrested as suspects in the case in December last year.

Duhar and Kuzmenko were later transferred to house arrest.

The three suspects took part in military operations in different capacities in Ukraine's east, where government forces are fighting Russia-backed separatists.

The Interior Ministry and the National Police said in December last year that the group's goal was "to destabilize the political and social situation in Ukraine" by killing Sheremet.

Analysts said Sheremet's killing underscored concerns of a climate of impunity for attacks on journalists and others who challenge the authorities, while the government has faced persistent criticism over a perceived lack of progress in solving the case.

Sheremet's mother, Lyudmila Sheremet, told RFE/RL in December last year that she does not know if the suspects are guilty or not, but that she is afraid "that innocent people may be hurt" as officials try to show they're making headway in the case.

In January, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General's Office said that additional evidence was needed for the case to go to trial.

With reporting by Ukrayinska Pravda and Ukrinform

A Russian man wanted by the United States in connection with a massive bitcoin-theft scheme has been sentenced in France to five years in prison for money laundering.

Aleksandr Vinnik was handed the punishment in a French court on December 7 after a trial in which prosecutors laid out a scheme involving e-mails disguised as invoices laced with malware that would cripple the target's computer until a ransom was paid in cybercurrency.

They said a total of 188 people had fallen victim to the scheme between 2016 and 2018, netting Vinnik some $165 million.

While Vinnik was cleared of the ransomware-attack charges, he was found guilty of laundering the money he extorted through another software program -- called Locky -- used in the attacks.

Vinnik has claimed he is innocent of the charges and his lawyer said that they will likely appeal the verdict.

The 41-year-old was arrested on a U.S. warrant in 2017 on a Greek beach where he was vacationing with his family.

Vinnik has been identified by U.S. and other authorities as an administrator or manager of a "digital-currency exchange" -- where people can buy and sell cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and others -- known as BTC-e.

The United States accused Vinnik of operating BTC-e, one of the most popular websites for buying and selling bitcoin. The U.S. indictment alleged that the website lacked "basic anti-money laundering controls and policies," making it one of the principal means by which cybercriminals worldwide laundered money.

The United States fought in a Greek court to have Vinnik extradited, but Russia filed a competing extradition request, saying he faces smaller, unrelated criminal charges in Russia.

If convicted in the United States, he would face up to 55 years in prison.

Midway through the legal fight, however, France also lodged an extradition request in a Greek court on similar theft charges, and in January he was transferred to Paris.

Vinnik was one of seven Russians detained or indicted worldwide in 2018 on U.S. cybercrime charges.

With reporting by AFP and Interfax

European Union foreign ministers have given the final green light to establishing a system that would allow the 27-nation bloc to impose sanctions on human rights violators worldwide.

The ministers sealed the agreement on a sanctions regime at talks in Brussels on December 7, saying it underlines that "the promotion and protection of human rights remain a cornerstone and priority of EU external action and reflects the EU’s determination to address serious human rights violations and abuses."

The move allows the bloc “to target individuals, entities and bodies -- including state and nonstate actors -- responsible for, involved in, or associated with serious human rights violations and abuses worldwide, no matter where they occurred," the Council of the EU said in a statement.

The new mechanism, which envisages both asset freezes and visa bans, is expected to officially enter into force on Human Rights Day on December 10.

EU officials familiar with the matter have told RFE/RL that no individuals or entities will be sanctioned immediately, though names could be put on the blacklist as early as the beginning of 2021.

The punitive measures would apply for acts such as genocide, crimes against humanity, serious human rights violations, or abuses such as torture, slavery, extrajudicial killings, and arbitrary arrests. Other acts could be punished if they are "widespread, systematic or are otherwise of serious concern."

The EU mechanism will not replace existing sanctions programs, some of which already address human rights violations and abuses in Syria, Belarus, and Venezuela.

The mechanism is similar to the Magnitsky Act passed by the United States in 2012, which initially targeted Russian officials deemed complicit in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian whistle-blower who helped uncover the theft of nearly $230 million from Russia's government through fraudulent tax refunds.

Magnitsky was later arrested, and died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after suffering from what his supporters say amounted to torture.

The U.S. law, which has infuriated the Kremlin, was later expanded into a similarly named measure that included individuals from other nations.

MINSK – Belarusian security forces have detained at least 10 people in the center of the capital, Minsk, where hundreds of demonstrators had gathered for a march demanding the resignation of authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

The detentions in Minsk on December 7 come a day after more than 300 anti-government protesters were detained across the country, which has been hit by near-daily protests since Lukashenka claimed he won a sixth term in a presidential vote almost four months ago that the opposition and the West say was rigged.

Several hundred people, including many retirees and medics, came to Minsk’s Yakub Kolas Square on December 7 for a so-called March of Wisdom, but police officers blocked them from holding the event and dispersed the crowd.

Protesters were also prevented from moving along Independence Avenue and dispersed.

A small group of demonstrators managed to regroup at a Christmas tree on Independence Square.

A journalist and a cameraman working for the Polish-funded Belsat TV channel were among those detained during the protest actions.

The opposition says its candidate, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, won the August 9 presidential election and has been demanding Lukashenka's resignation, the release of all political prisoners, and a new election.

Police have violently cracked down on the postelection protests, with more than 27,000 detentions, according to the UN. There have also been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment, and several people have died.

Meanwhile, much of the opposition leadership has been detained or forced into exile.

On December 6, more than 340 people were detained for participating in rallies across the country and placed in pretrial detention, according to Interior Ministry spokesperson Olga Chemodanova.

Most the detentions occurred in Minsk, where protesters defied a ban on demonstrations by holding numerous smaller marches in residential areas.

It was the third Sunday on which the demonstrations were held under the banner of March of Neighbors, a strategy adopted by the opposition as a way of decentralizing the protests and making it more difficult for police to round up activists.

SEE ALSO:

Belarus Opposition Continues Rallies Despite Harsh Crackdown

Protests were also held in Brest, Hrodna, Homel, and other Belarusian cities and towns.

In a separate development on December 7, a Minsk court sentenced a dual Belarusian-Swiss citizen detained during a women's march in September to 2 years and 6 months in prison.

Natalia Hershe pulled off a balaclava from a riot police officer and scratched his face while resisting arrest, the authorities said.

Hershe, who has lived in Switzerland for 12 years and decided to come to Minsk to support the protest movement, was ordered to pay 1,000 Belarusian rubles ($390) to the police officer, the plaintiff in the case.

"I live in a European democracy where freedom of speech and peaceful assembly is unconditionally respected and defined by the constitution, where police officers do not hide their faces under masks and protect their citizens. I hope it will be in a free, free Belarus as well," she said in her last statement to the court.

Swiss Ambassador Claude Altermatt, who attended the trial, said Hershe would continue to receive consular support.

"We regret such a court decision. It doesn't matter to us that Natalia is a citizen of Belarus, we treat her as our citizen," Altermatt said.

DUSHANBE -- Tajik authorities say they have detained opposition leader Mahmurod Odinaev on a hooliganism charge days after the politician went missing.

The Tajik Prosecutor-General's Office said that Odinaev, deputy chairman of the opposition Social Democratic party, was located and arrested on December 5 in Dushanbe.

According to the statement, Odinaev allegedly conducted an act of hooliganism in a military draft office in the western city of Hisor in late October, where prosecutors allege he confronted officials over the conscription of his son Habibullo.

Just three days before Odinaev's arrest, Interior Ministry spokesman Nusratullo Mahmudzoda said that police were been looking for the politician who had been missing for several days, citing the lack of a request from his relatives.

Relatives of Odinaev told RFE/RL that he went missing on November 20 after he posted a request on Facebook asking Dushanbe Mayor Rustam Emomali to allow him and his party's activists to stage a protest over food-price hikes.

According to the relatives, they officially turned to police several times to ask law enforcement officers to begin a search for the missing politician. The relatives also said police questioned them regarding the Odinaev's mysterious disappearance.

The Interior Ministry said last month that Odinaev's son, Shaihmuslihiddin Rizoev, was charged with hooliganism over his alleged involvement in a brawl.

Earlier in October, Odinaev said that unknown attackers had severely beaten his son, adding that the assault was a part of a pressure campaign being waged against him for his political activities.

The Social Democratic Party is the only opposition party currently functioning in Tajikistan.

Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, who has tightly ruled the former Soviet republic since 1992, has been criticized for cracking down on opposition political groups, rights defenders, and independent journalists.

BISHKEK -- The Supreme Court of Kyrgyzstan has canceled an 18-year prison sentence handed to former Prime Minister Sapar Isakov after he was convicted on corruption charges.

The court said on December 7 that it had sent the case for retrial to Bishkek's Birinchi Mai District Court. The reasons for the decision were not given.

In June, the Birinchi Mai District Court found Isakov guilty of misusing state funds allocated for the renovation of Bishkek’s National History Museum and a hippodrome in the northern town of Cholpon-Ata while in office.

That ruling came while Isakov was already serving a 15-year prison term on corruption charges stemming from his involvement in a 2013 project to modernize the Bishkek Thermal Power Station.

The court sentenced Isakov to 12 years in prison, but the judge said that "altogether, taking into account his earlier conviction and prison sentence of 15 years, Isakov shall be sentenced to 18 years in a high-security penitentiary."

He also ordered Isakov to pay about $3.3 million in fines.

The sentence was upheld by the Bishkek city court in August.

Isakov, 43, who served as prime minister from August 2017 to April 2018, has denied all charges against him, calling them politically motivated.

Isakov was temporarily released from a penal colony near Bishkek on October 6 amid antigovernment protests against the official results of parliamentary elections that ousted the government and led to resignation of President Sooronbai Jeenbekov.

Isakov was ordered to return to custody on October 12, which he never did. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Britain, France, and Germany say Iran's apparent plan to install additional advanced centrifuges at its main nuclear enrichment facility is “deeply worrying" and contrary to the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

"If Iran is serious about preserving a space for diplomacy, it must not implement these steps," the three powers, dubbed the E3, said in a joint statement on December 7.

A confidential report by the UN’s atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Iran plans to install three more cascades of advanced IR-2m centrifuges in its underground plant at Natanz.

SEE ALSO:

Iran Violating 2015 Nuclear Deal Again With Use Of Advanced Centrifuges, Reuters Reports

Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Tehran can only use first-generation IR-1 centrifuges, which refine uranium much more slowly, at Natanz.

The breach is the latest in a series of violations by Iran of the nuclear deal in response to President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the accord and his reimposition of punishing economic sanctions.

The agreement is the best and currently the only way to monitor and constrain Iran's nuclear program, the three countries said.

In their statement, the three European powers also rebuked Iran over an Iranian law requiring the government to halt UN inspections of its nuclear sites and step up enrichment beyond the nuclear deal's limits if the remaining signatories to the 2015 deal -- Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia -- do not provide relief from sanctions.

The trio said the legislation is incompatible with Tehran’s commitments to the nuclear accord, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which scrapped sanctions against Iran in return for curbs to the country’s nuclear program.

"Such a move would jeopardize our shared efforts to preserve the JCPOA and also risks compromising the important opportunity for a return to diplomacy with the incoming U.S. administration," the statement reads.

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office on January 20, has said he is willing to rejoin the nuclear agreement if Iran moves back into compliance.

Tehran says its breaches can quickly be reversed if sanctions on Tehran are dropped.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

A Ukrainian national and former professional soccer player has received 12 years in prison in Russia on espionage charges.

The Moscow City Court on December 7 found Vasyl Vasylenko guilty of spying and sentenced him the same day.

Vasylenko was arrested in October 2019 on suspicion of smuggling unspecified dangerous materials, weapons, and valuable cultural items.

The charge was later amended to espionage.

The materials in the case are classified. No other details have been made public.

Vasylenko has not commented publicly on the case because of the classification.

Russia has arrested and convicted several Ukrainian nationals on espionage charges in recent years.

Relations between Moscow and Kyiv have been tense since 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and began backing separatists in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has left more than 13,200 people dead.

Based on reporting by RIA Novosti and Interfax

SHALAZHI, Russia -- A Chechen teenager who was shot dead by French police in October after he beheaded a teacher near Paris has been buried in his family's village in Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya.

Some 200 men, all residents of the village of Shalazhi, were allowed by local authorities to attend the December 6 burial of the 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, whose body was brought to Chechnya via Turkey a day earlier.

Video posted on the Telegram channel Baza showed men chanting Islamic prayers and calling out, "There is no God, but God, and Mohammad is his messenger!" and "God is great!" while bringing Anzorov's body to the grave for burial.

Several dozen police officers were deployed at the site to keep order and make sure people from other areas did not attend the ceremony.

French authorities said in October that Anzorov, a refugee from Moscow, killed Samuel Paty near the school where he taught in a suburb outside Paris. Anzorov was shot and killed by police shortly after.

The 47-year-old history and geography teacher was killed days after he showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad as part of a class discussion on freedom of expression.

French media have reported that the discussion prompted complaints from the parents of some students, including the father of one schoolgirl who called online for a “mobilization” against Paty. Muslims believe that any depiction of the Prophet is blasphemous.

France has seen a series of violent attacks carried out by Islamist militants in recent years. It has the biggest Muslim population in Western Europe, with around 5 million adherents, some of them Chechens offered asylum.

Romania's pro-Western Prime Minister Ludovic Orban has resigned after his National Liberal Party (PNL) came second in parliamentary elections at the weekend, despite the party appearing well-placed to stay in power.

Orban's announcement late on December 7 came after a stronger-than-expected showing by the leftist opposition in elections marred by absenteeism prompted in part by the coronavirus pandemic.

With some 95 percent of the vote counted as of December 7, the populist and corruption-prone Social Democrats (PSD), who have dominated Romanian politics since the collapse of communism, have some 30 percent of the vote, with the reformist center-right PNL trailing by about 5 percent.

In his live statement on television, Orban, whose government came under criticism from the PSD for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, said he was leaving knowing that he had fulfilled his duty.

President Klaus Iohannis, who is set to hold consultations with the parties, later appointed Defense Minister Nicolae Ciuca as acting prime minister.

However, the PSD will lack allies in the new parliament and President Klaus Iohannis -- a former PNL leader and a staunch foe of the PSD -- said on December 7 that PSD will be kept "outside of the political decision-making process" and Romania will have a new center-right government.

Iohannis had previously said he would not want PSD to return to government during his current term, which ends in 2024.

Relative Newcomer

The center-right USR-PLUS alliance, a relative newcomer on the Romanian political scene which won about 15 percent of the vote, appears the first choice to form an alliance with the PNL, followed by the ethnic Hungarian UDMR party, which looks set to win 6 percent and has said it wants to cooperate with the liberals.

Turnout, at 31.8 percent out of 18 million eligible voters, was the lowest since the end of communism, prompted both by the pandemic and overall disillusionment with the postcommunist political elite.

The liberals, led by Prime Minister Ludovic Orban, and Iohannis had sought to assuage concerns about the pandemic to urge voters to come out in large numbers.

Embed share

Romanian COVID-19 Patients Cast Votes On Hospital Ward

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:01:47 0:00

The PSD's last spell in government was overshadowed by huge street protests and the imprisoning of its former leader, Liviu Dragnea, on corruption charges before ending in a vote of no-confidence in 2019.

The only other party to have crossed the 5 percent threshold to enter parliament is the the far-right Alliance for the Unification of Romania (AUR), seen as the big surprise of the election. The party came virtually out of nowhere to win more than 9 percent of the vote.

AUR, which means gold in Romanian, was established just a year ago with a platform that opposes same-sex marriages and was supportive of Orthodox Church clerics who defied pandemic restrictions in Romania to hold religious ceremonies.

Its leadership includes an antigay journalist and a leader of a group of nationalist soccer "ultras" who was has been banned for five years from entering neighboring Moldova after vocally advocating the ex-Soviet republic's unification with Romania.

His group of ultras was involved in clashes last year with ethnic Hungarians over a war cemetery in Transylvania and staged anti-mask-wearing protests in Bucharest during the pandemic. A local leader of AUR is reportedly being tried for robbing ATMs.

Expat Votes

However, AUR did surprisingly well among Romania’s 4 million expats, having taken the lead in Italy and coming in second in Spain and France -- the EU countries with the largest Romanian communities abroad. The diaspora has traditionally, and sometimes decisively, voted against the PSD, which it holds responsible for the poverty and underdevelopment that drove millions of Romanians abroad.

The election in the EU member state was considered key to determining whether the liberals would gain enough support to embark on their badly needed reformist agenda.

Orban and Iohannis had promised to launch a modernization campaign long delayed in the three decades since the fall of communism and keep the country on a pro-Western path, but their task appears much more difficult following the inconclusive results of the election.

Furthermore, PSD still has the largest network of party organizations in the country, and dominates most of the local administration in rural areas, where it relies on a group of rich, influential, and arguably corrupt "local barons," whose left-wing credentials remain questionable but whose power is indispensable to the PSD.

With reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters

Russian police have detained prominent political scientist and Kremlin critic Valery Solovei.

Solovei was detained in St. Petersburg on December 6 near a meeting of the opposition Change movement, which he founded in October.

Police reportedly detained him for violating a coronavirus mask mandate, Solovei said.

Earlier, unknown provocateurs threw a smoke bomb into the crowd of Change movement supporters.

A former professor, Solovei had worked for the Moscow State Institute of International Relations until last year when he left the elite institution for what he said were “political reasons.”

He founded Change as a decentralized movement, taking as its model NEXTA in neighboring Belarus, which has covered and coordinated ongoing protests against authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

In September, Solovei was detained in Moscow after he and dozens of other protesters marched to show solidarity with protests in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk.

With reporting by Current Time, RFE/RL's Russian Service, and Reuters

CHISINAU -- Some 20,000 protesters backing Moldova's incoming pro-EU president have taken to the streets of the capital demanding the government's resignation and early general elections.

The demonstrators gathered at the square in front of the parliament building in Chisinau on December 6, shouting slogans such as “We are the people!" and "To prison!"

The rally was called by President-elect Maia Sandu, who favors closer ties with the European Union, after lawmakers passed a bill transferring control of the country's intelligence agency from the president to parliament.

The intelligence agency change came weeks after Sandu defeated the Russia-backed incumbent Igor Dodon in last month's presidential election.

Embed share

Moldovan Protesters Demand Snap Elections

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:01:35 0:00

Sandu and her supporters say the goal of the legislation is to weaken the presidency before she takes office on December 24 and to boost parliament, where pro-Moscow Socialists aligned with Dodon outnumber the opposition.

In June 2019, the Socialists voted to transfer the control of the intelligence service from parliament to Dodon.

Addressing the rally, Sandu reiterated her call for the government of Prime Minister Ion Chicu to resign and for snap parliamentary polls.

"Igor Dodon does not want to admit defeat," she told the crowd. "He wants now to set fire to the country, provoke chaos, [and] drive Moldova into international isolation!"

She also accused parliament of trying to sabotage her ability to fight corruption, saying: "This majority adopts laws that strip the powers of the president so that we cannot fight corruption and thieves."

"We will go to the end until we cleanse the country of corrupt officials," Sandu added.

Sandu, a former World Bank economist, promised during her presidential campaign to battle endemic corruption in Moldova, the poorest countries in Europe.

Since the election she has called for the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Moscow-backed separatist region of Transdniester, prompting the Kremlin to warn it could lead to "serious destabilization.”

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

Viktor Ponedelnik, the last surviving member of the Soviet soccer team that won the inaugural European championships 60 years ago, has died at the age of 83.

The Russian football federation made the announcement in a statement on its website on December 6. It did not say where or when Ponedelnik had passed away.

The federation described Ponedelnik in a tweet as a “legend”
while UEFA's website called him a "hero" for scoring the winning goal in the final of the European championship in 1960.

The center forward’s header in extra time against Yugoslavia gave the Soviets a 2-1 victory in the final in Paris.

Four years later, he helped the Soviet team reach the European final in Spain but they were beaten 2-1 by the host country.

He was also part of the U.S.S.R. team that reached the quarterfinals of the 1962 World Cup in Chile.

Ponedelnik played 29 matches as part of the Soviet national team in which he scored 20 goals.

He began his career playing for two teams in his native Rostov-on-Don before going on to join Moscow’s CSKA and Spartak Moscow.

After his playing career, he coached the Rostselmash club in Rostov-on-Don.

MINSK -- Belarusian security forces detained more than 300 people across the country on December 6 in the latest of nearly four months of demonstrations calling on authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka to resign.

Thousands of people protested in Minsk and other cities, defying a ban on demonstrations by holding numerous smaller marches in residential areas.

It is the third Sunday during which the demonstrations are being held under the banner of March of Neighbors, a strategy adopted by the opposition as a way of decentralizing the protests and making it more difficult for police to round up activists.

The Minsk-based Vyasna (Spring) human rights center reported more than 300 detentions in several Minsk districts and other cities across the country, including Brest and Hrodna. Two journalists covering the demonstrations in Hrodna were held by police.

Most arrests were made in the capital, where several subway stations were briefly closed and at least two squares were cordoned off by security forces. Water cannons and other law enforcement equipment were set up in the city center ahead of the protests.

'Protest Has Become A Part Of Our Life'

Belarus has been hit by near-daily protests since Lukashenka claimed he won a sixth term in an August 9 presidential vote that the opposition and West say was rigged.

The opposition says Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya won the election and demand the strongman resign, the release of all political prisoners, and a new election.

“Protest has become a part of our life, as integral as work or time with family,” Tsikhanouskaya said in a statement ahead of the rally.

“Each march is a reminder that Belarusians will not surrender,” said Tsikhanouskaya, who left the country after the election under pressure from the authorities and is currently in exile in Lithuania.

Police have violently cracked down on protests, with the UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, saying on December 4 that the human rights situation in Belarus is deteriorating.

More than 27,000 people have been detained since the election, according to the UN. There have also been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment, and several people have died.

Meanwhile, much of the opposition leadership has been detained or forced into exile.

Since August, 373 journalists have been arrested, six of whom are currently detained.

The continued crackdown on the protests caused international outrage, while Russia has helped prop up its ally.

The West has refused to accept the election outcome, with the EU slapping sanctions on Lukashenka and dozens of top Belarusian officials.

With reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, and Reuters

A Russian pipe-laying ship has moved into position to resume construction of a natural-gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea that the United States, Ukraine, and other countries have vehemently opposed.

German shipping authorities have issued an advisory for the Baltic Sea area where the last few kilometers of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline are set to be laid and warned vessels to avoid the zone from December 5-31.

The Akademik Cherskiy reached the area off the coast of Poland on December 5, according to Marine Traffic tracking services.

Also on December 5, the Russian pipe-laying ship, Fortuna, left a German port apparently heading to a different location where another pipeline section is to be built. Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) posted a video showing the 170-meter-long vessel being pulled by five tugboats.

A spokesman for the Nord Stream 2 project declined to disclose information about the ships’ plans because he wanted to protect the companies involved, according to NDR.

The repositioning of the vessels followed Russia’s pledge to complete the pipeline despite the threat of U.S. sanctions. The pipeline still has 16 kilometers left in German waters and another 60 kilometers in the Danish section yet to be built.

Russia's state-controlled natural-gas company Gazprom has moved to finish construction of the pipeline with its own resources after construction was thrown into uncertainty a year ago following U.S. sanctions on the project, which will double Russian natural-gas deliveries to Germany.

The United States argues that the Nord Stream 2 would erode European energy security at a time when relations between the West and Russia are at post-Cold War lows over numerous issues, including the poisoning of Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny and Moscow's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has faced criticism for backing the project, but there has been speculation that she might withdraw her support following the poisoning of Navalny earlier this year.

The U.S. Embassy in Berlin on December 5 called on the German government to halt construction of the pipeline.

"Now is the time for Germany and the EU to call for a moratorium for the pipeline's construction," Robin Quinville, charge d'affaires at the embassy, told the newspaper Handelsblatt on December 5.

This would send a clear signal that Europe "no longer accepts Russia's sustained malevolent behavior," she said.

The official added that the pipeline was not just an economic project but a political tool for the Kremlin to circumvent Ukraine and split up Europe.

Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic states are fiercely opposed to the pipeline. Ukraine has complained because Nord Stream 2 would reroute Russian gas around Ukraine, depriving Kyiv of much-needed transit fees.

Russia, which initially expected to complete the pipeline in early 2020, has accused the United States of using energy sanctions as a "weapon" to open new markets for its oil and gas industry.

After the sanctions on vessels were passed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he hoped the pipeline would be completed by early 2021.

The U.S. Congress is considering another bill that would widen the scope of sanctions to include any individual or entity providing insurance, technical certification, or welding services for the project.

With reporting by dpa, AP, AFP, and Norddeutscher Rundfunk

BUCHAREST -- Romania’s leftist Social Democrats (PSD) are pulling away from the ruling National Liberal Party (PNL), according to partial results in the country’s parliamentary elections reported by the Central Electoral Bureau on December 6.

With 95 percent of the vote counted, the PSD had 29.8 percent of the vote in the Chamber of Deputies and 30.2 percent the Senate. The pro-European PNL had 25.1 percent in the Chamber of Deputies and 25.5 percent in the Senate, results posted by the bureau showed.

The center-right alliance Save Romania Union-Liberty, Unity, and Solidarity Party (USR-PLUS) was third with 14.5 percent in the Chamber of Deputies and 15 percent in the Senate, the partial returns showed.

Most surprising, however, was the radical right-wing Alliance for the Romanians Union -- a party founded last year by a pro-Bessarabia activist and promoter of the idea of a single Romanian state including Moldova. It received 8.6 percent in the Chamber of Deputies and 8.8 percent in the Senate, according to the partial results.

Embed share

Romanian COVID-19 Patients Cast Votes On Hospital Ward

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:01:47 0:00

The elections in the EU member state were considered key to determining whether the pro-European liberals will gain enough support to embark on their badly needed reformist agenda despite mixed results in their handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Voters chose 136 senators and 329 deputies, a little over a year after the PNL minority government took over after the collapse of the PSD cabinet following a string of corruption scandals and massive public protests.

The liberals, led by Prime Minister Ludovic Orban, and President Klaus Iohannis, a former leader of the PNL, had sought to assuage concerns about the pandemic to urge voters to come out in large numbers.

But Romanians appeared wary of the pandemic and disillusioned with Romania's political class, with turnout only at around 32 percent, lower than in the 2016 parliamentary elections.

SEE ALSO:

Fire Kills 10 In Romanian Hospital's Intensive Care Unit For COVID-19 Patients

Romania, one of the poorest European Union members, initially handled the coronavirus pandemic with unexpected success despite a health-care system marred by an acute lack of modern facilities, an exodus of medical personnel, and endemic corruption.

However, a new spike in infections after the summer was not met with the same decisiveness. And the health-care network, still reeling from the first wave, was quickly overwhelmed.

Despite corruption and poverty, Romania remains staunchly pro-EU and pro-American, with Orban and Iohannis promising to launch a modernization campaign long delayed in the three decades since the fall of communism.

But the PSD, the heir to the Communist Party and the political force that has dominated Romanian politics for most of last 30 years, remains an adversary to be reckoned with.

The PSD's landslide victory in 2016 allowed it to unleash an all-out assault on the judiciary and the rule of law that brought tens of thousands of Romanians into the streets and prompted stark warnings from the EU and the United States.

Although weakened by the imprisonment last year on corruption charges of its former leader Liviu Dragnea and removed from power through a no-confidence vote last year, the PSD has the largest network of party organizations.

The PSD also dominates most of the local administration in rural areas, where it relies on a group of rich, influential, and arguably corrupt “local barons” whose left-wing credentials remain questionable but whose power is indispensable for the PSD.

The new leader of the PSD, Marcel Ciolacu, who has carefully distanced himself from Dragnea, has accused Orban’s government of "incompetence" and failing to keep the spread of the coronavirus under control.

Some 4 million Romanians who live in Western Europe have traditionally voted against the PSD, which they perceive as corrupt and in many cases the very reason why they left the country.

The diaspora proved crucial in last year’s elections for the European Parliament, which dealt a defeat to the PSD.

Kyrgyzstan has announced it is lifting coronavirus restrictions to allow citizens of foreign countries entry to the Central Asian nation.

In a statement on December 5, the Foreign Ministry said foreign visitors can arrive at the international airports of Manas, Osh, and Issyk-Kul.

The requirement for entry is a negative PCR coronavirus test taken within 72 hours. If the test has expired, visitors are able to take a new one at the airport.

Kyrgyzstan implemented border restrictions in the spring to combat the pandemic and later began allowing limited entry to citizens from countries where it had deemed coronavirus outbreaks were stable.

As part of the order lifting border restrictions, the Foreign Ministry said international election observers would be allowed into the country for next year’s presidential and parliamentary votes.

The presidential election is scheduled to take place on January 10, 2021, while no date has been set for the parliamentary poll.

Health officials have reported 75,000 infections and 1,290 deaths in Kyrgyzstan since the beginning of the pandemic.

With reporting by AFP and Kloop

Several protesters have been detained at a rally in Khabarovsk in Russia’s Far East as locals continued for a 148th day to voice opposition to the arrest of the regional governor.

Braving subfreezing temperatures, about 150 people attended the December 5 march through the city center.

Six people were detained for violating protests laws, OVD-Info, a rights group, reported. Earlier in the week, a journalist was arrested for covering a protest.

"Journalists are beaten and persecuted and, we, grandmothers, are dragged to the courts. It's a shame on the police and the authorities," one of the protesters, Galina, told RFE/RL.

Protest attendance has dwindled since thousands rallied over the summer against the arrest of Governor Sergei Furgal in July on decades-old murder-related charges.

Furgal has denied the accusations, which his supporters say were engineered by his opponents with help from the Kremlin.

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed into law a bill giving U.S. authorities the power to prosecute individuals responsible for doping at international sporting competitions involving American athletes, sponsors, or broadcasters.

Trump signed the Rodchenkov Act, which earlier passed Congress, on December 4 despite international opposition, including from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

The law, named after whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, who lifted the lid on state-sponsored doping in Russia, empowers U.S. prosecutors to seek fines of up to $1 million and jail terms of up to 10 years, as well as restitution to victims.

"The Rodchenkov anti-doping act is now law and part of the United States criminal code, giving the Department of Justice a powerful and unique set of tools to eradicate doping fraud and related criminal activities from international competitions." said Jim Walden, Rodchenkov's lawyer, in a statement.

WADA, which has authority to sanction athletes for doping, has expressed concern over the legislation, warning it could lead to a patchwork of laws that weaken the principle of having one set of rules for all athletes around the world.

"No nation has ever before asserted criminal jurisdiction over doping offences that occurred outside its national borders -- and for good reason," the agency said last month after the bill passed the Senate.

The International Olympic Committee has also questioned why American professional and college athletes are exempt.

The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has said there was no need to include U.S. professional and college sports in the legislation as existing law allows their prosecution.

Responding to the bill, Russian Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin told Match Strana TV on December 5 that it creates “a situation where one country claims the right to judge."

"We are negative about it and will have to think about how to minimize risks for Russian athletes," the sports minister added.

Rodchenkov, the former head of Russia's national anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, exposed a state-backed doping conspiracy designed to cover up Russia's cheating at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and other events.

Rodchenkov fled to the United States in 2016 and provided evidence of the doping conspiracy to WADA.

An independent WADA report confirmed the allegations, leading to partial bans for Russia at the 2016 Rio Olympics and 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

Russian prosecutors have accused Rodchenkov of being largely responsible for the scandal.

With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, and TASS

The Armenian opposition intensified pressure on December 5 as thousands of protesters rallied in the Armenian capital demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian resign over a controversial truce deal with Azerbaijan to end fighting over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Some 20,000 protesters gathered in central Yerevan, chanting "Nikol the traitor" and "Armenia without Nikol,” and then marched to the prime minister's official residence.

Armenia was plunged into political crisis in the wake of a Moscow-brokered deal struck on November 10, ending a 44-day war between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces that left thousands dead on both sides.

Under the deal, Azerbaijan took back control over parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and all surrounding territories in what amounted to a capitulation in the face of Armenian battlefield defeats.

The deal was a blow to Yerevan-backed ethnic Armenian forces who controlled all of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as seven surrounding areas since a 1994 cease-fire ended all-out war. Nagorno-Karabakh is recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but the ethnic Armenians who make up most of the population reject Azerbaijani rule.

Calls To Step Down

Armenian opposition groups demanding Pashinian’s resignation over his handling of the conflict warned at the rally that there will be countrywide civil disobedience if he does not step down by December 8.

The ultimatum comes after earlier this week 17 opposition groups nominated Vazgen Manukian, a former prime minister and ex-defense minister in the early 1990s, to head a “transitional, anti-crisis government” until early parliamentary elections are held.

Addressing the rally, Manukian said that Pashinian should take the chance to leave in a “civilized manner.”

Manukian said a new government would have to abide by the Russian-brokered agreement, because it could not afford a war with Azerbaijan and its ally Turkey.

However, he said a new government would strive to resolve some vague issues of the agreement in close coordination with Russia, Armenia's most important ally. Crucially, the agreement failed to address the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenian President Armen Sarkisian has also called for early parliamentary elections and the formation of an interim government of national accord to handle the political crisis.

But Pashinian has not given any indication he intends to resign, and his My Step faction still holds a wide majority in the 132-seat parliament to avoid a no-confidence vote.

While Pashinian has acknowledged that the peace deal he signed was “bad for us,” he has defended it as Armenia's only option and that it ensured Nagorno-Karabakh's survival.

In an address to the nation on December 5, he again sought to cast Armenia’s defeat in the war as a symptom of past leadership failures and endemic corruption, which he says left the country in a difficult diplomatic position and the army unprepared to withstand the Azerbaijani offensive.

Pashinian, a reformist pressing an anti-corruption campaign, came to power in 2018 in the wake of mass popular protests.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Armenian Service, AP, dpa, and Interfax

Iran’s Supreme Court has said it will review the cases of three young men sentenced to death over links to anti-government protests in November 2019.

"The case will be reviewed in another tribunal," the court’s website said on December 5, without providing further details.

The men were sentenced earlier in 2020, after being found guilty of "collusion to endanger national security" and "destroying and setting fire to public property with the aim of confronting the political system of the Islamic republic," according to their lawyers.

But in July, Iran’s judiciary suspended the men’s executions, amid public anger and condemnations.

The men, identified as Amirhossein Moradi, Mohammad Rajabi, and Saeed Tamjidi -- all in their 20s -- were arrested during the protests over gasoline price hikes that quickly turned political, with protesters demanding that top officials step down.

Human rights advocates had said the death sentences initially handed to the three men had been aimed at intimidating future protesters.

Rights groups said at least some 300 people were killed and up to 7,000 were detained during the protests that rocked more than 100 towns and cities across Iran. They accused Iranian authorities of brutally cracking down on demonstrators.

Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters

Moscow has begun distributing the domestically developed vaccine Sputnik-V via 70 clinics across the city, authorities said, marking Russia's first mass immunization against COVID-19.

The December 5 announcement by Moscow's coronavirus task force comes as critics say the vaccine has yet to complete the advanced studies needed to ensure its effectiveness and safety in line with established scientific protocols.

Russian authorities say the vaccine would first be made available to health workers, teachers, and social workers because they ran the highest risk of exposure to the virus.

People with certain underlying health conditions, pregnant or breastfeeding women, and those who have had a respiratory illness for the past two weeks are barred from vaccination in the initial rollout in Moscow. The age for those receiving shots is capped at 60.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on December 4 that "over the first five hours, 5,000 people signed up for the jab."

The government says the vaccine will be free to all Russian citizens and that inoculation will be voluntary. The Sputnik-V vaccine is administered in two injections, with the second dose expected to be given 21 days after the first.

The Russian government gave a regulatory approval to Sputnik-V in early August, but the move drew considerable criticism from experts, because at the time the vaccine only had been tested on several dozen people.

President Vladimir Putin said at the time that the early vaccine recipients included one of his daughters.

On December 2, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said that more than 100,000 people in Russia had been given the shots.

Russia reported a record high of 28,782 new COVID-19 cases on December 5, including 7,993 in Moscow, taking the national total to 2,431,731 since the pandemic began.

Authorities confirmed 508 deaths related to COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, pushing the official national death toll to 42,684.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP