Ukraine on October 29 sold its first commercial shipment of gas to neighboring Moldova, which says it has been driven to the brink by Moscow's decision to abruptly raise its price.

Moldova declared a state of emergency last week after its gas contract with Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom, the largest supplier of natural gas to Europe, expired at the end of last month, and the two sides failed to agree on details of a new long-term deal.

Russia has been threatening to cut off the gas supply to the impoverished ex-Soviet republic at the end of the year if the existing gas contract is not extended by then.

Ukraine's state energy firm Naftogaz said on October 29 that it had won a tender to supply 500,000 cubic meters of gas to Moldovan state company Energocom. It would also participate in future tenders.

"Naftogaz is ready to supply the required volumes of gas to Moldova," the Ukrainian company said in a statement, giving no information on the price of the agreed deal.

Gazprom has extended the contract with Moldova to the end of October, while raising the price to $790 per cubic meters from $550 last month.

The price rise prompted criticism from the European Union, which said that Russia was "weaponizing" gas supplies. Brussels offered Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries, 60 million euros ($70 million) in emergency aid on October 27.

Moldova's Energocom said this week it had also bought one million cubic meters (mcm) of gas from Polish company PGNiG. The government has said it plans to buy around 5 mcm of gas by the end of the month.

Some observers say Moscow has boosted prices as reprisals against Moldova for electing pro-Western President Maia Sandu last year and rejecting Russia-backed incumbent Igor Dodon. Russia rejects the accusations, saying the hike is purely commercial, reflecting global markets.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told a news conference on October 27 in Brussels that "in the case of Moldova, it's a sharp (price) increase which was related with political problems, which requires our support.".

"In global terms the price increases around the world are not a consequence of weaponization of the gas supply, but in the case of Moldova, yes it is," Borrell said alongside Moldova's Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita.

Gavrilita highlighted the importance of EU support for Moldova.

"We believe that the next few weeks are crucial and we think that Moldova's friends should help us to get alternative supplies," Gavrilita said.

The Kremlin said on October 29 that Gazprom is open to discussions and seeking solutions in the gas talks with Moldova, although a second day of negotiations in St Petersburg ended the previous day without an agreement.

https://moldova.europalibera.org/a/gazprom-negocieri-progrese-gavrilita/31534866.html

In Berlin, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on October 29 that Germany is observing the gas dispute between Moldova and Russia with "concern."

Russia has repeatedly been criticized for setting prices according to a country's political allegiance. Belarus, a close Moscow ally, recently negotiated a significantly lower price for 2022.

WASHINGTON -- A senior U.S. State Department official has warned Europe against bowing to Russian pressure and waiving the lengthy process needed to approve Nord Stream 2, a controversial Baltic Sea natural-gas pipeline to Germany.

Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser for global energy security at the State Department, said that if Russia has more gas to ship to Europe to ease the continent’s supply crunch, it should do so through existing export pipeline infrastructure, including the ones that transit Ukraine.

“I don't think that we should, as a society of laws, the United States and Europe...be pushed into waiving restrictions, waiving the regulatory process and the legal process in order to satisfy a crisis that, to some degree, can be alleviated through other means and mechanisms,” Hochstein told reporters on October 25.

Europe is suffering from record high natural-gas prices amid a supply crunch caused by a series of factors, including low power generation in parts of Europe and China from renewable energy. Europe and China vie for liquefied natural gas exported by ship.

Russia, the largest supplier of natural gas to Europe, is ready to ship additional volumes to Germany through the $11 billion Nord Stream 2, President Vladimir Putin said last week at an energy conference.

German and European regulators must first approve the new pipeline, which was completed last month, before it can begin exporting Russian gas.

Hochstein said the European approval process would not be finished before the start of March, when the continent’s temperatures traditionally begin to rise and its gas demand drops.

That has pushed some in Europe to recommend fast tracking the Nord Stream 2 approval process to meet greater demand during the winter.

However, Russia has the ability to ship more natural gas to Europe now via Ukraine, its traditional export route.

Russia, though, is seeking to circumvent natural gas shipments around Ukraine as Kyiv looks to break from Moscow’s orbit and join the European Union.

Russia exported almost 90 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas through Ukraine in 2019 compared with an expected 40 bcm this year.

Ukraine earns billions of dollars a year from Russian natural gas transit.

The United States has called Nord Stream 2 a political project aimed at punishing Ukraine and had sought to block its completion.

The Biden administration in May jettisoned the idea of further sanctioning the pipeline, saying Russia would complete it regardless of the economic penalties imposed.

To help soften the blow to Ukraine from the launch of Nord Stream 2, the United States and Germany agreed to invest in the country’s alternative energy industry.

Kosovo’s sports minister on October 25 threatened retaliation and called on event organizers in Serbia to be punished after Kosovar boxers were denied entry to attend the amateur world championships in Belgrade.

Kosovo, a former part of Serbia, declared independence in 2008, but the government in Belgrade still considers it to be a part of Serbia.

The Kosovo Olympic Committee said on October 23 that three athletes from Kosovo were twice denied entry by Serbian border guards as they tried to attend the October 24-November 6 World Boxing Championships in Belgrade. The team was turned back the first time for wearing Kosovo's national symbols, then made another attempt to cross into Serbia without the symbols but were denied entry again.

“Serbia’s refusal of entry for Kosovar boxers for the 2021 World Boxing Championships is a serious and blatant violation of basic international principles in sports, and a breach of Kosovar athletes’ fundamental rights by the event organizers acting under the orders of the Serbian government,” Kosovo’s Sports Minister Hajrulla Ceku said on October 25.

The incident has drawn in the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and AIBA International Boxing Association, which both recognized Kosovo as a member in 2014.

"The government of Kosovo calls on the AIBA and IOC to penalize the event organizers in Serbia and urgently calls on the EU to condemn Serbia for this major transgression against our athletes and sports everywhere,” Ceku said.

He said that a meeting would be held on October 26 which would "offer concrete recommendations for action against Serbian parallel sports structures" in Kosovo.

The IOC said following the incident that AIBA failed to conduct due diligence when awarding Belgrade the right to host the tournament, despite the Olympic body’s recommendation against doing so. The IOC suspended AIBA in 2019, stripping it of involvement in Olympic qualifiers and the Tokyo 2020 Games tournament over governance, finance, and ethical issues.

AIBA said all athletes should be allowed to compete and it was in contact with the Serbian Boxing Federation to address the situation.

"AIBA aims to provide a welcoming home for every boxer, and the world of boxing has no borders," it said on October 23. "Sport is intended to unite people and should be free of national politics."

The European Union, which both Kosovo and Serbia hope to join one day, is backing Kosovo in calling for Serbia to allow the boxers to attend the tournament.

"The EU fully supports the International Boxing Association in its expectation that the Kosovo Boxing Federation’s delegation will be treated no differently than the delegation of any other member of the association and to enable Kosovo to participate on an equal basis," EU foreign policy spokesman Peter Stano told RFE/RL.

“As we have said many times in the past, a lasting normalisation of relations and a sustainable reconciliation between societies begins with intellectual, cultural, athletic and artistic exchanges, Stano said, adding that such exchanges “are essential for building mutual understanding.”

Authorities at all levels should spare no effort to ensure that such exchanges take place regularly, undisturbedly, and without any hindrance,” the spokesman said.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Balkan Service, AP, dpa, and Reuters

The top U.S. envoy on Iran says talks to revive the moribund the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers are at a “critical phase,” warning that Iran may be engaging in delaying tactics to advance its nuclear program.

Rob Malley made the comments on October 25 as the top European diplomat coordinating international talks to revive the agreement is set to meet with his Iranian counterpart in Brussels this week for discussions on restarting the negotiations over the accord.

Speaking after a weeklong trip to European and Gulf Arab nations, Malley told reporters that the window of opportunity to negotiate a return to the Iran nuclear deal “will not be open forever."

"At some point, the JCPOA will have been so eroded because Iran would have made advances that cannot be reversed," Malley said, referring to the deal formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Former President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the international accord in 2018 and reimposed harsh sanctions, despite Iran’s compliance with the deal. In response, Tehran has gradually breached limits imposed by the pact, including on uranium enrichment, refining it to higher purity, and installing advanced centrifuges.

President Joe Biden came to office offering to revive the deal, but six rounds of indirect talks with Iran in Vienna that began in April failed to reach agreement. The talks were paused in June after Iran's presidential election that brought hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi to power.

The main sticking points center around Tehran’s demand for a broad lifting of U.S. sanctions and technical details about how Tehran will return to compliance. In recent months, there have been repeated delays as EU mediators and Iran discuss the terms of a return to negotiations, but no concrete date has been agreed.

While time is running thin for Iran and the United States to resume compliance, Malley stressed that the Washington is interested in diplomacy even as it has “other options” to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Meanwhile, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani tweeted that he will be in Brussels on October 27 "to continue our talks on result-oriented negotiations."

“Iran is determined to engage in negotiations that would remove unlawful and cruel sanctions in a full and effective manner, secure normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran, and provide credible guarantees for no further reneging (by the United States),” he also wrote.

EU spokesman Peter Stano said the meeting would involve EU envoy Enrique Mora, who visited Tehran earlier this month to push Iran to restart full negotiations.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

During his visit to Ashgabat, Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev said he discussed the issue of border delimitation, ways to bolster economic ties, and regional security with his Turkmen counterpart.

The talks were held on October 25, the second and last day of Toqaev’s official visit to the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat.

Speaking after his meeting with President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, Toqaev told reporters that the sides signed a number of “important” documents related to the delimitation of the land border between the two Central Asian nations and their fishing zones in the Caspian Sea, among other things.

The more than 450-kilometer border between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan became an international frontier in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The two former Soviet republics ratified a treaty on the delimitation and demarcation process in 2001.

There are potentials for boosting trade and economic ties between the two former Soviet republics, Toqaev also said.

The Kazakh president said he and Berdymukhammedov “thoroughly” discussed the situation in Afghanistan and “agreed that the ongoing close cooperation to strengthen stability and security in this long-suffering country must continue."

With reporting by Kazinform and KazTAG

Microsoft says the Russia-backed hacking group behind last year’s massive SolarWinds cyberattacks on U.S. government agencies and other institutions continues to target the global technology supply chain.

In a blog post dated October 24, the tech giant said that Russian nation-state actor Nobelium has been attacking cloud service resellers and other technology service providers in hopes to “piggyback” on their access to their downstream customers. Resellers are intermediaries between software and hardware makers and product users.

“This recent activity is another indicator that Russia is trying to gain long-term, systematic access to a variety of points in the technology supply chain and establish a mechanism for surveilling – now or in the future – targets of interest to the Russian government,” Microsoft said.

Since the attacks were first noticed in May, 140 resellers and technology service providers were targeted, with as many as 14 believed to have been compromised, Microsoft said. These attacks continued with a larger wave over the summer, impacting 609 customers with a success rate in the low single digits.

“Fortunately, we have discovered this campaign during its early stages, and we are sharing these developments to help cloud service resellers, technology providers, and their customers take timely steps to help ensure Nobelium is not more successful,” Microsoft said.

The New York Times quoted a senior administration official as saying the latest attacks were “unsophisticated, run-of-the mill operations that could have been prevented if the cloud service providers had implemented baseline cybersecurity practices.”

Earlier this month Microsoft said in a report that Nobelium was responsible a majority of all nation-state cyberattacks over the past year. Most of the attacks targeted governments, nongovernmental organizations, and think tanks in the United States, Ukraine, and Britain.

The White House previously blamed the SolarWinds attack on Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency, which managed to use Nobelium to go undetected for most of 2020 as the hackers compromised several federal agencies. The Russian government has denied any involvement.

Russian authorities say four people were injured after a gas explosion destroyed six apartments in a five-floor residential building in the city of Naberezhnye Chelny.

The Ministry of Emergency Situations’ branch in the Republic of Tatarstan, about 1,000 kilometers east of Moscow, said that 32 people were evacuated.

Video footage showed that the roof and part of two upper floors had collapsed. The rubble damaged neighboring buildings and vehicles parked nearby.

The Investigative Committee has opened a case into the incident.

Naberezhnye Chelny is Tatarstan’s second-largest city.

Gas explosions occur with some frequency in Russia due to aging pipelines and infrastructure, as well as lax safety standards.

In September, seven people were killed when an explosion destroyed three floors in a nine-story residential building in Noginsk, just outside of the capital.

The European Union has disbursed 600 million euros ($696 million) in macro-financial assistance to Ukraine as part of a program to limit the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is the second and final tranche under Ukraine's current MFA program following the first 600-million-euro disbursement in December 2020,” the European Commission said on October 25.

The outstanding amount of loans to Ukraine under multiple macro-financial assistance programs now totals 4.4 billion euros.

“Today's disbursement of 600 million euros brings to 4.4 billion euros the total amount that the EU has loaned to Ukraine in macro-financial assistance. These payments are not only tangible proof of our solidarity with the Ukrainian people, but also a reflection of Ukraine having continued to meet the crucial reform commitments agreed with the International Monetary Fund and the Commission,” EU Commissioner for the Economy Paolo Gentiloni said.

The EC said it gave a positive assessment of Ukraine’s implementation of eight reforms, including on public finance management, governance and rule of law, and improving the business climate.

The latest disbursement is part of 3 billion euros in emergency macro-financial assistance for ten enlargement and neighborhood partners to help them with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other countries receiving support from the program include Armenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.

“The program is a concrete demonstration of the EU's solidarity with its partners to help respond to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the Commission said.

TBILISI -- A lawyer for former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili says his client's state of health has worsened dramatically and intensive care physicians had to interfere overnight to perform resuscitation assistance as the politician enters his 25th day of a hunger strike.

Dito Sadzaglishvili said on October 25 that Saakashvili may need resuscitation assistance again given his current condition.

"[The situation] confirms what the Concilium of physicians said earlier in their recommendation, concluding that [Georgia's] third president is entering the phase of his hunger strike where a sharp decline in health can take place any time. Therefore, possible immediate medical interference will be on the agenda," Sadzaglishvili said.

Five days earlier, Sadzaglishvili said his client had consented to medical intervention while vowing to continue his protest.

On October 19, a group of doctors recommended prison administrators transfer Saakashvili to a hospital for observation after visiting him behind bars.

Saakashvili was arrested on October 1 hours after he announced he had returned to Georgia following an eight-year absence. He immediately went on a hunger strike, while his arrest triggered a protest by tens of thousands of his supporters in Tbilisi.

The 53-year-old has said his incarceration for what Georgian law enforcement agencies called illegally crossing the border was politically motivated.

Saakashvili’s detention in a prison in Rustavi has deepened a protracted political crisis in Georgia. Dozens of European lawmakers and other current and former politicians have called for his release.

Saakashvili served as the South Caucasus country's president from 2004 and 2013. He was sentenced in 2018 in absentia to a total of nine years in prison after being convicted of abuse of power in two separate cases. The ex-president has rejected all charges as politically motivated.

KAZAN, Russia -- Lawmakers in Tatarstan have voted against a bill initiated in Russia's lower chamber of parliament -- the State Duma -- that would abort the title of president currently held by the head of the Russian autonomous republic.

The bill put forward late last month by a group of State Duma lawmakers proposed among other things to replace the title of president or regional administrations with the more generic title of "head."

The measure would only affect Tatar President Rustam Minnikhanov since a 2010 law has already banned the use of the title of president by the heads of Russia's autonomous republics -- with only Tatarstan preserving the right to call its leader "president."

Albert Khabibullin, a member of the Tatarstan State Council, said on October 25 that 82 out of the regional legislature members voted to reject the Duma bill on grounds that it would violate the constitution of the Russian Federation.

MOSCOW -- Noted Russian journalist Sergei Reznik, who specializes in anti-corruption investigations, has been added to the Interior Ministry’s wanted list.

Reznik's name was added to the wanted list over the weekend, local media reported. He is thought to be living outside of Russia.

No details for his placement on the list were provided, though some media reports cited law enforcement sources as saying that Reznik is wanted for the alleged "justification of Nazism." The accusation stems from unspecified social-media posts that appeared on accounts suspected of being connected to him, they added.

In 2013, Reznik, who is from the Rostov region, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on charges of bribery and publicly insulting an official representative of the authorities. Later, he was sentenced to another 18 months in prison after a court found him guilty of false denunciation.

Reznik maintained his innocence and continued to work as an investigative journalist after serving the prison terms.

He says that a total of seven criminal cases have been opened against him with all of the alleged victims being prosecutors, judges, or police officials.

He also claims that over the past year, 15 statements from people in the Krasnodar region were submitted to the police and the prosecutor's office against him and three of his colleagues.

With reporting by TASS and Interfax

Poland has announced plans to increase the number of soldiers and guards at its border with Belarus to 10,000 to help stem the flow of illegal migrants the European Union has accused Minsk of facilitating in retaliation for sanctions against Belarus leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

"We are increasing the number of soldiers helping border guards by 2,500. Soon, about 10,000 people will be watching to keep the border tight," Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said in a tweet on October 25.

The announcement comes hours after Germany said it had deployed hundreds of extra police to the Polish frontier to help deal with the recent influx of migrants crossing from Belarus. Warsaw has already declared a state of emergency over the border situation.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on October 24 that 800 police have already been sent to the region and, “If necessary, I am ready to reinforce this even more."

At the border, police broke up an armed group of some 50 far-right activists attempting to prevent migrants from entering Germany.

The radical far-right group The Third Way (Der III. Weg) had called for members to gather to take action against migrants seeking to cross the border from Poland.

EU and national officials have accused Lukashenka of orchestrating the "weaponization" of migrants in response to Brussels' sanctions on Minsk over a brutal crackdown on dissent since a 2020 presidential election that is widely considered to have been rigged.

Michael Kretschmer, head of Germany’s border state of Saxony, blamed Lukashenka as the instigator of the border crisis, saying, "If we allow ourselves to be blackmailed by such a person, then we as the European Union have no chance.”

German authorities have complained of a flood of illegal migrants through the "Belarus route," estimating that the flow of migrants arriving via Poland and Belarus has spiked to nearly 5,000 illegal entrants in the past three months.

They said most of the undocumented migrants arriving via the "Belarus route" are from Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Iran.

Poland has proposed constructing a $410 million wall on its border with Belarus to keep migrants out after a series of incidents along the border in which large groups of migrants have tried to tear down a razor-wire fence recently put up by Polish forces.

Asked about such a border structure, Seehofer told the newspaper: "It is legitimate for us to protect the external border in such a way that undetected border crossings are prevented."

Seehofer has proposed to his Polish counterpart, Mariusz Kaminski, that the two countries increase joint patrols along the border. Kaminski offered Poland’s "full support."

Seehofer has said Germany had no plans to close the border with Poland.

With reporting by AFP and dpa

The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman who has been detained in Iran for more than five years, has gone on a hunger strike again after a court decided she has to serve an additional year in prison.

Richard Ratcliffe started his fast on October 24 outside the British government's Foreign Office in central London.

He plans to maintain a “constant vigil” by sleeping in a tent outside the building's main entrance in an effort to pressure Prime Minister Boris Johnson to secure the release of his wife and other detained dual British-Iranian nationals, Amnesty International said.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was first jailed in 2016 after being accused of plotting against the regime -- charges that she, her supporters, and rights groups deny.

She was sentenced to another year's confinement in April on charges of "spreading propaganda against the system” while participating in a protest in front of the Iranian Embassy in London in 2009.

She spent the final year of her initial sentence on parole at her parents' home in Tehran in 2020 as Iran temporarily released thousands of inmates in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The initial court ruling against Zaghari-Ratcliffe was five years plus a one-year ban on traveling abroad. The extra year added to her sentence means Zaghari-Ratcliffe cannot leave Iran to join her husband and 7-year-old daughter in London for nearly two more years.

Ratcliffe went on a 15-day hunger strike two years ago outside the Iranian Embassy, a move he credits with getting their daughter released.

"We are now giving the U.K. government the same treatment. In truth, I never expected to have to do a hunger strike twice. It is not a normal act," Ratcliffe said on his Change.org petition.

He said Iran remains the “primary abuser” in Nazanin’s case, but that the "U.K. is also letting us down."

"It is increasingly clear that Nazanin’s case could have been solved many months ago – but for other diplomatic agendas," he said. "The PM needs to take responsibility for that.”

Employed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of the Reuters news agency, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was taken into custody at Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport in April 2016 when she tried to return to Britain after visiting family in Iran.

Rights groups accuse Iran of holding dual-nationals as bargaining chips for money or influence in negotiations with the West. Tehran denies the accusation.

With reporting by AP

Moscow has criticized the United States after Washington added Russians seeking U.S. visas to a list of “homeless nationals” who can apply for visas in third countries.

The move allows Russians to apply for U.S. visas in Warsaw instead of their home country after the U.S. Embassy stopped processing most visa applications in May due to Moscow's ban on employing embassy staff in Russia.

The U.S. State Department lists as "homeless" applicants from countries in which the United States has no consular representation, or where consular staff cannot issue visas due to the political or security situation.

Russia became the 10th nation on the list, after Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.

"The Russian government's decision to prohibit the United States from retaining, hiring or contracting Russian or third-country staff severely impacts our ability to provide consular services," a State Department spokesman said in a statement received by the AFP news agency.

"The extremely limited number of consular staff in Russia at this time does not allow us to provide routine visa or U.S. citizen services."

Moscow claimed that Washington was to blame for the current difficulties.

"American diplomats have for many years been destroying the system of consular services in Russia ..." Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

"They have turned a technical procedure, a routine one for the 21st century, into a real hell."

With ties already at post-Cold War lows, Russia and the United States are in a dispute over the number of diplomats they can post to each other's capitals, and failed to make progress at talks this month.

In addition, Russia has placed the United States on a list of "unfriendly" countries who must seek approval to employ Russian nationals -- and has set the U.S. quota at zero.

At the talks, Moscow said it was willing to lift all the restrictions imposed in recent years, and Washington said it wanted parity on diplomatic staff numbers and visa reciprocity.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

The world governing body of amateur boxing says it is in talks with the Serbian Boxing Federation over Belgrade's refusal to allow Kosovo boxers to enter the country in order to compete in the world championships this week.

The 2021 World Boxing Championships are being hosted by Serbia at Belgrade's Stark Arena from October 24 through November 6.

But the Kosovo Olympic Committee said late on October 23 that its athletes have been denied permission to cross the border twice by Serbian officials.

In a Facebook post, the Kosovo Olympic Committee said its team was turned back the first time for wearing Kosovo's national symbols.

It said the team returned to Pristina, then made another attempt to cross into Serbia without the symbols but were denied entry again.

Kosovo, a former part of Serbia, declared independence in 2008. It is recognized by around 100 nations. But the government in Belgrade still considers it to be a part of Serbia.

The Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) says it is trying to "remedy the situation" through its contacts with the Serbian Boxing Federation.

"The Kosovo Boxing Federation has been a full member of AIBA since November 2014 and is expected to attend the AIBA Men’s World Boxing Championships," the AIBA said in a statement.

"The AIBA expects that the Kosovo Boxing Federation’s delegation will be treated no differently than the delegation of any other AIBA member," it said.

The AIBA also said that it aims to "provide a welcoming home for every boxer, and the world of boxing has no borders."

It said "all athletes must receive a fair chance to compete and demonstrate their best abilities in the ring," adding that "sport is intended to unite people and should be free of national politics."

Reports from Pristina say Kosovo's foreign minister, Donika Gervalla-Schwarz, and sports minister, Hajrullah Ceku, have written to Serbia's sports minister, Vanja Udovicic, about the development.

They said they "strongly condemn" Serbia's action which they called "unfair and politically influenced" and urged Serbia to grant their athletes the right to compete.

With reporting by dpa

An investigation into the fatal shooting of Ukrainian-born cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on a movie set is focusing on the specialist in charge of weapons and the assistant director who handed the gun to actor Alec Baldwin before he fired it.

Hutchins, 42, was struck in the chest and died shortly after the incident in the southwestern U.S. state of New Mexico on October 21, while director Joel Souza, 48, was wounded and briefly hospitalized.

Souza spoke out about the shooting for the first time on October 23, saying he was "gutted" by the loss of Hutchins.

"She was kind, vibrant, incredibly talented, fought for every inch, and always pushed me to be better," he told Deadline, an entertainment news website.

The shooting on the set of the movie Rust during a rehearsal at a ranch near the city of Santa Fe raised questions about gun-safety protocols for film sets.

Some details of the incident emerged in court documents submitted by the Santa Fe County sheriff's office to obtain a search warrant.

The documents said assistant director Dave Halls, who handed the gun to Baldwin, called out "cold gun," indicating the weapon had no live ammunition.

The assistant director did not know the gun contained live rounds, a detective with the Santa Fe Sheriff's Department said in the documents.

Baldwin handed the gun to Hannah Gutierrez-Reed -- the movie's weapons master -- immediately after the shooting, and she removed a spent casing and handed it and the gun to deputies when they arrived, the court documents say.

Neither Halls nor Gutierrez-Reed have commented publicly.

There also have been reports that the shooting occurred only hours after a walk-out by film crew members over various complaints about working conditions.

Rust Movie Productions said in a statement that it had not been made aware of any official complaints but would "continue to cooperate with the Santa Fe authorities" while also conducting its own review.

Baldwin, 63, is known for his roles in the television series 30 Rock, the 1990 movie The Hunt for Red October, and his impression of former President Donald Trump on the television sketch show Saturday Night Live.

He has cooperated with investigators and no charges have been filed.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Deadline

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev has been declared the winner of a presidential election at the weekend, an expected result in a vote that featured no genuine opposition and western observers called "not truly competitive."

Central Election Commission Chairman Zainuddin Nizomhojaev said on October 25 that 80.1 percent of those casting ballots supported Mirziyoev. He added that 80.4 percent of the some 20 million eligible voters took part in the election.

Mirziyoev, 64, faced four little-known candidates who are largely pro-government. Three opposition parties were not allowed to register or have candidates in the race.

It was Uzbekistan’s sixth presidential election since the country of some 35 million people gained its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991.

As Mirziyoev's first term nears its end, he is struggling to counter impressions that his government is sliding back toward the authoritarian habits of his long-reigning predecessor Islam Karimov.

Mirziyoev did open up Central Asia's most-populous nation to foreign investment, improved Uzbekistan’s relations with its neighbors, and eased the Karimov-era restrictions on religious freedoms while also releasing dozens of political prisoners.

But like his predecessor, Mirziyoev exercises virtually unrestrained political power in Uzbekistan and his relatives have been accused of using his political clout to amass wealth.

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have also overshadowed some of his initial economic achievements, leading to higher unemployment and sharp rises in the cost of living.

He has also come under criticism for cracking down on his critics and activists ahead of the vote.

An international monitoring mission led by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said on October 25 that despite some movement in the ongoing reforms, the election was "not truly competitive."

"Remaining restrictions on fundamental freedoms and the right to stand continue to run counter to OSCE commitments. While multiple candidates contested the election, there was no meaningful engagement with each other or with voters, and candidates refrained from challenging or criticizing the incumbent," an OSCE's preliminary assessment of the balloting said.

The Vienna-based organization added that counting procedures at polling stations "were often not followed and the figures in the result protocols did not reconcile in many polling stations observed."

Uzbekistan has never held an election that was deemed fair or democratic by Western observers.

Meanwhile, observer missions from the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Turkic Council, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization said the voting was fair, transparent, and without major violations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and the authoritarian strongman of Belarus Alyaksandr Lukashenka congratulated Mirziyoev by phone hours before the official results were announced.

SEE ALSO:

Uzbek President's New Promises Ring Hollow In His Bid For A Second Term

Mirziyoev received 88.6 percent of the vote in the previous election in 2016.

Three unregistered opposition parties announced their intention to field candidates: the Erk Democratic Party, the Truth and Development Party, and the People’s Interest Party.

Despite their attempts, none was registered and official pressure eventually forced all of them to end their efforts to have candidates in the race.

SEE ALSO:

Uzbekistan Clamps Down On Activists, Critics Ahead Of Presidential Election

The Erk Party's leader, Muhammad Solih, who has been living in exile in Turkey since the 1990s, called the presidential poll in Uzbekistan "fake."

"This election is a fake election. Fake elections are in the genetic code of Uzbekistan's political regime. All elections in Uzbekistan are based on that code, and that genetic code is Islam Karimov's code, which Shavkat Mirziyoev used today," Solih said, adding that the October 24 poll is no different from the 1991 presidential election that was "rigged" to declare Karimov as president of independent Uzbekistan.

Mirziyoev's only challenger to receive significant attention during the campaign was Alisher Kodirov, who proposed that Uzbeks working outside of the country should pay taxes in Uzbekistan.

That position is unpopular among a large portion of Uzbekistan's population that depends upon remittances from family members who work abroad.

Mirziyoev openly disagreed with Kodirov's proposal.

Some observers suggested that Kodirov announced his tax proposal to channel more votes to Mirziyoev -- a view bolstered by the fact that Kodirov's National Revival Party is in a parliamentary coalition with Mirziyoev's Liberal Democratic Party of Uzbekistan.

The three other candidates in the race and their political parties were Bahrom Abduhalimov of the Adolat (Justice) party, Maksuda Borisova of the People’s Democratic Party, and Narzullo Oblomuradov of the Ecological Party.

Borisova was the second woman to run in an Uzbek presidential election. Oblomuradov is the first presidential candidate fielded by the Ecological Party.

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Mirziyoev was prime minister from 2003 to 2016, when Uzbekistan’s first and only previous president, Islam Karimov, died.

Mirziyoev became acting president and then won a snap presidential election on December 4, 2016, receiving just over 90 percent of the vote.

With reporting by AP, dpa, and AFP

The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog says his monitoring program in Iran has been restricted at a key facility, raising concern that it will not be possible for world powers that are party to a 2015 nuclear deal to “reconstruct the picture” of Iran’s nuclear program down the road.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi made the comments in an interview with NBC News broadcast on October 23. Grossi is currently visiting Washington as the countries that are party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) urge Iran to return to negotiations to restore the deal.

Earlier this year, after Iran stopped allowing IAEA inspectors conduct snap inspections required under the agreement, Grossi brokered an arrangement in which Iran would allow IAEA cameras inside nuclear facilities to keep running.

Grossi said Iran has allowed the IAEA to access most of its cameras except for those at a facility in the Tehran suburbs that makes centrifuge parts.

The facility was damaged in June in what Iran says was an act of sabotage by Israel and, Grossi said, Iran has cited an ongoing investigation into the attack in refusing IAEA access to the site.

Without that access the IAEA’s monitoring and verification program in Iran is “no longer intact,” Grossi said.

“It hasn’t paralyzed what we are doing there, but damage...has been done, with a potential of us not being able to reconstruct the picture, the jigsaw puzzle,” Grossi told NBC News in the interview.

“If and when the JCPOA will be restarted, I know that for the JCPOA partners to go back to an agreement, they will have to know where they are putting their feet,” Grossi said.

Iran has called on the IAEA to clarify its position regarding an alleged Israeli attack on the centrifuge-component manufacturing workshop.

Speaking to journalists on October 3, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy organization, Mohammad Eslami, deplored that the IAEA and Western powers had not condemned the "terrorist act" in which the TESA Karaj facility was “severely destroyed.”

The JCPOA imposed significant restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from sanctions. Then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States unilaterally from the pact in 2018 and started reimposing crippling sanctions on Iran. In response, Tehran has progressively rolled back its own commitments to the deal.

The Biden administration and European partners want to restore the deal, and Iranian officials have repeatedly said they were ready to resume talks, but no date has yet been announced.

Indirect negotiations on both sides returning to compliance with the deal, via intermediaries from other parties to the accord -- Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia -- were launched in Vienna in April, but the talks were suspended following the June election of hard-line Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

With reporting by NBC

Police in the northwestern Russian city of St. Petersburg have detained a doctor and four nurses suspected of issuing fake COVID-19 vaccination certifications.

According to an Investigative Committee statement on October 23, the five work at a health clinic at the Pavlov State Medical University. They are accused of giving people paper and online certificates of vaccination while destroying the unused vaccines.

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Their COVID Certificates Were Fake But Now They Want To Get Vaccinated: Forgery And Regret In Romania And Bulgaria

The authorities said they were investigating 12 alleged cases, for which the medical workers purportedly received more than 100,000 rubles ($1,425).

If convicted, the medical workers could face up to 12 years in prison.

The new governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan Province was assaulted during his inauguration ceremony by a man who rushed the stage and slapped him.

The new governor, General Abedin Khorram, had just approached the podium on October 23 in the city of Tabriz when an unidentified man strode onto the stage and struck him without warning.

Footage of the incident was broadcast on state television, which showed that it took several seconds for security forces to apprehend the assailant.

Khorram later returned to the podium and told the audience that he did not know his assailant.

The IRNA state news agency reported that the attacker was a member of the Ashura Corp of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and that the attack was a “personal dispute.” Those claims could not be independently verified.

Khorram was among 48 Iranians held hostage in Syria in 2013. Iran claimed the hostages were “Shi’ite pilgrims,” while the United States said they were technical advisers to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

He was appointed governor of the northwestern province by President Ebrahim Raisi on October 17.

IRNA said a criminal case had been opened.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP

Prime Minister Viktor Orban and joint opposition leader Peter Marki-Zay both held campaign-style rallies in Budapest on October 23, nearly six months ahead of an election that is expected to be closely contested.

Tens of thousands of Orban supporters marched on their way to hear the prime minister give a speech devoted to the commemoration of the country’s 1956 uprising against Soviet domination.

Organizers said they expected as many as 400,000 people to show up.

In his remarks, the nationalist Orban referred to his government’s often-tense relations with the European Union, saying the bloc “speaks and behaves to us…as if we were enemies.”

“Brussels would do well to understand that even the communists could not handle us,” Orban said. “We’re the David whom Goliath is better off avoiding.”

Meanwhile, several thousand opposition supporters gathered to hear a speech by Marki-Zay.

Marki-Zay said the Hungarian people were tired of Orban’s “hate campaigns” against migrants and LGBT people.

“People had enough in 1956, and they have had enough now,” he said.

“Our basic goal -- for all of us, left and right -- is for Hungary to be a democracy, to be governed by the rule of law in a market economy and as part of the European Union,” he added.

Marki-Zay, a 49-year-old conservative mayor, won an opposition primary on October 17 to head a six-party opposition alliance in the general election expected to be held in April.

Orban and his nationalist Fidesz party have won three landslide elections since 2010. But opinion polls show the opposition alliance running closely against Fidesz, and analysts says this could be the closest vote the country has seen since Orban was defeated in 2006.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

MOSCOW -- Russia has issued an arrest warrant for a former prison inmate who has admitted to releasing graphic video evidence of hundreds of cases of inmate torture by other inmates at the direction of prison officials.

The Interior Ministry on October 23 issued the warrant without specifying the crime that the Belarus-born Syarhey Savelyeu is accused of.

According to the prisoners’ rights NGO Gulagu.net, which published some of the videos and reported on their contents, Moscow intends to send documentation on Savelyeu to Interpol to seek his extradition.

After leaking the videos, Savelyeu left Russia and is seeking political asylum in France.

SEE ALSO:

'I Was Always Afraid Of Getting Caught': Former Inmate Who Leaked Russian Prison-Torture Videos Speaks Out

Gulagu.net founder Vladimir Osechkin told RFE/RL that his organization will forward all the materials it received from Savelyeu to authorities in France. He also said his group will ask Interpol to suspend Russia’s participation in the network until the country’s prison and judicial systems have been reformed and torture rooted out.

Five senior prison officials have been fired since Gulagu.net published the videos earlier this month.

As an inmate, Savelyeu -- an IT specialist -- helped operate a prison computer network that gave him access to the videos.

Gulagu.net has said guards and other prison officials bribed or forced inmates to torture other inmates in order to secure false testimony. The videos purportedly show hundreds of cases of rape and other torture at Russian prisons and pretrial detention centers in several regions.

In an interview with Gulagu.net, Savelyeu said he believes Russia will seek to charge him with disclosing state secrets.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened seven criminal cases in connection with the leaked videos.

BISHKEK -- Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has rejected the idea of hosting a U.S. military base in his country, saying such a move would place Kyrgyzstan in a "cat and mouse" game in terms of its relations with Washington and with Russia.

Japarov made the remark on October 23 during an annual press conference in which he answered questions from state and private media outlets as well as independent bloggers and freelance journalists.

Answering a question about potential for a U.S. military base being reestablished in Kyrgyzstan for the first time in seven years, Japarov noted that the country already hosts a Russian military base at Kant in the Chui region.

"One [foreign] base will be enough for us," Japarov said. "We do not want to play cat and mouse with influential countries by stationing two bases on our territory."

A U.S. airbase had been opened at part of Bishkek's Manas Airport in December 2001 in order to support international troop deployments to Afghanistan and counterterrorism operations as part of the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom.

But U.S. operations there ended in 2014 after Kyrgyzstan's parliament voted that Washington should vacate the facility -- a move seen as being aimed at pleasing Bishkek's former overlord, Russia.

SEE ALSO:

Good-Bye, Manas

Recent U.S. media reports have suggested that the U.S. military would seek to reposition some of its troops in Central Asia after its decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Japarov spent about four hours answering journalists' questions at his October 23 press conference.

He said border crossings between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have remained closed to Tajik citizens since April "to prevent any possible conflict" following bloody clashes that killed 36 Kyrgyz citizens and 19 Tajiks.

More than 200 people were wounded in the violence. Hundreds of houses and shops were also burned down or damaged.

"The borders will be open [for Tajik students and other Tajik citizens] after all delimitation and demarcation works are completed," Japarov told journalists on October 23.

"Members of the intergovernmental commission will be heading to Tajikistan soon," the Kyrgyz president said. "They have been working constantly."

When questioned by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service about the persecution of political opposition figures by authorities in Kyrgyzstan, Japarov denied that there has been any political persecution in the country.

Several former prime ministers and opposition politicians, as well as former President Almazbek Atambaev and several his associates, remain jailed in Kyrgyzstan over their alleged role in mass protests against Japarov's government in October 2020.

Some face charges of attempting to seize government buildings. Others are accused of corruption.

Japarov said all of those cases remain under investigation and await court rulings.

DUSHANBE -- Afghan military pilots who fled to Tajikistan when the Taliban seized power in Kabul say the militant group is pressuring them to return to Afghanistan by threatening to kill their relatives.

Trained by the United States, the Afghan pilots say their documents have been completed for traveling and they hope they will soon be able to go to the United States.

But two Afghan pilots who are sheltering at sanatoriums on the outskirts of Dushanbe told RFE/RL's Tajik Service on October 23 that the Taliban is now trying to force them to return to Afghanistan.

One Afghan pilot, speaking on condition of anonymity, told RFE/RL that his son back in Afghanistan was beaten by the Taliban and that the militants threatened to kill the boy if the pilot did not return.

Another pilot told RFE/RL that Taliban militants have gone to the homes of several of his family members to demand that the pilot return to Afghanistan.

He told RFE/RL that the Taliban has a list of the names of all 143 Afghan pilots now in Tajikistan. He said Taliban authorities are increasing pressure on all of the pilots by threatening their relatives in Afghanistan.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid denied that the Taliban is threatening the relatives of the pilots.

"Nobody cares about them," Mujahid told RFE/RL on October 23. "They come up with high-profile stories to obtain refugee status. We have said many times that if they return, no one will touch them here."

In August, shortly after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, the Taliban issued a call for all of the U.S.-trained Afghan pilots to join them in order to fly aircraft that the group had seized at military bases across Afghanistan.