The Kyiv Post, Ukraine's largest, independent English-language newspaper, has suddenly shut its operations after more than a quarter-century amid a dispute between the owner and journalists.

Adnan Kivan, the Kyiv Post publisher and a real-estate businessman, announced the abrupt closure on the paper's website on November 8, saying it would be temporary. He did not give a reason for the closure, though it did not appear to be financial.

"One day, we hope to reopen the newspaper bigger and better," Kivan said in the statement.

However, reporters at the Kyiv Post said in a joint statement that the sudden closure comes on the heels of Kivan's attempt to "infringe" on their editorial independence.

"We consider the cessation of publication and the dismissal of the paper's staff to be an act of vengeance by Adnan Kivan," the newsroom said in a statement.

The reporters said that Kivan had announced three weeks ago that he would expand the Kyiv Post by launching a Ukrainian-language publication under the same name.

Kivan handpicked an editor to oversee the new product, raising concerns among the staff that he was attempting to curtail their independence.

Kivan could not be immediately reached for comment.

The Kyiv Post has been critical of Ukraine's leadership at times, highlighting slow progress on Western-backed reforms, including the crucial fight against corruption.

The paper was an important source of information for Ukraine's expat community, including foreign embassy staff.

Roman Waschuk, Canada's ambassador to Ukraine from 2014 to 2019, told RFE/RL the paper was "feisty" in its coverage, "with no punches pulled."

The staff said in their statement that Kivan's plans to relaunch with new staff was an attempt to get rid of "inconvenient" journalists.

RFE/RL e-mailed Kivan's company, Kadorr Group, seeking a response to the Kyiv Post staff's statement, but did not immediately receive an answer.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's spokesman, Serhiy Nykyforov, quickly rejected speculation that the administration had been putting pressure on Kivan over the Kyiv Post's critical coverage.

"Today's news came as much of a surprise to us as it did to everyone else," he said in a statement on Facebook.

42nd Richest

Like many other media owners in Ukraine, Kivan is among the country's richest people.

In 2021 Forbes ranked him 42nd in their annual list of the wealthiest Ukrainians, with a net worth of $240 million.

Kadorr Group says it owns commercial real estate in Ukraine valued at more than $800 million. Kivan's firm also invests in agriculture and media.

In contrast to most on Ukraine's rich list, Kivan did not grow up in the former Soviet Union. He was born in Syria and moved to Soviet Ukraine in the early 1980s to attend university.

He claims to have made his first millions importing goods into the Soviet Union from Egypt before switching to the export of Ukrainian steel to Africa and the Middle East.

He began investing in real estate in Odesa, the popular Ukrainian Black Sea resort known for its endemic corruption, in the mid-2000s, registering Kadorr in 2010.

He has built dozens of residential high-rise apartment buildings in and around Odesa over the years.

Kivan has had various partners on projects, including several with Hennadiy Trukhanov before he become mayor of Odesa starting in 2014.

Trukhanov, who had a falling out with Kivan, was recently charged with illegally acquiring land plots among other crimes.

Kivan also teamed up on real-estate projects with Ihor Markov, an Odesa-based, Kremlin-leaning politician who fled Ukraine in 2014 after the toppling of former President Viktor Yanukovych.

As he built up his real-estate empire in Odesa, Kivan acquired the Channel 7 TV station. Two years after he expanded into Kyiv in 2016, he purchased the Kyiv Post.

Vera Zaporozhets, an Odesa-based investigative journalist who used to work at Channel 7, told the Kyiv Post in 2018 that Kivan would rein in criticism of the government.

Sasha Borovik, a former adviser to ex-Odesa Governor and former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, told the Kyiv Post in 2018 that Kivan "uses his publications as a political resource and a tool in business competition."

Rights activists accuse Ukraine's wealthiest people of using their media assets to push their own business and political interests.

Upon purchasing the Kyiv Post, Kivan said in a statement he would respect the paper's legacy of editorial independence.

"Without independent journalism, full-fledged democratic development of any country is impossible," he said in March 2018.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service

North Macedonian lawmakers will vote on November 11 on a motion of no confidence in the Social Democrat-led government.

Speaker Talat Xhaferi scheduled the vote after opposition leader Hristijan Mickoski of the right-wing Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) put forward the motion following Prime Minister Zoran Zaev's failure to make good of his promise last week to resign after his Social Democratic Union (SDSM) suffered a trouncing defeat in local elections.

The main battleground in the elections on October 31 was Skopje, where SDSM incumbent Mayor Petre Shilegov lost to Danela Arsovska of the VMRO-DPMNE.

Mickoski, who has called for early elections following SDSM's defeat in the local polls, argued that the opposition now had a slim majority in parliament, with 61 out of 120 lawmakers, that would be enough to overthrow the government.

The decisive factor will be a promised change of sides by the small BESA movement, a center-right ethnic Albanian party that is currently a coalition partner in Zaev's cabinet.

If the no-confidence motion passes on November 11, President Stevo Pendarovski will have to appoint another politician who can command a majority in parliament to form a new government.

Observers believe it is possible that neither Mickoski nor the SDSM will succeed. This would then result in new elections.

Zaev was elected prime minister in 2017 after 10 years of right-wing rule led by Nikola Gruevski, whose government was shaken by a wiretapping scandal revealed by Zaev.

In 2018, Zaev struck a deal with Athens to add the geographical qualifier "north" to the country's official name in order to distinguish it from the Greek province of Macedonia.

That was a precondition to paving the way for NATO and European Union membership, but the name change did little to settle grievances of other countries, including Bulgaria, which has sought to block the country's path to joining the EU.

With reporting by dpa

Armenians and Azerbaijanis have commemorated the first anniversary of the ending of their bloody six-week war in Nagorno-Karabakh in starkly different ways, highlighting the continued tensions over the breakaway region.

The peace deal that ended last year's war was hailed as a triumph in Azerbaijan, but the loss sparked months of massive protests in Armenia demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian's resignation.

In Azerbaijan, tens of thousands of people rallied in the capital, Baku, to celebrate the country’s victory in the confrontation with Armenian forces that caused the deaths of some 6,000 people on both sides. It is unclear how many more prisoners remain in captivity on either side

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev declared November 8 as Victory Day to celebrate the capture of the strategic city of Susa (known as Shushi in Armenian) by Azerbaijani forces.

Two days after the city fell, Armenia was forced to accept a Russian-brokered truce that handed a significant part of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions it had occupied for nearly three decades back to Azerbaijan.

"All of Azerbaijan celebrates this glorious holiday," Aliyev told troops in Susa. "Azerbaijan has restored its territorial integrity and restored historical justice."

"We have shown the whole world that we are a great nation," Aliyev added.

As part of the celebrations in Baku, military marches were held as thousands of flag-waving people honored troops and remembered the roughly 3,000 Azerbaijani servicemen and 100 civilians killed in the war.

Meanwhile, in Armenia's capital, Yerevan, thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Freedom Square on November 8 calling again for Pashinian's resignation and demanding that the government make no additional concessions to Azerbaijan as the two countries engage in Russian-mediated diplomacy to fulfill the terms of the peace agreement.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since the end of a separatist war in 1994.

Tensions since the signing of the cease-fire have remained high, with reports of scattered exchanges of gunfire.

On November 8, one ethnic Armenian resident of Nagorno-Karabakh was killed and three others wounded by incoming fire from the Azerbaijani side, ethnic Armenian authorities said.

According to them, the four men came under fire while repairing water pipes just outside the Azerbaijani-controlled town of Susa.

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

An independent Polish journalist who earlier this year accused an Uzbek Foreign Ministry official of sexual harassment and pressuring her to write positive articles about the country, says she has been banned from entering the Central Asian state for unspecified reasons.

Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska tweeted on November 8 that she was stranded at a checkpoint along the Uzbek-Kazakh border, after Uzbek border guards refused to allow her to enter the country.

"I came to Uzbekistan over three years ago hoping that change was possible. I'm leaving convinced that under current government no systemic change will ever take place," Pikulicka-Wilczewska wrote on Twitter, questioning democratic reforms promised by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev, who was reelected last month.

The Uzbek government has been trying for some time to limit the activities of Pikulicka-Wilczewska.

Earlier in June, Uzbek authorities reluctantly extended the journalist's accreditation after international rights and media groups raised concerns over the issue.

SEE ALSO:

Uzbekistan Refuses To Prolong Accreditation Of Polish Journalist Who Complained Of Sexual Harassment

In early February, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry officially apologized to Pikulicka-Wilczewska, a former Al-Jazeera correspondent who also worked for The Guardian and Eurasianet, for the behavior of a ministry employee whom the journalist publicly accused of sexual harassment and pressuring her to write positive articles about the tightly controlled former Soviet republic.

The situation around the Polish journalist and ongoing crackdown on bloggers and independent reporters have put under question the democratization reforms Mirziyoev announced after he took over following the death of his authoritarian predecessor, Islam Karimov, in 2016.

Uzbekistan is ranked 157th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

The U.S. Justice Department has charged a Russian and a Ukrainian for their role in a July ransomware attack on the Florida-based software firm Kaseya that impacted up to 1,500 businesses around the world.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said on November 8 that the United States also seized $6.1 million of illicit proceeds from Russian ransomware hacker Yevgeny Polyanin, who remains at large.

The other suspected ransomware attacker, Ukrainian Yaroslav Vasinskiy, was arrested in Poland last month, and the United States has requested his extradition.

Vasinskiy will face U.S. charges for using the ransomware REvil, also known as Sodinokibi, which has been used in a series of attacks on U.S. and international businesses, governments, and other institutions.

The Treasury Department also said the two men faced sanctions for their role in ransomware attacks, as well as the virtual currency exchange Chatex.

"Unprincipled virtual currency exchanges like Chatex are critical to the profitability of ransomware activities, especially by laundering and cashing out the proceeds for criminals," the Treasury said.

In a coordinated action, the State Department also announced a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of anybody holding a leadership position in the Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware crime group.

The State Department also offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction in any country of any individual participating in Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware attacks.

REvil, a group of Russian-speaking hackers, has been blamed for a series of high-profile ransomware attacks, in which hackers encrypt victims' data and then demand cryptocurrency to regain access.

Ransomware has become a top priority for governments as the number and severity of cases has surged in recent years, impacting a wide array of industries from retail and food to health care and critical infrastructure.

According to the U.S. Treasury, ransomware payments in the United States so far have reached $590 million in the first half of 2021, compared to a total of $416 million in 2020.

Earlier on November 8, the European police agency said Romanian police arrested two individuals last week as part of a global crackdown on cybercriminals behind ransomware attacks.

The two were arrested last week on suspicion of deploying cyberattacks using ransomware from REvil, which is viewed as the successor of GandCrab malware, Europol said in a statement on November 8.

Police agencies from 17 countries with the support of Europol and the international police body Interpol were involved in the monthslong operation dubbed "GoldDust.”

The European police agency said that in recent months three other affiliates of REvil/Sodinokibi and two suspects connected to GandCrab were also arrested in the global sting on cybercriminals.

The three people were arrested in South Korea, Europe, and Kuwait.

The two arrested in Romania alone were responsible for around 5,000 infections, which pocketed around 500,000 euros ($580,000), Europol said.

"All these arrests follow the joint international law enforcement efforts of identification, wiretapping, and seizure of some of the infrastructure used by Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware family," Europol said.

Questions about the fate of the group emerged in July, when webpages linked to REvil disappeared from the dark web, sparking speculation about whether the move was the result of a government-led action.

With reporting by Reuters

A former Belarusian teacher has been sentenced to two years in prison over her posts on Telegram commenting on unprecedented rallies against strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka that erupted after last year's controversial presidential election.

A court in the southern city of Mazyr on November 8 found Iryna Harashyna guilty of organizing and preparing activities that "blatantly" violate social order and illegal activities to gain private information.

Charges against Harashyna stemmed from her posts in a Telegram channel that was declared extremist by Belarusian authorities earlier this year.

The trial was held behind closed doors, and it is unknown how the defendant pleaded.

Also on November 8, the Supreme Court shut down the Belarusian Language Society.

Society Chairwoman Alena Anisim said after the ruling was pronounced that the group's two newspapers in the Belarusian language will have to stop operations now.

In recent months, Belarusian courts have branded several civil society and rights groups extremist, forcing them to shut down as part of a sweeping crackdown in the wake of mass protests triggered by the presidential poll, which Lukashenka said he had won by a landslide but which the opposition and West say was rigged.

On November 10 and 19, the Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on the possible liquidation of the Belarusian Popular Front opposition party and For Freedom movement, respectively.

Georgia will require people to present a COVID-19 "green pass" from December 1 to enter many establishments, the government says.

Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili announced the new policy on November 8 in a bid to encourage people to get vaccinated.

Adults 18 and over will receive a "green pass" if they are fully vaccinated, have recovered from COVID-19, or have taken a PCR test within the last 72 hours, or an antigen test within 24 hours.

RFE/RL's Coronavirus Coverage

Features and analysis, videos, and infographics explore how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting the countries in our region.

Only people with a pass will be able to enter restaurants, open and closed spaces of cafes and bars, cinemas, theaters, operas, museums, concert halls, entertainment centers, casinos, spas, gyms, hotels, and resorts.

Visitors of such establishments will be required to have a pass, but not employees.

The pass will also not be required to use essential services such as public transport and some shops and services.

According to the National Center for Disease Control, 952,831 people -- or 26 percent of the population -- are fully vaccinated.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, a total of 755,046 infections and 10,509 deaths have been registered in Georgia.

SARAJEVO -- Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik says he will move ahead with plans to withdraw the Republika Srpska, the Serbian-majority entity that makes up part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, from national institutions, brushing aside international concerns that such an agenda could spark a renewed conflict in the ethnically divided Balkan country.

After meeting on November 8 with U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar in Sarajevo, Dodik said that "neither I nor anyone called for war as an option at any time."

"We agree that stability and peace should be preserved," he added.

Escobar told reporters that he and all his interlocutors in the Bosnian capital agreed that "there will be no war" in Bosnia.

Noting that the Balkans is currently the fastest growing region of Europe, he called on Bosnian leaders to focus on European integration and economic development.

The Bosnian War ended in 1995 with the U.S.-brokered Dayton peace accords that created two entities in Bosnia, the Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. The country is still governed and administered along ethnic lines established by the agreement.

But Dodik, the Serbian representative in Bosnia's tripartite presidency, has been threatening to withdraw from state-level institutions, including Bosnia's joint judiciary, military, and tax administration, triggering growing concerns that Republika Srpska could secede from the rest of the country.

Calling his talks with Dodik productive, Escobar said that "the possibility is open to withdraw all those decisions related to the transfer of competencies [from the state level to Republika Srpska] so that we can continue working on economic development."

Escobar also met separately with lawmakers and the Croatian and Muslim members of Bosnia's presidency, Zeljko Komsic and Sefik Dzaferovic, who called the blocking of state institutions by Republika Srpska since July unacceptable.

In an interview with RFE/RL ahead of his trip to the Bosnian capital, Escobar warned that any moves to undermine the Dayton peace accords were "very detrimental and very destabilizing to the region."

SEE ALSO:

U.S. Diplomat Due In Bosnia Amid Serbian Threats To Withdraw From Institutions

Escobar said the reasons behind Dodik's move to weaken central institutions were corruption and his attempt to "look for ways to protect his power and his money."

The U.S. diplomat's comments came days after Christian Schmidt, the chief UN envoy to Bosnia, issued a stark warning that Dodik's threats to withdraw from state-level institutions represented an "existential threat" to the country's postwar peace deal.

SEE ALSO:

Bosnian Peace Deal 'At Risk Of Unravelling' Unless International Community Acts

The prospects for further division and conflict in Bosnia "are very real," Schmidt said in a report to the UN Security Council, warning that if the Bosnian Serb leader's threats materialize they would "ultimately undermine the state's ability to function and carry out its constitutional responsibilities."

TBILISI -- Jailed former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been on a hunger strike for more than a month, has been transferred to a prison hospital.

The Penitentiary Service said on November 8 that Saakashvili was transferred from the prison in the city of Rustavi to the Gldani prison clinic amid concerns about his health.

Saakashvili's lawyers and personal doctor say the 53-year-old former president's condition is deteriorating and have demanded that he be transferred to a private clinic outside the prison system.

The government rejected these demands, saying that if necessary, he would be transferred to a prison hospital.

Saakashvili's supporters and activists of his United National Movement (ENM), Georgia's main opposition party, have been protesting against his incarceration outside the prison in Rustavi where he began a hunger strike after being detained on October 1 upon his return from eight years in self-exile to campaign for the opposition ahead of local elections.

On November 8, supporters rallied in Tbilisi's central Freedom Square, demanding Saakashvili's release and his transfer to a civilian hospital.

Earlier on November 8, Saakashvili vowed to continue his hunger strike "until death," while the Penitentiary Service issued a video over the weekend showing the former president eating unspecified items and drinking from a bottle in the detention center's medical room.

In his statement on Facebook, Saakashvili called on his supporters and opposition politicians to focus on what he called "stolen elections and returning the government to the Georgian people" instead of focusing on his hunger strike.

"I returned [to Georgia], voluntarily became a hostage, and intended to stay on hunger strike until death to contribute into liberation our country, to its efforts to preserve its European path...," Saakashvili's Facebook statement said.

Meanwhile, on November 5, Justice Minister Rati Bregadze said Saakashvili also consumed porridge in addition to juice.

A day later, the Penitentiary Service issued a video showing the former president eating some food and drinking what the service said was juice in a medical room in the detention center in Rustavi, and issued a video to prove it.

Saakashvili then announced on that day that he was stopping receiving vitamins and juice in protest.

Saakashvili, who was president from 2004 to 2013, left the country shortly after the presidential election of 2013 and was convicted in absentia in 2018 of abuse of power and seeking to cover up evidence about the beating of an opposition member of parliament.

Saakashvili has said the charges against him are politically motivated.

The ENM was outpolled decisively by the ruling Georgian Dream party in the October 3 nationwide municipal and mayoral vote.

The opposition has said that Georgian Dream, founded by billionaire and Saakashvili's rival Bidzina Ivanishvili, rigged the runoff on October 30. Georgian Dream won the mayoral races in the country's five biggest cities as a result of the vote.

Georgia has been plagued by political paralysis since parliamentary elections in 2020.

A Russian court has ordered Google to pay 2 million rubles ($28,085) for violating the country's rules on banned content.

In recent months, Russian courts have ordered Google to pay fines totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars for failing to delete banned content on its search engine and YouTube.

Courts have also fined Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram, and TikTok on similar charges.

Google confirmed the November 8 fine, but gave no additional comment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused social-media platforms and other tech giants of flouting the country's Internet laws, including a push to force foreign firms to open offices in Russia and store Russians' personal data on its territory.

Many critics say the push has nothing to do with "Internet integrity" and instead accuse the authorities of trying to quell dissent.

Based on reporting by Reuters

Five Czech parties have signed a power-sharing deal to form a coalition government following the country's parliamentary elections last month, vowing to anchor foreign policy to the European Union and NATO, while putting relations with Russia and China "under review."

Petr Fiala, 57, of the Civic Democratic Party is slated to be the next prime minister under the agreement, signed on November 8, cementing the ouster of Euroskeptic Prime Minister Andrej Babis and his populist ANO movement from government.

The parties-- the Civic Democratic Party, the Christian Democrats, TOP 09, the Pirate Party, and STAN-- together won 108 seats in the 200-member lower house of parliament in the October 8-9 election.

The 42-page coalition agreement outlines the new government's immediate tasks, including addressing a surge in coronavirus infections, high inflation, and trimming the budget deficit.

"We need to solve the problems which trouble the people as fast as possible, and to lead the country out of the several crises it has been in -- health, economic, and a crisis of values," Fiala said at a signing ceremony.

The agreement says that, with regard to foreign affairs, policy "will be based on anchoring in the European Union and NATO and on good relations with all neighboring states."

It adds that "we will continue to deepen cooperation with democratic partners in the Asia-Pacific areas (such as Taiwan, Japan, the Republic of Korea and others)" and that "we will review relations with Russia and China."

It does not explain what the review of relations will entail.

President Milos Zeman, who has been criticized for being too Russia-friendly, has suggested he is willing to swear in Fiala as prime minister, but it is unclear when that may happen because he has been receiving treatment in the hospital for an undisclosed condition.

With reporting by iDnes, Seznam zpravy, and Reuters

A U.S. national who took part in the January 6 riot at the Capitol building in Washington is seeking political asylum in Belarus.

In an interview with the state-controlled Belarus-1 television channel, which was broadcast on November 7, Evan Neumann said he had followed the advice of his lawyer and fled to Europe after six charges were filed against him.

Neumann said that he stayed in Switzerland and Italy for some time and then went to Ukraine for four months.

In mid-August, Neumann was detained by Belarusian border guards for illegally crossing from Ukraine.

According to Neumann, he decided to flee to Belarus and seek political asylum there after Ukraine's security services had started expressing interest in him.

The Californian faces six federal charges for taking part in the riot at the Capitol, which involved supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump interrupting the certification of President Joe Biden's victory in the election.

SEE ALSO:

'We Know What To Do': Far-Right Figures Across Eastern Europe Applaud U.S. Capitol Violence

In his interview with Belarus-1, Neumann rejected the charges, calling them "political persecution."

With reporting by AFP and Belarus-1

EU members Poland and Lithuania say they are stepping up security at their borders with Belarus as Warsaw said that thousands of migrants were massing near the Belarusian side of the border.

In recent months, thousands of migrants from the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa have attempted to illegally enter Poland and fellow EU members Latvia and Lithuania from Belarus.

The EU has accused Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka of flying in migrants and funneling them to the bloc's borders to retaliate against Brussels for sanctions imposed over a sweeping crackdown on the political opposition, civil society, and independent media since last year's disputed presidential election.

Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller told reporters on November 8 that there were currently around 3,000-4,000 migrants near the Belarusian border with Poland, and thousands more ready to follow them.

The Defense Ministry in Warsaw on November 8 distributed a video which it said showed a group of migrants near the Bruzhi-Kuznica border crossing.

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"Belarus wants to cause a major incident, preferably with shots fired and casualties," Deputy Foreign Minister Piotr Wawrzyk told Polish public radio the same day.

In one video posted on social media, people carrying rucksacks and wearing winter clothing are seen walking on the side of a highway with a billboard written in Belarusian.

Another video showed a large group of men and women escorted by armed men in military uniform.

Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak tweeted on November 8 that more than 12,000 soldiers have been deployed on the border, up from the 10,000 soldiers that were there recently.

A volunteer Territorial Defense force was put on alert, he added.

He said that his ministry, together with the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for police and border guards, was "prepared to defend the Polish border."

SEE ALSO:

On Poland's Border With Belarus, A Syrian Refugee's Desperate Battle To Save His Family

Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said the Polish authorities were "prepared for any scenario."

"Tough defense of the border is our priority. We increased the number of Border Guard officers, police officers and soldiers. We are waiting in full readiness,” he wrote on Twitter.

The Belarusian State Border Committee said that the "inhumane attitude of the Polish authorities made the refugees to go for this step of despair."

The deepening crisis prompted calls for the EU to take swift action against Belarus to protect the bloc's borders, following repeated warnings and protests from Brussels.

"I am calling on member states to finally approve the extended sanctions regime on the Belarusian authorities responsible for this hybrid attack," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said after speaking with the prime ministers of Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.

"The EU will in particular explore how to sanction, including through blacklisting, third-country airlines that are active in human trafficking," she said.

Poland has already imposed a state of emergency at the border, put up razor wire, and increased the number of soldiers and guards to stem the flow of migrants crossing from Belarus. Lawmakers have also approved the building of a $407 million wall on its eastern border.

The interior minister of neighboring Lithuania said on November 8 that her country was also moving troops to its border with Belarus to prepare for a possible influx of migrants.

The cabinet in Vilnius will also discuss whether to declare a state of emergency in the area bordering Belarus, Agne Bilotaite told a news conference.

She did not say how many soldiers would be deployed and precisely where they would be moved.

A NATO official called Minsk's alleged use of migrants to put pressure on the EU "unacceptable," and said the alliance was worried about "escalation" on the border with Poland.

The alliance, of which Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia are member states, "stands ready to further assist our allies, and maintain safety and security in the region," the official told the AFP news agency.

Meanwhile, exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya urged a "strong response" from the European Union, and said the matter should be discussed at the United Nations Security Council.

"Belarus' regime escalates the border crisis -- migrants are pushed to EU border by armed men. The migrant smuggling, violence & ill-treatment must stop," she tweeted.

With reporting by Reuters and BNS

Iran’s Press Supervisory Board has shut down a newspaper apparently over a graphic that depicted the hand of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in connection with a story about rising poverty in the country.

Alaedin Zohourian, the head of the press supervisory board, told the official government news agency IRNA on November 8 that board members had decided to cancel the license of the daily Kelid (Key).

Zohourian did not say whether the decision was final or just temporary. He also didn’t provide any reason for the move.

The Young Journalists' Club, a news site affiliated with Iran’s state broadcaster, said on November 7 that Kelid was being investigated over its front page a day earlier that included a graphic depicting Khamenei’s hand drawing the poverty line.

“Millions of households below the poverty line,” the newspaper said.

Criticism of Khamenei, the most powerful political authority in the Islamic republic, is considered a red line.

“Whenever the Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran or the true Sources of Emulation are insulted in a publication, its license will be revoked and its responsible manager and the author of that article will be brought before the appropriate court and punished,” Article 27 of Iran’s Press Law says.

In the past, the Press Supervisory Board has revoked the licenses of a number of publications for alleged violations.

In 2012, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the board for engaging in censorship activities.

Iran is ranked 174th out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

A court in Russia has confirmed the refusal of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Mordovia to consider a request by former U.S. marine Paul Whelan to serve out in his home country the rest of his prison term on espionage charges that he says are fake.

The appeals court in the city of Nizhny Novgorod handed down its decision on November 8, saying it was leaving the Mordovian Supreme Court decision "unchanged."

Whelan's lawyers said immediately after the decision was announced that they would appeal the ruling, calling it a move to "evade the implementation of justice" for the American.

In September, Mordovia’s Supreme Court sent Whelan's request back to the Justice Ministry "to obtain the necessary information in accordance with clauses of an international agreement of the Russian Federation, as well as for the preliminary coordination [of the issue] with a competent organ of the United States."

The defense team initially asked the Moscow City Court to consider Whelan's request to be handed over to the United States to finish serving his sentence there. But the court refused to review the matter claiming jurisdictional issues and forwarded it to Mordovia, where Whelan is currently incarcerated.

Mordovia, a region located about 350 kilometers east of Moscow, is historically known as the location of Russia's toughest prisons, including Soviet-era labor camps for political prisoners.

SEE ALSO:

International Spy? Or Just A Guy At A Wedding In Moscow?

Whelan was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 on espionage charges and sentenced to 16 years in prison in May 2020 following a trial that was condemned by the United States as a "mockery of justice."

A holder of U.S., Canadian, British, and Irish passports, Whelan has rejected the espionage charges and has accused his prison guards of mistreatment.

The United States has also criticized Russian authorities for their "shameful treatment" of Whelan.

Whelan was head of global security at a U.S. auto-parts supplier when he was arrested. He and his relatives insist he was in Russia to attend a wedding.

He is one of several Americans to face trial in Russia in recent years on charges that their families, supporters, and in some cases the U.S. government, have said are trumped up.

Another former U.S. Marine, Trevor Reed, is serving a nine-year prison term in Mordovia as well. He was sentenced in July 2020 on charges of assaulting two Russian police officers.

SEE ALSO:

Ex-U.S. Marine Could Face 10 Years In Russian Prison For Drunken Incident He Can't Remember

The U.S. government and Reed deny the allegations and questioned the fairness of his judicial proceedings.

Reports have surfaced several times of a possible swap involving Whelan, Reed, and two Russians -- arms dealer Viktor Bout and drug smuggler Konstantin Yaroshenko -- who are serving lengthy sentences in U.S. prisons.

Whelan's lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov said on November 8 that there are no talks regarding the possible swap at the moment, and that to his knowledge one of the conditions of such talks could be the demand by the Russian side to recognize Whelan's conviction as legal.

With reporting by TASS and Interfax

AQTAU, Kazakhstan -- A massive explosion in Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea port city of Aqtau has completely destroyed a two-story building that housed a cafe.

The Emergency Ministry's directorate in the Manghystau region said the explosion hit the building late in the night on November 7.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Rescue workers were searching for potential victims under the debris.

Ministry spokesman Talghat Uali said there were no customers in the cafe when the devastating blast occurred.

The moment the blast took place was caught on security cameras and shared online by Internet users.

The blast was felt across the city of around 200,000 people.

Police in North Macedonia discovered dozens of migrants in a truck near the Greek border in the southeastern part of the Balkan nation, authorities say.

Police on November 7 said a patrol car was following the truck near the town of Star Dojran, 160 kilometers south of the capital, Skopje.

The driver of the truck and a passenger suddenly jumped from the moving vehicle, and the truck turned and struck the police car. Police officers were not injured.

On inspection of the truck, police found 42 migrants – one from Bangladesh and the rest from Syria.

Police said it was the first large group of migrants discovered in North Macedonia in the past six months.

The group was moved to a migrant shelter in Gevgelija on the border with Greece.

Authorities said they will be deported back to Greece, where police said they believe they came from.

North Macedonia is a transit route for migrants trying to get from Greece to wealthier countries in Western and Northern Europe.

People smuggling have remained active in the region despite border closures and restrictions of movement during the COVID-19 pandemic, although numbers have declined.

A refugee wave sparked tensions during the European migration crisis in 2015 and 2016 and prompted tough action by Skopje to prevent migrants from using North Macedonia as a transit route.

Skopje's countermeasures six years ago included the erection of a fence on the border with EU member Greece as the number of stranded refugees, most of them from North Africa and the Middle East, mounted.

Based on reporting by AP and RFE/RL’s Balkan Service

Several dozen Chinese workers in Russia’s Far East staged a protest on November 7 against their employer, Kremlin-controlled oil giant Rosneft.

Roughly 50 workers walked out of their temporary housing in Komsomolsk-on-Amur and walked toward the center of the city, local media reported.

The Chinese workers are helping to repair a Rosneft oil refinery. The workers claim they have not been paid in months and are demanding to be returned to China, local media said.

Rosneft, one of the world’s largest oil companies, rejected those claims.

The company said the employees have been fired for the poor quality of their work, but can not be sent back to China due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The company said that in the meantime it is paying the workers a minimal salary and daily allowance.

Rosneft has been seeking to build business ties with China, one of the largest and fastest growing markets in the world for oil and gas.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has called the presence of the U.S. Navy in the Black Sea a provocation after another ship entered the strategic waters.

“This is an almost constant attempt to test us, to check how ready we are, how much we have built the entire [defense] system off the Black Sea coast,” Shoigu told state TV on November 7.

Shoigu said other countries are doing it as well but did not name any nation in particular. Russia claimed in June that it fired warning shots at a British naval vessel that passed through Crimean waters.

The Black Sea has become a hot spot in relations between the Kremlin and the West after Russia annexed Crimea, a move that gives it access to the peninsula's Black Sea coast.

Most countries do not recognize Russia’s annexation and continue to seek permission from Ukraine to traverse the waters near Crimea.

Members of the U.S.-led military alliance, NATO, border the Black Sea, including Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. U.S.-friendly nations including Ukraine and Georgia also border the sea.

The United States holds naval training exercises with allies and partners in the Black Sea and also regularly patrols the waters.

Shoigu said Russia was keeping an eye on the USS Mount Whitney of the U.S. Sixth Fleet, which entered the Black Sea on November 4.

The U.S. Navy said the USS Mount Whitney’s operations in the Black Sea demonstrate U.S. and NATO’s commitment to the region.

Moscow plans to relocate more than 150,000 residents into new high-rise buildings by 2024 as it accelerates the pace of the demolition of dilapidated, Soviet-era homes.

More than 300 new homes containing 5 million square meters will be built under the city’s renovation program from 2022 through 2024, Andrei Bochkaryov, deputy mayor for construction, told the media on November 7.

He said 155,000 residents -- roughly 1.2 percent of the city's more than 12 million population -- will be relocated into the new buildings.

Last month, Bochkaryov said that 154 homes totaling 2 million square meters had been built over the past four years under the program, with more than 54,000 people relocated.

At the moment, 150 buildings are in the construction phase and another 150 are in the planning stages, he said.

Many of Moscow’s Soviet-era high-rise homes were cheaply built, offering residents little comfort, and are also notoriously energy inefficient.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has dismissed a letter written by several U.S. lawmakers criticizing the growth of corruption and decline of media freedom in the Balkan nation during his leadership.

Vucic said he doesn’t fear a U.S. asset freeze because, he claimed, he doesn’t own assets abroad. He also said he would repeat his “semilegal” purchase of ventilators for the country if necessary.

The United States “will not find any assets outside the country,” Vucic told media on November 7 when asked about the congressional letter.

Seven U.S. lawmakers -- all Democrats in the House of Representatives -- called on U.S. President Joe Biden to push Vucic to “combat corruption and attacks on freedom of the press” and impose asset freezes against certain Serbian individuals, if necessary.

The November 5 letter -- which was issued following a trip to Washington by Serbian opposition leader Dragan Djilas -- criticized Vucic’s self-declared quasi-black market purchase of ventilators last year, as well as the government’s preferential treatment of media favorable to its policies, as emblematic of corruption and declining press freedom.

The lawmakers also said the dealings of the majority state-owned Telekom Srbija have been “shrouded in secrecy.” Telekom Srbija has been scooping up media and cable companies, strengthening the state’s control over the sector.

The company has been accused of overpaying for some of the acquisitions.

“We urge you to consider using [executive sanctioning power] where appropriate to push for a more transparent and accountable Serbian government that respects democracies, human rights, and the rule of law,” the lawmakers said in their letter.

Vucic, who came to power in 2017, is up for reelection next year. The lawmakers urged the administration to hold Serbia “accountable to the highest standards of free and fair elections, including the campaign period ahead of the election and the vote count itself.”

Russian prosecutors in the souther region of Rostov have opened a criminal investigation into the torture of inmates at a prison hospital, local rights activists said.

Igor Omelchenko, the chairman of the local Public Monitoring Commission, told Meduza news agency that the case was opened in September and focuses on the torture of prisoners at Interregional Tuberculosis Hospital No. 19.

Omelchenko said he was questioned by investigators on November 5 as a witness in the case and said that more than 60 victims are willing to testify in court.

Natalya Merkulova, the chairwoman of the commission, said that prisoners were tied to their bed for days. Russia law only permits prisoners to be tied down when they are receiving a medical injection.

SEE ALSO:

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

Their organization first came forward with concerns about the torture of prisoners at the tuberculosis hospital in September 2020, but Omelchenko said the former regional prosecutor refused to open a case.

A new prosecutor took office in February and agreed to open a criminal case.

In a recent post on its Instagram page, the commission blamed the atmosphere of torture on the previous prison leadership and claimed that officers and workers who took part in the mistreatment were fired.

The investigation in Rostov comes amid an explosive revelation of endemic torture in Russia’s prison system.

A former inmate who was allowed to work with a penitentiary’s computer system downloaded dozens of videos of torture at various prisons in Russia and distributed them to media.

He is currently seeking asylum in France after Russia issued a warrant for his arrest.

KYIV -- Ukraine has received nearly 3 million doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine through a UN fund amid a surge in new cases in the country.

UNICEF, also known as the United Nations Children's Fund, delivered the anti-virus medication on November 7.

The deliveries are part of a UN program aimed at helping stop the spread of the virus in countries that don’t have the financial resources to buy them.

Ukraine has now received more than 7.4 million free doses under the UN program.

The deliveries come as the country faces its worst wave of the pandemic.

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'They Don't Believe COVID Exists': Ukraine Battles New Wave Of Virus, Public Misinformation

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Ukraine registered more than 17,000 new coronavirus cases on November 7, more than double the number from just two months ago.

More than 440 have died over the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll from the virus to more than 72,000.

Ukraine has imposed restrictions again in several cities, including the capital, Kyiv, amid the latest wave.