Serbia's government has backed down in the face of sizable public protests and withdrawn legislative changes that would have made it easier for the government to seize private property if deemed to be in the public interest.

The decision, announced on December 8, followed mounting public opposition to a $2.4 billion lithium mine in western Serbia proposed by the Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto.

In a press release, the government said officials would revisit the changes "and, if it is determined that the law needs to be changed, will do so with a broad public debate that will include the professional public, professional associations, business representatives, and civil society."

The withdrawal of the amendments, and the protests, come amid mounting scrutiny of several Chinese-backed ventures, including a gold-and-silver mine, for alleged labor and environmental violations.

Unlike the Rio Tinto mine, however those projects have already received necessary permitting.

SEE ALSO:

'Like Someone Cutting Off Your Arms And Legs': Rio Tinto's Lithium Mine Sparks Anger In Serbia

Last month, the Serbian parliament, which is dominated by the party allied with President Aleksandar Vucic, voted to amend a law making it easier for the state to seize private property if it is deemed to be in the national interest.

Vucic had until December 10 to sign the measure into law.

Vucic earlier signed new legislation that eliminated the minimum threshold for voter participation in national referendums -- theoretically making it easier to pass such referendums. Until now, a referendum was not considered valid if less than 50 percent of registered voters cast ballots.

Environmental and civil society groups said the amendments would pave the way for foreign companies, such as Rio Tinto, to circumvent popular discontent over such projects.

Protesters staged large demonstrations for two successive weekends earlier this month to protest the legislative changes, blocking streets in Belgrade and other major towns and cities.

SEE ALSO:

Thousands Of Serbs Protest 'Anti-Environment' Laws; Vucic Vows To 'Solve Problems'

The Rio Tinto project, which would have been Europe's largest lithium mine, had attracted sharp scrutiny.

Experts warned it could destroy farmland and further pollute Serbian waters. Rio Tinto, however, denied the project would endanger the environment and vowed to respect Serbian laws.

SARAJEVO -- Bosnia-Herzegovina's top court has confirmed the indictment of the Balkan country's security minister, who is accused of abusing his official position over the irregular sale of weapons and military equipment a decade ago when he held the post of defense minister.

The court on December 8 confirmed the indictment against Selmo Cikotic, charging him of depriving the state of about 9.7 million marks ($5.6 million) from 2009 to 2011 by unlawfully changing the terms of a contract for the sale of surplus outdated weapons, ammunition, and military equipment in order to favor the buyer, a Croatian company.

The indictment said Cikotic had done so without informing his deputies or members of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, and in breach of the legal procedure.

Cikotic was defense minister from 2006 to 2012, and became security minister last year.

Investigations often take years in corruption-plagued and ethnically divided Bosnia, which is still struggling to recover from a devastating war in 1992-95.

More than 100,000 people were killed in the conflict, which ended with a U.S.-brokered agreement that divided the country and its administration largely along ethnic lines among Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats.

The Czech government has approved the deployment of up to 150 soldiers to help Poland stop migrants entering from Belarus, amid on ongoing crisis on the European Union's eastern flank that the West has accused Minsk of orchestrating.

According to the plan, subject to approval by both chambers of the Czech parliament, the troops will have a mandate to stay in Poland for 180 days, Defense Minister Lubomir Metnar tweeted on December 8.

If the plan is adopted, as expected, the Czechs would join similar numbers of troops deployed in Poland by fellow NATO members Estonia and Britain.

Along Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, the Czech Republic is part of the so-called Visegrad Group, which has taken a firm line on migration.

Belarus is engaged in a bitter diplomatic standoff with the West over authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka's crackdown on dissent since a disputed presidential election last year, and what the EU has called his "weaponization" of mainly Middle Eastern migrants to create a crisis on Belarus's border with Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Minsk denies EU accusations it engineered the crisis to destabilize the entire 27-member bloc in retaliation for sanctions imposed for human rights abuses.

SEE ALSO:

Belarus Retaliates Against Western Sanctions With EU, U.S. Food Import Ban

For weeks, thousands of migrants have been trying to reach Poland or the Baltic states via Belarus.

The number of attempted illegal crossings into Poland has decreased in recent days, with the country's border guards reporting 51 such attempts on December 7, a fraction of the numbers seen in mid-November when several hundred people tried to cross the border in a day.

The EU has passed sanctions on Lukashenka's regime over its brutal crackdown on the country's pro-democracy movement in the wake of the disputed August 2020 election.

Last week, the bloc imposed a fifth round of sanctions aimed at individuals and entities thought to be responsible for participating in the "hybrid attack" on the EU using migrants.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

U.S. President Joe Biden has said the United States will not send troops to Ukraine to defend against any potential Russian invasion.

Biden spoke to reporters on December 7, a day after he and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, held a two-hour videoconference.

Biden said he had warned Putin that if Russia did launch new military action against Ukraine -- something U.S. intelligence has warned might be possible in the coming weeks -- the United States and allies would impose sanctions "like none he'd ever seen."

"The idea the United States is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not in the cards right now," he also said, according to a White House transcript.

"We have a moral obligation and a legal obligation to our NATO allies under Article 5. It's a sacred obligation. That obligation does not extend to...Ukraine," which is not a member of the military alliance, Biden said.

Washington has signaled it plans to supply more weaponry, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, and other materiel to Ukraine.

Tens of thousands of Russian troops have deployed to regions near the Ukrainian border, alarming both Ukraine and officials in Europe and the United States.

SEE ALSO:

Putin Repeats Opposition To NATO Membership For Ukraine

In his own comments describing the conference call with Biden, Putin again repeated Russia's insistence that Ukraine should never be allowed to join NATO.

"We cannot fail to be concerned about the prospect of Ukraine's possible admission to NATO, because this will undoubtedly be followed by the deployment there of military contingents, bases and weapons that threaten us," the Russian president said.

The Hungarian Foreign Ministry has confirmed to RFE/RL that it issued a special visa to a Belarusian sports official allowing him to travel to the Czech Republic, from where he was expelled a week ago for violating COVID-19 pandemic rules.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has continued to maintain friendly ties with Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid international condemnation of widespread allegations of vote-rigging and brutal suppression of dissent since a disputed presidential election last year.

Uladzimer Bazanau and his wife were detained on November 30 in the northeastern Czech city of Opava ahead of a scheduled World Cup qualifier that same day between the Belarusian women's national soccer team and the Czech women's team. The game in Opava was postponed after a coronavirus outbreak in the Belarusian team.

SEE ALSO:

Czech Authorities Deport Belarus Soccer Chief For COVID Violations

Bazanau and his wife were deported the next day after being accused by Czech authorities of violating COVID-19 protocols.

Bazanau, an ally of Lukashenka, is on a sanctions list of the EU's Baltic member states -- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Unlike Cyprus, where Bazanau and his wife had visited the day before, the Czech Republic enforces the Baltic states' sanctions.

The Hungarian Foreign Ministry told RFE/RL on December 7 that it issued Bazanau a 90-day Schengen visa, and that the Belarusian had an invitation from UEFA, European soccer's governing body.

The ministry claimed it had issued the visa on behalf of Switzerland, where UEFA is headquartered.

There has been no comment to that allegation from Swiss officials.

The Schengen area is a zone composed of 26 European countries that have officially abolished border controls between their territories.

The EU has passed five rounds of sanctions on Lukashenka's regime over a brutal crackdown on the country's pro-democracy movement in the wake of the disputed August 2020 election.

The bloc adopted its latest package of sanctions on December 2 over allegations Minsk orchestrated a migrant crisis on the border of Poland and fellow EU members Latvia and Lithuania.

SEE ALSO:

Belarus Retaliates Against Western Sanctions With EU, U.S. Food Import Ban

The new sanctions target 17 individuals and 11 entities thought to be responsible for the crisis at the EU's eastern border, and should come into effect on their publication later on December 8 in the bloc’s Official Journal, a legal registry. In total, the EU has so far targeted 183 Belarusian individuals and 26 entities with sanctions.

Britain, the United States, and Canada also announced their own punitive measures on December 2 targeting Belarusian entities, including a complete asset freeze on a global leader in potash fertilizer, OJSC Belaruskali.

In a joint statement, the EU, Britain, Canada, and the United States cited "continuing attacks on human rights and fundamental freedoms in Belarus, disregard for international norms and repeated acts of repression."

Belarus's Foreign Ministry responded to the latest sanction announcements by vowing "harsh and asymmetrical" steps in response.

Minsk has denied it has funneled migrants, mainly from the Middle East, to Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeated his insistence that Ukraine should not join NATO, while U.S. President Joe Biden says that Washington has no intention of sending U.S. troops to defend Ukraine against any new Russian invasion.

The two leaders spoke in separate appearances on December 8, one day after they met for a two-hour videoconference amid fears of a new war over Ukraine.

The talks – their third direct meeting since Biden took office in January— came as tens of thousands of Russian troops have deployed to regions near the Ukraine borders. Ukrainian officials put the number at just below 100,000, while U.S. intelligence has warned the figure could reach 150,000 in the near future.

It’s one of the largest movements of Russian forces toward Ukraine in years, outside of regularly scheduled training exercises.

That, plus the absence of more routine notification procedures shared even between adversaries, has set off alarm bells, not only in Ukraine, but in many NATO countries, particularly those in Eastern Europe.

In Washington, Biden said he had warned Putin that if Russia launched a new invasion against Ukraine, the United States would retaliate with sanctions "like none he's ever seen.”

"I made it very clear, if in fact he invades Ukraine, there will be severe consequences, severe consequences -- economic consequences like none he's ever seen or ever have been seen," he told reporters.

But Biden also said no U.S. troops would be sent to Ukraine to help defend against a Russian invasion.

"The idea the United States is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not in the cards right now," the U.S. president said, according to a White House transcript.

SEE ALSO:

Biden Says No U.S. Troops Will Be Deployed To Ukraine In Event Of Russian Invasion

Neither Russian nor U.S. officials have described the December 7 conference call as yielding any breakthroughs.

In Moscow, Putin characterized the talks as "very open, substantive, and constructive."

"We have an opportunity to continue the dialogue. This is most important," the Russian president said.

Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the two sides planned more meetings of envoys in the coming weeks.

SEE ALSO:

He Said, He Said: Russian, U.S. Statements On Biden-Putin Call Differ Starkly

In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who was scheduled to speak with the U.S. president on December 9, called the Putin-Biden talks positive, saying that "the United States has always supported Ukraine, our sovereignty and independence."

"But the most important thing is that now we see a real and personal reaction from President Biden and his personal role in resolving the conflict," Zelenskiy said.

Though Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and is unlikely to be for some years, Russia views the prospect of Kyiv joining the Western alliance as a threat following NATO's expansion into nations from the former Soviet bloc as well as ex-communist Central and Eastern European states in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Russia asserts Kyiv is failing to meet its commitments under the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements aimed at putting an end to the conflict.

SEE ALSO:

Talk Of War: Frontline Ukrainian Soldiers Respond To Invasion Warnings

It was unclear exactly what punishment the Biden administration is threatening to wield if Russia were to launch an attack on Ukraine.

Some analysts have pointed to the possibility Russia could be cut off from the international system of financial payments known as SWIFT, which would hit Russian banks hard.

Another possible punitive measure would be a renewed effort to block Nord Stream 2, the Baltic Sea pipeline that will significantly increase Russian gas supplies to Europe via Germany once it is approved by regulators.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration reached a deal with Germany that averted sanctions on the pipeline's operator, removing a major irritant in relations between the two allies.

But in recent days German officials have warned a Russian invasion of Ukraine would put an end to the pipeline.

France, meanwhile, warned Moscow on December 8 it would face "strategic and massive consequences" if Russia attacked Ukraine.

The French Foreign Ministry also said that in phone calls between five major Western allies -- France, Britain, Italy, Germany, and the United States -- leaders agreed that "the sovereignty of Ukraine be respected."

Ukraine has been fighting a war against Kremlin-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine since early 2014 that has killed more than 13,200 people.

After Biden and Putin met in Geneva in June, many experts hoped that the Ukraine conflict would inch toward resolution, as Washington and Moscow looked for ways to arrest the downward spiral in relations.

The two leaders also spoke by telephone in July, when Biden called on Putin to do more to crack down on ransomware and hacking attacks against the United States. Many of the leading ransomware groups either operate in, or originate from, Russia.

A court in Moscow has sentenced a man to 32 months in prison for damaging a vehicle of the Federal Security Service (FSB) during January protest rallies in support of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.

The Tver district court on December 8 found vlogger Konstantin Lakeyev guilty of damaging FSB property and sentenced him the same day.

Lakeyev was arrested and charged on January 26, pleading guilty to the charges.

Lakeyev is one of several people to be handed prison terms or suspended sentences in recent months for attacking police or police equipment during the nationwide demonstrations held on January 23 and 31 to protest against Navalny's arrest.

The Kremlin critic was detained at a Moscow airport on January 17 upon his arrival from Germany, where he was recovering from a poison attack by what several European laboratories concluded was a military-grade chemical nerve agent in Siberia in August 2020.

Navalny has claimed his poisoning was ordered directly by President Vladimir Putin, which the Kremlin denies.

In February, a Moscow court ruled that while in Germany, Navalny had violated the terms of parole from an old embezzlement case that is widely considered as being politically motivated.

Navalny's 3 1/2-year suspended sentence from the case was converted to a jail term, though the court said he will serve 2 1/2 years in prison given time he had been held in detention.

More than 10,000 supporters of Navalny were detained across Russia during and after the January rallies. Many of the detained men and women were either fined or handed several-day jail terms At least 90 were charged with criminal misdeeds and several have been fired by their employers.

In October, European lawmakers awarded Navalny the Sakharov Prize, the European Union's highest human rights honor.

With reporting by TASS and Interfax

BISHKEK -- A court in Bishkek has again refused to release jailed Kyrgyz politician Ravshan Jeenbekov, whom the country's Committee for Civic Control human rights organization has declared a political prisoner.

The Birinchi Mai district court in Bishkek on December 8 ruled that the former parliament member (no relation to ex-President Soornbai Jeenbekov) must remain in pretrial detention, rejecting a request from his defense team for a transfer to house arrest.

Jeenbekov's lawyers said last month that their client needed to travel abroad to receive medical treatment for an illness related to problems with his liver.

Jeenbekov was arrested in December 2019 in a criminal case related to a violent two-day standoff in August that year between security forces and supporters of former President Almazbek Atambaev, which resulted in the death of a top security officer and more than 170 injuries -- 79 of them sustained by law enforcement officers.

Jeenbekov, Atambaev, and 12 other men and women are charged with murder, attempted murder, threatening or assaulting representatives of the authorities, hostage taking, and forcible seizure of power.

Atambaev is currently serving a prison term he received in another case related to the illegal release from prison of a notorious criminal kingpin in 2013.

During mass anti-government rallies in October 2020 sparked by controversial parliamentary elections that led to resignation of the government, Jeenbekov was released from a detention center and placed under house arrest.

In early August, Jeenbekov was rearrested after a court ruled that he had violated the conditions of his house arrest.

Jeenbekov has rejected all of the charges against him, calling them politically motivated.

MINSK -- An Israeli woman who has been held in Belarus for over a month after customs officials found her carrying 2.5 grams of prescription marijuana has urged Israeli authorities to get her "out of this hell."

Maya Raiten, a lawyer, was arrested on November 11 upon her arrival in Minsk, where she came to provide legal assistance to an Israeli businessman.

Raiten says she had a medical note for the marijuana, which she uses for pain control, but Belarusian authorities said the document had no legal standing in the country and that possessing marijuana in Belarus is a serious crime.

Israeli media published a letter from Raiten on December 7 in which she wrote: "I will not last much longer here."

"I am going through excruciating agony, driven by worries for my children, my beloved parents who are not young.... I am cut off from communication of any kind to the world outside," Raiten's letter says, adding that none of the three other women in her cell can speak English or Hebrew.

Media reports in Israel say the country's embassy in Minsk is aware of the situation and has been working on Raiten's release since the day of her arrest.

With reporting by Kan

British Foreign Minister Liz Truss has urged Iran to agree to return to the stalled nuclear deal worked out with world powers in 2015, saying it is the "last chance" to do so.

"This is really the last chance for Iran to sign up, and I strongly urge them to do that because we are determined to work with our allies to prevent Iran securing nuclear weapons," Truss told the Chatham House think tank on December 8.

Talks between world powers and Iran regarding Tehran's controversial nuclear program are scheduled to resume on December 9 in Vienna.

The negotiations aimed at resurrecting the deal, under which Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, got off to a rocky start last week.

The United States, which left the agreement in 2018 but which is open to rejoining the pact under President Joe Biden, has accused Iran of not being seriously interested in a new deal.

And Germany, a member of the P5+1 group that signed on to the original deal, on December 6 said it had reviewed Tehran's proposals for restarting the accord "and concluded that Iran had violated almost all compromises found previously in months of hard negotiation."

The proposals were "not a basis for a successful end to talks," a spokeswoman for Germany's Foreign Ministry said, adding that Berlin expected Iran to return to international negotiations with "realistic" bargaining positions.

Iran, which has refused to participate in direct talks with Washington, has said that there can be no new deal unless all punitive sanctions imposed against Tehran are lifted.

Based on reporting by Tasnim, dpa, and Reuters

Belarusian prosecutors have filed final charges against Russian citizen Sofia Sapega, who was arrested along with her boyfriend, opposition blogger Raman Pratasevich, after authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka ordered a passenger plane they were on diverted as it flew over the country's airspace.

The chairman of Belarus's Investigative Committee, Dzmitry Hara, told reporters on December 8 that Sapega has been charged with inciting social hatred, damaging information security, mishandling private data, and threatening law enforcement.

Crisis In Belarus

Read our coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election.

If convicted, Sapega could face up to six years in prison.

Hara added that the official charges and the case will be handed to Sapega and her defense team "in the near future."

Hara said several former employees of the BelTelecom communication company, as well as users of the Telegram social-media platform, will be tried in the case.

Sapega, who has lived most of her life in Belarus, and Pratasevich, who is Belarusian, were arrested on May 23 when Lukashenka scrambled a military jet to escort a Ryanair passenger flight over its airspace to land in Minsk.

Many countries regard the diversion as a "state hijacking."

After the plane landed, law enforcement officers immediately arrested the two, who were flying from Athens to the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. They were later put under house arrest.

Pratasevich faces charges of playing a role in civil disturbances that followed a disputed presidential election in August 2020. He faces up to 15 years in prison.

He was a key administrator of the Telegram channel Nexta-Live that had been covering mass protests against the official results of the election, which handed Lukashenka a sixth presidential term, despite widespread criticism that the vote was rigged.

Lukashenka's regime has been under international pressure since it launched a brutal crackdown to put down the protests.

The EU, the United States, and other countries have refused to recognize the official results of the vote and do not consider Lukashenka to be the country's legitimate leader.

Many of those countries have since slapped several rounds of coordinated sanctions on Belarus.

Russia's media regulator has blocked the online anonymity service Tor in what is seen as the latest move by Moscow to bring the Internet in Russia under its control.

Roskomnadzor announced it had blocked access to the popular service on December 8, cutting off users' ability to thwart government surveillance by cloaking IP addresses.

"The grounds were the spreading of information on the site ensuring the work of services that provide access to illegal content," Roskomnadzor told AFP in explaining the decision.

In a blog post, the Tor Project confirmed the move, and also offered users a way to circumvent the block.

Tor, which stands for The Onion Router, was founded by U.S. computer scientists as a way to anonymize computer traffic and IP addresses. The nonprofit foundation that runs the browser says its mission is to advance human rights and freedoms. It says it has more than 300,000 users in Russia-- second only to the United States.

The network is used to hide computer IP addresses to conceal the identity of an Internet user.

SEE ALSO:

Moscow Court Orders Google To Pay More Fines For Failing To Delete Content

In recent months, Russia has accused social-media platforms and other tech giants of flouting the country's Internet laws by not removing content banned in Russia. The authorities have also sought to force foreign firms to open representative offices and store data collected on Russian citizens inside the country.

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 on YouTube, and have fined Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram, and TikTok on similar grounds.

Aside from Tor, Russia has blocked six other virtual private network (VPN) service providers that shield IP addresses, and still seeks to block others.

The moves threaten to cut off the main avenue for the country's political opposition, rights groups, and activists to express their views.

Critics accuse the authorities of trying to quell dissent.

Russia launched a "sovereign Internet" project in 2019 that could allow the Russian segment of the Internet, or RuNet, to separate itself from the World Wide Web.

Currently based in Seattle, Washington, Tor gets funding from private philanthropies like the Ford and Alfred P. Sloan foundations, as well as the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

In the past, the organization has also received funding from Human Rights Watch and International Broadcasting Bureau, a division of the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

MOSCOW -- Two former neo-Nazi activists convicted and jailed for their involvement in the killing of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova in 2009 will be transferred from penal colonies to detention centers until at least March 8 after Russia's Supreme Court annulled its previous decision to uphold their sentences.*

A lawyer of Baburova's family, Pyotr Zaikin, told the Novaya gazeta newspaper on December 8 that the Supreme Court sent the case to a cassation entity, meaning a retrial is extremely doubtful.

The Supreme Court decision comes after the European Court of Human Rights ruled in February that the 2011 trial of Nikita Tikhonov and Yevgenia Khasis, former members of the neo-Nazi group called Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists (BORN), was not fair and that the case must be revised.

Khasis's lawyer, Dmitry Agranovsky, said on December 8 that he hopes the sentences of his client and her associate will eventually be annulled following the Supreme Court's latest decision.

Markelov and Baburova, who were known for crusading against ultranationalist violence, were shot dead in broad daylight near the Kremlin in 2009.

In 2011, Tikhonov was found guilty of murdering Markelov and Baburova and sentenced to life in prison. Khasis was handed an 18-year prison term for assisting Tikhonov.

Markelov had represented investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in 2006, as well as civilians in the North Caucasus region of Chechnya who were abused by Russian troops.

The killings sparked accusations that the Kremlin was not doing enough to hunt down the attackers of activists and journalists at the time.

CLARIFICATION: This story has been changed to clarify the nature of the Supreme Court ruling. It did not annul the sentences but annulled a previous decision to uphold the sentences.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service, Novaya Gazeta, Ekho Moskvy, Meduza, and Interfax

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- A court in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, has sentenced noted opposition activist Erlan Faizullaev to 15 days in jail for allegedly participating in a rally last month, his third conviction in the past six months.

Faizullaev was found guilty on December 7 of violating the law on mass gatherings by taking part in an unsanctioned rally demanding political reforms late last month in a park in Almaty. Faizullaev pleaded not guilty, saying that he was in the area to attend a concert that had nothing to do with the rally.

Earlier in November, the 39-year-old activist, along with two other opposition activists, was sentenced to five days in jail on charge of disobedience to police, while in June he was sentenced to 18 months of parole-like restricted freedom for supporting the banned Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement and its associated Koshe (Street) party.

Many activists across the Central Asian nation have been handed lengthy prison terms or parole-like restricted freedom sentences in recent years for their involvement in the activities of the DVK and the Koshe party, as well as for taking part in rallies organized by the two groups.

DVK is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, the fugitive former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and an outspoken critic of the Kazakh government. Kazakh authorities labeled the DVK extremist and banned the group in March 2018.

Human rights groups have said Kazakhstan’s law on public gatherings contradicts international standards as it requires preliminary permission from authorities to hold rallies and envisions prosecution for organizing and participating in unsanctioned rallies, even though the nation’s constitution guarantees its citizens the right of free assembly.

Kazakh authorities have insisted there are no political prisoners in the Central Asian country.

NOTE: The photo at the top of this article has been changed as the original image showed someone wrongly captioned as Erlan Faizullaev

NUR-SULTAN -- Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has signed a law creating a mass amnesty as part of commemorations marking the 30th anniversary of the Central Asian nation's independence.

According to the law, which was signed by Toqaev late on December 7, more than 2,300 inmates and over 11,000 men and women on parole will be affected by the amnesty.

Interior Minister Erlan Turghymbaev said last month when introducing the bill on the amnesty that almost 1,000 inmates will be released from penitentiaries, while parole restrictions imposed on 3,800 others will be lifted.

Turghymbaev also said at the time that the sentences of 1,294 inmates and 7,392 persons on parole will be reduced and that 5,000 pending criminal cases will be closed.

According to official statistics, there are more than 34,000 inmates currently being held in Kazakhstan's 64 prisons and 16 detention centers.

Kazakhstan was the last Soviet republic to declare independence, doing so on December 16, 1991.

A Russian Soyuz rocket carrying a Japanese billionaire and a reporter for Russia's state news agency TASS has blasted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The Soyuz MS-20 is expected to complete four circles around the Earth before docking with the International Space Station (ISS) after a six hour-flight.

The rocket is carrying Japanese online fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa, his assistant, Yozo Hirano, and TASS reporter Aleksandr Misurkin.

The group is to spend 12 days in space.

Based on reporting by Reuters and TASS

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a $770 billion defense bill that provides funding for Ukraine's military and Baltic stability and pushes back against China.

The bill passed late on December 7 with strong bipartisan support and is expected to be voted on by the Senate this week.

Democrats control both the House and Senate. Upon passage by both houses of Congress, the bill would have to be signed by President Joe Biden to become law.

The bill authorizes $25 billion more than requested by Biden and would increase the defense budget by about 5 percent, but omits a proposal to impose mandatory sanctions over Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

SEE ALSO:

Talk Of War: Frontline Ukrainian Soldiers Respond To Invasion Warnings

Lawmakers also dropped an amendment that would have banned U.S. citizens from purchasing Russian sovereign debt.

Ukraine's military will receive $300 million under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, while $4 billion is earmarked for the European Defense Initiative and $150 million for Baltic security cooperation.

The bill targets China with $7.1 billion allocated for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, a statement of congressional support for the defense of Taiwan, and a ban on the Defense Department procuring products produced using forced labor from China's Xinjiang region.

The United States says China is carrying out genocide against Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region, with as many as 2 million incarcerated in detention camps.

Based on reporting by dpa and Reuters

President Joe Biden’s pick to serve as the country’s top banking regulator withdrew her nomination after Republican attacks about her Soviet upbringing and concerns among moderate Democrats.

Saule Omarova, a Kazakh-American law professor, had been tapped by the White House to be the next head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a position that has wide oversight of the U.S. banking system.

The White House said on December 7 that she had pulled herself from consideration after her nomination was put in doubt by several Republican senators who falsely accused her of being a communist, as well as legitimate concerns from moderate Democrats about her positions on banking reform.

During her confirmation hearing last month before the Senate Banking Committee, several Republican senators grilled her on her upbringing, asking her about her time in Komsomol, the communist youth organization that millions of Soviet teenagers belonged to, often as a way of enhancing their employment and academic prospects.

SEE ALSO:

Biden's Controversial Soviet-Born Pick For A Top U.S. Financial Post

Born in Soviet Kazakhstan, Omarova immigrated to the United States in 1991 and later became a U.S. citizen.

Senator Pat Toomey (Republican-Pennsylvania) pressed Omarova on her undergraduate studies at Moscow State University, before the Soviet collapse, where she wrote a paper about Karl Marx. Another senator, John Kennedy (Republican-Louisiana), said: “I don’t know whether to call you professor or comrade.”

Democrats rushed to Omarova's defense, saying some of the criticism bore the hallmarks of the Red Scare that plagued the United States after World War II.

Omarova responded to the comments by lawmakers by saying that she is not a communist, doesn't "subscribe to that ideology," and "could not choose where I was born.”

“My family suffered under the communist regime,” she said. “I grew up without knowing half of my family; my grandmother herself escaped death twice under the Stalin regime. That is what is seared in my mind. That’s who I am. That's what I remember. I came to this country. I’m proud to be an American.”

In the statement announcing that the White House was withdrawing her nomination, Biden said Omarova was subjected to “inappropriate personal attacks that were far beyond the pale.”

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

The United States has slapped sanctions on about a dozen Iranian officials and entities accused of committing "serious" human rights abuses.

The sanctions announced on December 7 target government officials and organizations that Washington said have been involved in the repression of protesters and political activists, as well as prisons where activists have been held in brutal conditions.

Several Syrian officials were also placed on the U.S. Treasury Department's blacklist for their roles in political repression and chemical gas attacks, along with Uganda's military intelligence chief.

The announcement came ahead of the Washington-hosted virtual Summit for Democracy from December 9-10, billed by the State Department as a push to promote more free and open societies across the world.

“Consistent with the goals of this week’s Summit for Democracy, the United States is committed to using its full range of tools to counter serious human rights abuse and repressive acts across the world," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said the U.S. sanctions “won't create leverage -- and [are] anything but seriousness & goodwill.”

"Washington fails to understand that 'maximum failure' and a diplomatic breakthrough are mutually exclusive," Khatibzadeh wrote on Twitter.

The Iranian sanctions single out officials and entities involved in brutal crackdowns on protests in 2009 and 2019, including special units of Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces and their commander, Hassan Karami.

Those blacklisted also included Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the paramilitary Basij force, which the Treasury Department described as “one of Iran’s most important domestic security resources.”

The governor of Qods City, Leila Vaseghi, was also targeted “for issuing an order to the police and other armed forces during the November 2019 protests to shoot unarmed protestors, causing dozens of deaths or injuries.”

With reporting by Reuters

The regime of authoritarian Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka says it will ban a wide range of food imports from European Union members states, the United States, and other countries starting next year in retaliation for sanctions imposed against Minsk.

The ban will concern imports from the EU, the United States, Canada, Britain, Norway, Albania, Iceland, Northern Macedonia, and Montenegro, the government said on December 7.

The measure, which is set to remain in force for six months starting on January 1, will cover foodstuffs such as meat, sausages, dairy products, vegetables, fruit, and salt.

Baby food and dietary items will be exempted.

The government said more products could be banned in the event of further Western sanctions.

The European Union, the United States, and other Western countries have imposed several rounds of sanctions on Minsk over Lukashenka's crackdown on pro-democracy protests against his disputed reelection in August 2020.

Last week, punitive measures were widened on officials and businesses for allegedly inciting a migration crisis at the EU’s eastern border.

Belarus has denied it has funneled migrants, mainly from the Middle East, to Belarus's border with Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Thirteen people were killed and another seven were injured when a minibus collided with a truck in northern Ukraine, authorities say.

The accident took place at about 8 a.m. on December 7 in the Chernihiv region, according to the State Emergency Service.

The cause of the accident is not yet known.

Police opened proceedings under the article "violation of traffic safety rules, which resulted in the death of several people."

German federal prosecutors have demanded life in prison without parole for a Russian man accused of murdering a former Chechen commander in Berlin more than two years ago -- allegedly on the orders of Moscow.

The request was made to a Berlin court on December 7 after 14 months of trial of the man identified by prosecutors as Vadim Krasikov, who is accused of shooting dead Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity, in Kleiner Tiergarten Park in August 2019.

The suspect, who was arrested minutes after the killing, has claimed his innocence. He had traveled to Germany on a Russian passport issued under the name of Vadim Sokolov.

Federal prosecutors identified him as a "commander of a special unit of the Russian secret services FSB."

Summing up the case, prosecutor Lars Malkies told the court that the suspect “liquidated a political opponent as an act of retaliation."

His colleague, Nikolaus Forschner, said the accused had carried out a "state order to kill."

In an earlier hearing, the suspect told the court through his lawyer that he should be identified only as Vadim Sokolov, who is "Russian, single, and a construction engineer."

He said he knew “no one” named Krasikov.

Khangoshvili, 40, had fought Russian troops in Chechnya.

He had previously survived several assassination attempts and continued to receive threats after fleeing in 2016 to Germany, where he had been granted asylum.

Based on reporting by dpa and AFP

The United Nations’ top court has ordered both Armenia and Azerbaijan to work to prevent racial hatred and discrimination and ease their feud following last year's war between the South Caucasus neighbors over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) also told Azerbaijan on December 7 to protect Armenian prisoners from the conflict and to stop the desecration of Armenian cultural heritage.

The Hague-based court’s orders are pending a full case review of the dispute, which could take years to resolve. However, the judges have no real means of enforcing their orders.

Yerevan and Baku have both requested that the ICJ take emergency measures against alleged breaches of a UN treaty banning racial discrimination.

The two former Soviet republics "shall refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the court or make it more difficult to resolve," ICJ chief Judge Joan Donoghue said.

In a statement sent to RFE/RL, the Foreign Ministry in Baku said Azerbaijan "will comply with the measures indicated by the court related to preventing racial discrimination, which reaffirm existing treaty obligations that Azerbaijan takes seriously and is committed to upholding."

There was no immediate comment from the Armenian government.

Tensions have simmered for years over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian region internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan that broke away from Baku's control in the early 1990s.

A six-week war erupted last year that claimed more than 6,500 lives. The fighting ended with a Russia-brokered cease-fire under which Armenia ceded territories it had controlled for decades to Azerbaijan. Border tensions have since remained high, with the worst renewed deadly fighting taking place last month.

The ICJ on December 7 ordered Azerbaijan to "protect from violence and bodily harm" all Armenian prisoners from the conflict and ensure they are treated lawfully, and to prevent the "vandalism and desecration" of churches and other Armenian cultural heritage.

Both Azerbaijan and Armenia must "take all necessary measures to prevent the incitement and promotion of racial hatred and discrimination" against the other, it ruled.

The order involved "officials and institutions" in Azerbaijan and "organizations and private persons" in Armenia.

The ICJ threw out Azerbaijan’s request to make Armenia stop laying land mines and to hand over maps of mines, saying that it was not covered by the International Convention On All Forms Of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

During hearings in October, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of fueling a "cycle of hate," while Baku accused Yerevan of "ethnic cleansing."

The ICJ orders come days after Azerbaijan announced on December 4 that it had freed 10 Armenian soldiers captured during deadly border clashes in mid-November.

In return, Armenia handed over maps detailing the location of minefields.

The swap came after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian agreed to ease tensions on November 26 at a meeting in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi.

With reporting by AFP

BISHKEK -- Kyrgyzstan's election commission has announced the final preliminary results of last month's parliamentary elections following the manual count of all ballots, with six parties set to enter the new legislature.

According to the results released by the Central Election Commission (BShK) on December 7, three pro-government parties won seats in the Jogorku Kenesh (Supreme Council): Ata-Jurt (Fatherland) Kyrgyzstan, Yntymak (Harmony), and Ishenim (Trust).

Butun (United) Kyrgyzstan, Alyans (Alliance), and Yiman Nuru (Ray of Faith) also passed the 5 percent threshold to get in. Butun Kyrgyzstan has been in the opposition, while the other two parties have been affiliated neither with the government nor the opposition. However, Alyans on December 6 announced it would side with the opposition in parliament.

The final official results of the elections are to be announced no later than 20 days after the polls, which will falls on December 18.

Four opposition parties that failed to pass the 5 percent barrier -- Ata-Meken (Homeland), Azattyk (Liberty), the Social Democrats, and Uluttar Birimdigi (Union of Ethnicities) -- have accused the BShK of fraud and called for a new vote.

At issue was a glitch during the counting in which technical problems caused a tabulation monitor at the commission to suddenly show that several opposition parties had fallen below the 5 percent threshold.

The BShK and President Sadyr Japarov have insisted that the glitch was not intentional and affected only data displayed on the screen without affecting the results themselves.

However, a full hand count of the ballots was ordered in an attempt to allay the complaints raised by the opposition.

SEE ALSO:

Democratic 'Blackout'? Latest Kyrgyz Parliamentary Elections Can't Escape Controversy

According to the preliminary results announced by the BShK on December 7, Ata-Jurt Kyrgyzstan won 17.3 percent of vote, Ishenim 13.63 percent, and Yntymak 10.99 percent in the November 28 elections.

Butun Kyrgyzstan had 7.04 percent, Alyans 8.34 percent, and Yiman Nuru 6.15 percent.

Azattyk leader Ismail Isakov said his party planned to join other opposition parties that failed to enter the legislature to set up a "people's parliament" that would "propose ideas to the government."

Street protests in the former Soviet republic have sparked government ousters three times in the past two decades, including after disputed parliamentary elections last year that swept Japarov to power after he was sprung from prison.

The Central Asian country adopted a new constitution in a referendum in April that lowered the number of seats in parliament from 120 to 90, and changed the system of voting for candidates, with 54 seats being selected by party list and the remaining 36 in single-mandate districts.

A gunman has opened fire in a government services center in Moscow and killed two people, after being told to wear a face mask, local authorities and media said. Four people were also reported wounded.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on VKontakte that the deadly shooting took place at the Ryazansky documentation service center on December 7.

"The killer was detained. I express condolences to the wounded people and the families of the deceased ones. Doctors are doing everything to aid the wounded people," Sobyanin wrote.

Deputy Mayor Anastasia Rakova said those killed in the incident included a security officer and an administrator of the center.

Those wounded were in serious condition, Rakova said.

Media reports quoted witnesses and officials of the documentation services center as saying that the man pulled a gun and started shooting after he was confronted by security inside the premises because he refused to wear a mask, as required by city authorities to stem the spread of COVID-19.

The reports identified the shooter as a 45-year-old Muscovite.

The Investigative Committee said it had launched a probe into "murders" and "illegal firearm possession."

With reporting by TASS, Interfax, and Shot