The director of Chechnya’s state television has issued death threats against the “enemies” of Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov.

Chingiz Akhmadov, head of the Grozny State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, said in an Instagram video on June 21 that he stands “with Ramzan Kadyrov.”

“If someone needs to be killed, someone who deserves death, then we will kill. If it is necessary to say a word, then we will say the word,” he said.

Akhmadov said any "enemy of Ramzan Kadyrov is the enemy of the Chechen people," and personally his enemy.

Under Kadyrov, Chechnya's security services are notorious for carrying out human rights abuses against political opponents, including torture, abduction, and extrajudicial killings.

Kadyrov, who on numerous occasions has threatened to kill or jail his critics, has previously declared that death threats and intimidation are a part of “Chechen ethics.”

The Russian State Prosecutor's Office has banned the U.S. nongovernmental organization Bard College after labelling it "undesirable."

The office said on June 21 that the activity of educational NGO Bard College "represents a threat to the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation."

Bard was not immediately available to comment.

The "undesirable organization" law, adopted in May 2015, was part of a series of regulations pushed by the Kremlin that squeezed many nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations that received funding from foreign sources -- mainly from Europe and the United States.

In April, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it would put a stop to the activity in Russia of U.S. funds and NGOs which it said interfered in the country's domestic affairs, in retaliation to an array of U.S. government sanctions imposed on Moscow.

The prosecutor office's decision was forwarded to the Justice Ministry in order to amend the list of undesirable foreign organizations, the statement said. Currently, the list includes 34 organizations, with Bard College to become 35th.

The move comes after the Russian parliament’s lower chamber, the State Duma, earlier this month approved in the final reading a bill that widens the scope of the “undesirable” law.

Under the bill approved on June 16, individuals may face up to six years in prison if found guilty of organizing operations of "undesirable" international organizations on the Russian territory.

With reporting by Reuters and TASS

DUSHANBE -- Tajikistan's Supreme Court has sentenced three police officers to lengthy prison terms on torture charges.

The Civil Society Coalition Of Tajikistan Against Torture said over the weekend that the verdicts and sentences of the three police officers had been pronounced on June 17.

Police officers Sherali Azizov, Sadi Davlatmurodzoda, and Eraj Naimov, were found guilty of torturing Hasan Yodgorov, a resident of the western city of Tursunzoda. The officers were sentenced to prison terms of between 10 years and 13 years.

Yodgorov confessed to a murder in 2017 under duress and torture, but was released from custody eight months later after the real killer was apprehended.

Yodgorov said at the trial that there were more police officers who tortured him with electric shocks and water, but he did not know their names.

Police brutality and the use of torture by investigators in Tajikistan has been an issue raised by human rights organizations for years.

In 2019, Tajik authorities toughened punishment for torture in custody, increasing the maximum punishment for that crime from five years to 15 years in prison.

A lawmaker for the ruling United Russia party, Andrei Ledovskoi, has been found dead in his home in Russia's southern region of Stavropol Krai.

The 47-year-old man was a lawmaker in the town of Ipatovo. Local media reports said a preliminary investigation revealed that Ledovskoi may have been strangled.

Ledovskoi and another lawmaker, Tatyana Prokopenko, were under preliminary investigation over alleged inconsistencies in their income declarations.

Several days ago the two lawmakers were officially warned that they may lose their mandates.

The Investigative Committee's directorate in the region said an investigation has been launched into the lawmaker's death.

With reporting by Rossiiskaya Gazeta and Newstracker

Ukraine's controversial tycoon Dmytro Firtash has denied the allegations behind Kyiv's move to impose sanctions on him for selling titanium products that the Ukrainian government believes end up being used by Russian military enterprises.

The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, which coordinates security policy, last week announced the sanctions against Firtash, who is currently living in Vienna while fighting extradition to the United States.

Firtash's lawyer in the United States, Lanny Davis, said on June 21 that his client had not been officially notified of the decision to impose sanctions against him.

Nonetheless, "Mr. Firtash categorically denies the allegations, which he says are wrong," Davis said, refusing to comment further.

Ukraine has been fighting Russia-backed separatists in its eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk since 2014, following Moscow's illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.

Kyiv accuses Moscow of sending troops and arms to support the separatists, whom it calls terrorists.

Firtash, one of Ukraine's richest men and a one-time ally of ousted Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych, is wanted for bribery and racketeering charges in the United States.

Firtash denies those charges as well, calling them politically motivated. He is currently seeking a new trial after Austria's Supreme Court upheld his extradition in 2019.

If extradited, the oligarch may faces many years in prison in the United States.

With reporting by Reuters

BELGRADE -- The British Embassy in Belgrade has denied a report saying it had signed an agreement with the Serbian Defense Ministry on preventing Russia's influence in the Balkan country.

The Daily Telegraph on June 18 reported that British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace had said in an interview during his visit to Serbia that the two countries signed an important agreement to block Russia's influence and that Britain would help Serbia resist Russia's "evil influence" and "manipulation."

The embassy, in a written statement to RFE/RL, denied that Britain had signed such an agreement with Serbia's Defense Ministry. Earlier, the Defense Ministry in Belgrade also denied the existence of such an agreement.

The statement said the document signed during Wallace's visit last week focused on "consolidating and expanding the current bilateral cooperation between the ministries of defense of Serbia and the United Kingdom."

"The document deals with topics such as the joint participation of our countries in international peacekeeping missions. There is no mention of any other state in this document," the statement said.

"Our Minister of Defense during his official visit emphasized that the United Kingdom respects Serbia's military neutrality.“

Asked by RFE/RL to clarify Britain's position with regard to Russia, an embassy representative pointed to the public strategy document known as the Integrated Review of Foreign Policy and Defense -- a review by the British government into the foreign, defense, security, and international development policies of the United Kingdom published in March.

Belgrade and Moscow maintain close relations despite Serbia's being a candidate for EU membership.

Russia also supports the efforts of Serbian officials to block Kosovo's membership in international institutions, while Belgrade has refused to impose sanctions against Russia.

The United States, the European Union, Britain, and Canada have slapped a fresh round of coordinated sanctions on Belarus in response to the regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka's mounting repression against the political opposition and the free media.

"These coordinated designations demonstrate the steadfast transatlantic commitment to supporting the Belarusian people's democratic aspirations," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on June 21, as the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on 16 individuals and five entities.

The Treasury said the move was coordinated with the United States' international partners and was meant to hold to account Lukashenka's regime for its ongoing abuses and violations of international norms, including its forced diversion of a commercial Ryanair flight and arrest of journalist Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega last month.

"The persons designated today have harmed the people of Belarus through their activities surrounding the fraudulent August 9, 2020, presidential election in Belarus and the ensuing brutal crackdown on protesters, journalists, members of the opposition, and civil society," the Treasury said in a press statement.

Among the entities blacklisted by the Treasury were the main Belarusian security service, the KGB, the Internal Troops of the Interior Ministry of the Republic of Belarus, and the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption, known as the GUBOPIK, who were all involved in the postelection repression.

Prosecutor-General Andrey Ivanavich Shved, who has "filed politically motivated terrorism charges and extradition requests against presidential candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya," and Mikalay Karpyankou, Belarus’s deputy interior minister and the current commander of the ministry's internal troops were among the blacklisted individuals.

Lukashenka's press secretary, Natallya Eismant, and his former chief of staff, Natallya Kachanava, who is currently the leader of Belarus's upper house of parliament, are also listed among the blacklisted individuals.

"The United States and its partners will not tolerate continued attacks on democracy and the ceaseless repression of independent voices in Belarus," Andrea Gacki, director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in the statement.

EU Sanctions

In Luxembourg, EU foreign ministers on June 21 agreed to sanction key sectors of the Belarusian economy and major revenue sources for the regime: potash fertilizer exports, the tobacco industry, petroleum, and petrochemical products.

The measures include a ban on sales of surveillance equipment to Belarus and tightening of an arms embargo.

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.

The ministers also officially signed off on adding 78 additional individuals and eight entities to an assets freeze and visa ban blacklist.

Seven people -- including the defense and transport ministers -- were sanctioned for the forced landing of the Ryanair passenger jet.

The remaining 71 individuals -- including Russian tycoon Mikhail Gutseriyev, Lukashenka's son, Dzmitry, and his eldest son's wife, Liliya, were also put on the sanctions list for "benefiting from and supporting the Lukashenka regime."

The list also includes lawmakers, prosecutors, judges, and other officials who the bloc says are "responsible for serious human rights violations and for seriously undermining the rule of law, as well as for the repression of civil society and democratic opposition."

"Today we have confirmed and decided that sectoral sanctions will be taken against Belarus, which will have a severe impact on the Belarusian economy," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said ahead of the meeting.

"We want the release of the political prisoners, an end to the violence against protesters and the opposition, and an inclusive dialogue that will lead to free and fair elections."

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said earlier that the economic sanctions should be confirmed after a summit of the 27-member bloc's leaders in Brussels later this week.

"We're going to hurt the economy of Belarus heavily," Borrell said.

EU's trade with Belarus amounted to more than 10 billion euros ($11.9 billion) in 2020.

Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who insists she rightfully won last year's presidential election, welcomed the inclusion of business tycoons and top officials on the blacklist.

"It's a rather strong sanction list," she told a press conference in Brussels.

In London, the British government announced travel bans and asset freezes against 11 "senior-ranking officials" as well two entities.

Britain said its sanctions were imposed separately to the EU, which it left last year, but in coordination to those announced by Washington, Ottawa, and Brussels.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: "The Lukashenka regime endangered the lives of airline passengers and crew in a shameful ruse to snatch Raman Pratasevich."

"We will hold the regime to account in coordination with our allies including through further banning travel, freezing assets, and cutting off oil export revenue streams."

In September 2020, London announced sanctions on human rights grounds against Lukashenka, his son, and senior figures in the Belarusian government.

The Canadian Foreign Ministry also announced in a statement sanctions against 17 Belarusian individuals and five entities.

With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa, and TASS

Iran's President-elect Ebrahim Raisi says he backs discussions to revive the 2015 deal regulating its nuclear sector but draws the line at holding direct talks with U.S. President Joe Biden.

The 60-year-old Raisi, speaking on June 21 for the first time since he won an election last week, said that even if Washington removed all sanctions against Iran, he has no intention of meeting with Biden.

"We support the negotiations that guarantee our national interests.... America should immediately return to the deal and fulfil its obligations under the deal," he said.

"Any meeting must produce a result...for the Iranian nation," he added.

SEE ALSO:

Meet The New Boss: Iran's Raisi In His Own Words And Those Of Others

The hard-line conservative, who won nearly 62 percent of the vote in the June 18 election, will take office in early August, replacing Hassan Rohani, who served the maximum two consecutive terms and was a key architect of the nuclear deal, which lifted some international sanctions in exchange for Iran agreeing to put curbs on its nuclear program.

The United States unilaterally withdrew from the pact in 2018 and began reimposing damaging financial sanctions against Iran. In response, Tehran steadily has exceeded limits on its nuclear program spelled out in the deal, prompting the other four signatories to the deal -- Britain, France, Germany, and Russia -- to work with the European Union to bring Washington back into the fold.

While Iran is looking to rid itself of the punishing U.S. sanctions that have crippled its economy, Raisi said that "all U.S. sanctions must be lifted and verified by Tehran."

Still, when asked if he would meet Biden if the sanctions were lifted, Raisi answered: "No."

Raisi, an ultraconservative cleric who headed Iran's judiciary, was one of the judges in 1988 who oversaw a series of speedy trials in which thousands of political prisoners were sentenced to death and executed.

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Human rights organizations say he is guilty of crimes against humanity, and the United States has placed him under sanctions.

Raisi said his foreign policy priority would be improving ties with Iran's Gulf Arab neighbors, and that he was hoping to resume diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, the Sunni-ruled regional rival of Shi'ite Iran, which have been severed for five years.

The two sides began direct talks in Iraq in April aimed at containing tensions and Raisi said in the interview that "the reopening of the Saudi Embassy is not a problem for Iran."

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and dpa

A Russian national detained in April in Ukraine's Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula on espionage charges has been transferred to Moscow.

The Moscow Lefortovo district court on June 21 said that Yevgeny Petrushin's pretrial detention had been extended until September 20 after he was transferred from Crimea to the Russian capital last week.

According to the court, Petrushin was arrested on April 21 in the Crimean city of Sevastopol.

The Lenin district court in the city of Sevastopol said on April 22 that "a Russian citizen born in 1998" suspected of high treason had been placed under pretrial arrest until at least June 19. The name of the suspect was not disclosed at the time.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said then that its officers had detained a person who "passed classified information about Russia's Black Sea Fleet to Ukrainian military intelligence."

Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, sending in troops and staging a referendum denounced as illegitimate by at least 100 countries after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted amid a wave of public protests.

Since then, Russia has arrested dozens of people in Crimea on charges including extremism, terrorism, and espionage.

Rights groups have said that after imposing its control over the peninsula, Moscow aggressively moved to prosecute Ukrainian activists and anyone who questions the annexation.

Russia also backs separatists in a war against Ukrainian government forces that has killed more than 13,200 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Several Kazakh activists have launched a hunger strike, demanding the cancellation of a court decision to ban the opposition Koshe (Street) party.

Several residents of the Central Asian nation's largest city, Almaty, started the hunger strike on June 20 in front of the Esil district court, which banned the party a year ago.

The protesters are demanding the ban be legally assessed and cancelled, as well as the release and exoneration of all people sentenced for taking part in the activities of the Koshe party.

"Dozens of people were sentenced. About 20 have been in custody for more than 10 months now, many under house arrest. Lawmakers must assess the court's decision and the situation," one of the hunger strikers, Meirkhan Abdimanapov, told RFE/RL on June 21.

The activists say they will not stop the hunger strike until the decision to label the party extremist is reversed.

Kazakhstan's courts have issued prison sentences or parole-like sentences to several activists in recent months for their support or involvement in the activities of the Koshe party and its associate Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement. Other activists also have spent time in jail for taking part in unsanctioned rallies that were organized by the two groups.

The DVK is led by Mukhtar Ablyazov, a fugitive former head of Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank and an outspoken critic of the Kazakh government.

Kazakh authorities banned the DVK as an extremist group in March 2018.

Human rights groups say Kazakhstan’s law on public gatherings contradicts international standards.

The law requires rally organizers to obtain preliminary permission from authorities. It also calls for the prosecution of those who organize or participate in unsanctioned rallies -- despite constitutional guarantees stating that citizens have the right to freely assemble.

UN human rights experts have condemned the continued imprisonment of Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, whose health has “seriously deteriorated” since her arrest three years ago.

Iranian authorities have failed to release Sotoudeh despite “many calls” to do so, and instead last year transferred the lawyer to another prison, “farther away from her family and under dire conditions,” the experts said in a statement on June 21.

Sotoudeh was arrested June 2018 after representing opposition activists including women prosecuted for removing their mandatory headscarves.

She was later sentenced to a combined 38 1/2 years imprisonment and 148 lashes on charges including spying, spreading propaganda, and insulting Iran's supreme leader. Under Iranian law, she will need to serve 12 years in prison, the longest of her sentences.

The activist found herself back in prison in December 2020, less than a month after she was granted a temporary release.

Sotoudeh is being held in the Gharchak women's prison in Tehran, which is “overcrowded” and has “serious” sanitary issues, according to the UN experts.

"There is a recurrent lack of access to health care for inmates, and there is insufficient and/or non-nutritional food which also leads to health issues.”

Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, said in November she had contracted COVID-19 while in the prison, where he said conditions were particularly “catastrophic.”

Khandan has also been targeted for challenging compulsory veiling laws, having received a six-year prison sentence in a ruling that can be enforced at any time.

“We repeat our call to the authorities to release Nasrin Sotoudeh as a matter of urgency, review her case, and quash her convictions, as well as her husband’s,” the UN experts said.

“Iran must put an end to the criminalization of Nasrin Sotoudeh for her legitimate and peaceful work in defense of human rights.”

The experts insisted that “no one should be coerced to wear religious symbols that they consider not essential or even contrary to their religions or beliefs.”

Dubravka Simonovic, UN special rapporteur on violence against women; Javaid Rehman, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran; and Nils Melzer, special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, were among the experts.

Russian officials, grappling to contain a deadly new third wave of coronavirus infections, have reopened a mobile hospital in Moscow as President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the situation in some regions has worsened.

Moscow region Health Minister Svetlana Strigunkova said on June 21 that the mobile COVID-19 hospital that was set up in Patriot Park near Moscow and then shut down in mid-February has resumed operations with 1,420 beds available to treat COVID cases.

The announcement came after the country reported 17,378 new COVID-19 cases on June 21 with 440 deaths linked to the coronavirus in the previous 24 hours.

"Unfortunately, the coronavirus threat is not over yet. In some regions the situation has been aggravated, as you know," Putin said on June 21 at a meeting with the country's lawmakers.

Moscow city authorities said on June 21 that 7,584 new coronavirus cases had been registered in the last 24 hours while that figure was 8,305 a day earlier.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said last week that coronavirus cases were on rise in the Russian capital and announced that vaccinations against COVID-19 will be compulsory for 60 percent of employees in the services sector.

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In the country's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, which is hosting several matches in the European soccer championships, a video posted on Telegram on June 20 by the online publication Baza showed patients lying on mattresses laid out on the floor or on rolling beds in corridors at the hospital No. 15 because of a lack of space for patients in the facility.

City authorities said over the weekend that 65 percent of city employees must be vaccinated by mid-August. They also announced new restrictions in the city, including a ban on attending aquaparks and amusement parks. People may attend events with more than 75 participants only if they have a negative PCR-test, while overall gatherings are capped at 500 people.

An exception has been made for fan zones for the Euro 2020 tournament, though capacity has also been reduced to 3,000 from a previous limit of 5,000. The city had already halted the sale of food in the zones and all participants must wear masks.

The governor of the northwestern region of Pskov, Maksim Vedernikov, on June 21 called the COVID-19 situation there "critical." with hospitals "overcrowded."

"At this point, 97 patients, including a 10-year-old child, are in very serious condition," Vedernikov said.

Russia's federal coronavirus taskforce team said on June 21 that the total number of cases since the pandemic started in March last year was 5,334,204, including 129,801 deaths. Many critics, however, have accused authorities of suppressing the number of deaths from the pandemic.

With reporting by North.Realities, RFE/RL's Russian Service, TASS, and Interfax

Police have demanded that a court force the former coordinator for jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's team in the Russian city of Yaroslavl to cover the amount of money spent to disperse a rally to support the Kremlin critic in January.

Yelena Lekiashvili said on June 20 that the Yaroslavl city police department want her to pay 510,000 rubles ($7,000), which, according to the police department, would reimburse the labor costs for 204 police officers who had to work at the demonstration on January 23.

Lekiashvili was one of the organizers of the nationwide demonstrations in January against Navalny's arrest. She was found guilty of organizing the unsanctioned rally in the city, which is some 250 kilometers northeast of Moscow, on January 23 and served 10 days in jail for the offense.

Navalny 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.

Navalny has insisted that his poisoning was ordered directly by President Vladimir Putin, which the Kremlin has denied.

In February, a Moscow court ruled that, while in Germany, Navalny had violated the terms of parole from an old embezzlement case, which is widely considered to have been politically motivated. His 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 those detained 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.

After the rallies, police in the Russian cities of Omsk, Kemerovo, Penza, and Chelyabinsk demanded that organizers of the pro-Navalny protests compensate them for their expenditures to disperse the rallies.

With reporting by Mediazona

UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet has said she hoped she would be able to visit China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang this year and be given "meaningful access," amid what she called continued "reports of serious human rights violations" there.

Bachelet made the comments at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on June 21, as China is facing growing international criticism over its treatment of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim indigenous people in Xinjiang – with the United States using the word genocide.

SEE ALSO:

Watchdog Says Repression In Xinjiang Amounts To Crimes Against Humanity

It is the first time Bachelet has publicly laid down a timeline for her visit, which her office has been negotiating the terms of since 2018.

"I continue to discuss with China modalities for a visit, including meaningful access, to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and hope this can be achieved this year, particularly as reports of serious human rights violations continue to emerge," she said.

The UN has estimated that at least 1 million members of these ethnic groups have been detained in what it described as "counterextremism centers" in the region.

The UN has also said that millions more have been forced into internment camps, though Beijing insists that the facilities are "vocational education centers" aimed at helping people steer clear of terrorism and allowing them to be reintegrated into society.

Rights defenders also accuse China of forcing hundreds of thousands of people into labor camps under a “coercive” scheme targeting ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang – a claim rejected by Beijing.

Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters

Germany’s authorities say they have arrested a Russian citizen accused of passing sensitive information from a German university to Moscow in return for cash.

The suspect, identified only as Ilnur N., was suspected of "working for a Russian secret service since early October 2020 at the latest," the Office of the Federal Public Prosecutor said in a statement on June 21.

The office said the man was taken into custody on June 18.

The suspect worked as a research assistant for a scientific and technical professorship at a German university, whose name was not provided, it said.

He met a member of a Russian foreign secret service at least three times between October 2020 and June 2021 and passed on information during at least two of these meetings in return for an unspecified amount of cash, the prosecutors added.

An investigative judge at the Federal Court of Justice has ordered the suspect kept in pretrial custody pending a possible indictment.

Maria Butina, a member of Russia's Public Chamber, identified the detained man as Ilnur Nagayev, who worked at a machine-building department at a university in Germany's southern city of Augsburg.

Iran's atomic energy body says the country’s sole nuclear power plant has been temporarily shut down over a "technical fault."

"Following a technical fault at Bushehr power plant, and after a one-day notice to the Energy Ministry, the plant was temporarily shut down and taken off the power grid," the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said on its website overnight.

The agency added that the power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr will be reconnected to the national electricity network "within the next few days" after the issue is resolved.

An official from the state electric company Tavanir, Gholamali Rakhshanimehr, said the shutdown would last "three to four days," and that power outages could ensue.

In a statement, Tavanir said the nuclear plant was being repaired, adding that the repair work would take until June 25. It did not offer further details

This is the first time Iran has reported an emergency shutdown of the Bushehr plant, which went online in 2011.

The facility was completed by Russia after years of delay, with its only reactor producing 1,000 megawatts of power.

In 2016, Russian and Iranian companies began building two additional reactors at the site. Their construction was expected to take around 10 years.

Bushehr is fueled by uranium produced in Russia, and Tehran is required to send spent fuel rods back to Russia as a nuclear nonproliferation measure.

The facility is monitored by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, which acknowledged being aware of reports about the plant but declined to comment.

Iran started rolling blackouts in May this year after several cities were hit by power cuts that the authorities said had been caused by drought impacting hydropower generation and surging electricity demand blamed in part on heat and cryptocurrency mining.

SEE ALSO:

Iranian President Says Cryptocurrency Mining 'Must Stop' Until September

Bushehr Province was shaken in April by an earthquake that left five people injured but caused "no damage" to the nuclear complex, according to Iranian authorities.

Also in April, Iran accused Israel of being behind an attack on its Natanz uranium enrichment plant after a blast at the facility.

With reporting by AP and AFP

European Union foreign ministers have approved a fresh set of sanctions against scores of officials and entities in Belarus including family members of authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

The list of 78 people and eight entities, expected to be published in the EU official journal on June 21, includes lawmakers, prosecutors, judges and other officials who the bloc says are "responsible for serious human rights violations and for seriously undermining the rule of law, as well as for the repression of civil society and democratic opposition."

Lukashenka's son, Dzmitry, and his eldest son's wife, Liliya, were also put on the sanctions list for "benefiting from and supporting the Lukashenka regime."

The new measures of asset freezes and visa bans were agreed upon by experts tasked with drawing up sanctions on Belarus in response to the forced landing of a Ryanair flight last month in Minsk and the arrest of an opposition activist who was onboard.

The EU has already banned Belarusian airline companies from flying over the bloc’s territory or using its airports over the flight diversion.

SEE ALSO:

What Now For Brussels And Belarus After Forced Landing Of EU Flight?

Even before the incident, the EU was considering new sanctions over the brutal crackdown on the opposition by the Lukashenka regime in the wake of a disputed election last August.

EU officials are also preparing a series of broader measures aimed at hurting the country's economy, according to the bloc's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.

"We will approve the package of new sanctions, which is a wider package," Borrell told reporters as he arrived in Luxembourg to chair the ministerial meeting.

Previous rounds of sanctions also hit individual institutions and Lukashenka's inner circle.

If agreed by EU governments at a political level, the latest round of broader sanctions would include a ban on new loans, on EU investors from trading securities or buying short-term bonds, on EU banks from providing investment services, and on EU export credits, Reuters reported last week.

“We will no longer just sanction individuals. We will now also impose sectoral sanctions -- meaning that we will now get to work on the economic areas that are of particular significance for Belarus and for the regime’s income,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said.

Diplomats said EU experts also agreed on tighter restrictions on exports from the bloc of arms and equipment that can be used to crack down on demonstrators.

The proposal to sanction Belarus's state-run industries including potash, a major Belarusian export, as well as restrictions on tobacco, oil, and oil-related products is considered a significant move that will tighten the fiscal screws around the regime.

On May 23, Belarusian authorities scrambled a military jet to escort the passenger flight over its airspace to land in Minsk in what many countries regard as a "state hijacking." After the plane landed law enforcement immediately arrested opposition blogger Raman Pratasevich and his Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega.

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The EU has already responded to the diversion of the Ryanair flight between two member states by blocking Belarusian airlines from EU airports and airspace. Europe's aviation regulator has also urged other airlines to avoid Belarusian airspace.

The EU, the United States, and other countries refuse to recognize the official results of last summer’s election and do not consider Lukashenka to be the country's legitimate leader.

Opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who says she won the election, has called on the West to implement broad sanctions on the Belarusian regime.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has won a landslide victory in snap parliamentary elections called to end a political crisis that erupted after ethnic Armenian forces lost a six-week war against Azerbaijan last year and ceded territory in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Preliminary results from the June 20 election showed that, with all precincts counted, Pashinian's Civil Contract party won 53.9 percent of the vote, while former President Robert Kocharian's Armenia Alliance – which is alleging election fraud -- got 21 percent.

"The people of Armenia gave our Civil Contract party a mandate to lead the country and personally me to lead the country as prime minister," Pashinian announced in the early hours of June 21.

"In the newly elected parliament, Civil Contract will have a constitutional majority and form a government," he added later in a post on Facebook.

Speaking at a rally of his supporters in Yerevan in the evening, Pashinian said the political crisis in the country was over and called for unity.

But Kocharian’s alliance said it would not recognize the results until alleged voting irregularities were addressed. The Armenia Alliance announced that it will ask the Constitutional Court to overturn the official elections results, saying it has “serious grounds to consider these elections illegitimate.”

In a statement on June 21, it accused authorities of illegally using their administrative leverage to try to keep Pashinian in power. It said the bloc’s activists have been harassed by the authorities during the election process.

WATCH: International Observers: Armenia's Elections Were 'Competitive And Generally Well-Managed'

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International Observers: Armenia's Elections Were 'Competitive And Generally Well-Managed'

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Kocharian’s bloc accused government officials of “pre-planned falsification of the election results.”

However, international observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said the vote was "competitive and generally well-managed."

"The vote count was assessed positively in most polling stations where it was observed and was characterized by a high level of transparency," the OSCE said.

"Reconciliation and counting procedures were followed overall, and observers noted very few significant procedural errors or serious violations," it added, noting that the election on the whole was "characterized by intense polarization and marred by increasingly inflammatory rhetoric among key contestants."

The head of Armenia's Central Electoral Commission, Tigran Mukuchian, said the election "on the whole" was conducted in line with local rules and regulations.

Opinion polls before the election showed the contest to be mainly a neck-and-neck race between Pashinian's party and Kocharian's newly created alliance, with each at around 24 percent support.

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A total of 21 parties and four alliances took part in the election. The Central Election Commission said that nearly 50 percent of around 2.6 million eligible voters cast their ballots.

Individual parties needed to cross the 5 percent threshold to gain entry to parliament, while blocs needed 7 percent.

However, Armenian law states that at least three parties must sit in parliament, making the "I Have The Honor" bloc, which won just over 5 percent, the third party that will be represented. It narrowly edged out Prosperous Armenia, a party led by business tycoon Gagik Tsarukian, which won slightly below 5 percent.

The results, if they hold, mean Pashinian's party will control an even greater percentage of seats than the 50 percent needed to rule, since the votes of parties that don't clear the threshold will be distributed among those that enter parliament.

The election was held against the backdrop of already flaring tensions following a monthslong political crisis fueled by the defeat of Armenian forces against Azerbaijan in a six-week war last autumn over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Pashinian, who stepped down as required by law to allow the election to take place but remains the country's leader, called the early elections in response to sustained opposition rallies and dissent within the state over his handling of the war that ended with a Moscow-brokered cease-fire in November.

The fragile peace deal restored Baku's sovereignty over a chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts that had been controlled by ethnic Armenian forces since a war in the early 1990s. The defeat stunned Armenians and prompted months of recriminations.

During the election campaign, emotionally charged threats and insults raised concerns of postelection violence, especially in the event of allegations that the result is rigged or otherwise challenged. More than a dozen opposition candidates and activists were detained during the campaign, accused of bullying or bribing voters.

On the eve of the election, the largely ceremonial President Armen Sarkisian urged his compatriots to remain peaceful, saying it would be unacceptable that "political and moral boundaries are crossed, that the situation escalates and hatred and enmity are fomented."

With reporting by AFP, AP, Interfax, and Reuters

European soccer's governing body says it will investigate "potential discriminatory incidents" at two Euro 2020 games played in Budapest.

The probe will focus on incidents that occurred during Hungary's 3-0 loss to Portugal on June 15 and its 1-1 draw with France on June 19, UEFA said in a statement on June 20. Both matches were played at Puskas Arena in the Hungarian capital.

France striker Kylian Mbappe, who is black, was taunted by monkey chants from the crowd, and fellow forward Karim Benzema, who has Algerian roots, was also the target of verbal abuse by spectators.

Portuguese media reported that superstar Cristiano Ronaldo was targeted during Hungary's defeat to Portugal.

An ethics and disciplinary inspector has been appointed to conduct an investigation, UEFA's statement said.

More than 55,000 people, mostly fans of Hungary, attended the two matches. Budapest is the only host city to allow full crowds for Euro 2020 games.

Hungary, which still has a chance of progressing to the last 16, is scheduled to play its last game in Group F against Germany in Munich on June 23. It may play the match in a stadium lit up in rainbow colors.

Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter told dpa on June 20 he was going to write to UEFA to ask for permission for Germany's stadium to be lit up with the colors as "an important sign of tolerance and equality."

The Hungarian parliament approved a law on June 15 banning discussions and dissemination of information in schools that is deemed by authorities to promote homosexuality and gender change.

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Critics have slammed the law as an attack on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

Based on reporting by dpa and AP

The United States is preparing new sanctions against Russia over the poisoning of Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan has said.

"We are preparing another package of sanctions to apply in this case as well," Sullivan said on CNN on June 20.

Sullivan said the sanctions will come once the United States ensures that the right entities are targeted.

"When we do that, we will impose further sanctions with respect to chemical weapons," Sullivan said.

Navalny was arrested in January when he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had received treatment for a near-fatal poisoning in August with a Soviet-era nerve agent. Navalny has blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin directly for the attack, a claim the Kremlin has denied.

U.S. President Joe Biden said he told Putin during their summit last week that human rights will always be on the table and that he will continue to raise the issue, including the arrest of Navalny.

Biden said that he also warned Putin of the consequences if Navalny were to die in prison, telling reporters at a news conference that he "made it clear" that the consequences should Navalny die "would be devastating for Russia."

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The Biden administration announced in March that it was placing sanctions on seven senior Russian officials, including Putin's deputy chief of staff, after a U.S. intelligence assessment concluded "with high confidence" that officers from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) were behind Navalny's poisoning.

The U.S. announcement came on the heels of European Union sanctions against four senior Russian officials.

Russia reacted angrily, saying the move was "absolutely unacceptable" and would have a destructive effect on the country's already bad relations with the United States and the European Union.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov was recalled later in March following a comment by Biden indicating he agreed that Putin is a "killer."

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Relations between Washington and Moscow further deteriorated in April when the United States announced sanctions against dozens of Russian individuals and entities and expelled 10 Russian diplomats as it moved to hold the Kremlin accountable for election interference and a massive cyberattack on U.S. government and corporate computer networks.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan also returned to the United States for consultations.

Around the same time, Biden said the United States wanted a stable, predictable relationship with Russia and proposed the summit that took place last week in Geneva, Switzerland.

No major breakthroughs were announced after the summit, but the two leaders said they found some common ground on minor issues and announced their ambassadors would soon be returning to their posts.

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Antonov departed Moscow on June 20 to return to Washington. No date has been announced for Sullivan's return.

Antonov is due to start work in Washington on June 21. He told RIA Novosti that he was optimistic and wanted to help build "equal and pragmatic" relations with the United States.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, and RFE/RL's Russian Service

The Kremlin has announced the date of President Vladimir Putin's live, nationally televised call-in show, an event that will fall about 10 weeks before the flagging popularity of the ruling political party is put to the test in national elections.

Such events -- when average Russians are ostensibly able to ask Putin questions directly -- have been held regularly in the past.

But this year's event, set for June 30, comes with the country's dominant party, United Russia, suffering from record-low public approval.

That's potentially problematic for the Kremlin, which last year engineered changes to the constitution, opening the door for Putin to stay in power potentially until 2036.

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If other parties gain seats at the expense of United Russia, or if there is lackluster turnout in the September 19 election to the 450-seat State Duma, that could make the next presidential election, in 2024, more troublesome.

Putin, who is already the longest-serving Russian leader since Josef Stalin, has not indicated whether he will run for reelection.

While Russians are increasingly anxious about stagnant wages, growing inflation, and declining quality of life, Putin remains an all-but-unrivaled political figure, with high approval ratings.

At a party congress on June 19, Putin, who is not formally a party member, announced that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu would head United Russia's candidate list-- a move aimed at increasing voter enthusiasm.

The government has also taken steps to quash opposition political movements, including that of Aleksei Navalny, the anti-corruption crusader who built a formidable national organization that has dented Putin's public image.

He survived a near-fatal poisoning last year, then was jailed upon returning to Russia in January after recuperating in Germany.

Russia's labor minister has said workers who fail to get the COVID-19 vaccine in regions where the shot has been made compulsory could be forced to take unpaid leave.

Anton Kotyakov's comments, made on a government Telegram channel on June 20, come as Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other Russian cities introduce an array of a new measures. The most prominent new proposal aims for mandatory shots for service workers.

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Russia is grappling with a deadly new third wave of infections, with nearly half of them appearing in Moscow.

The Russian capital registered a slight decrease on June 20, with 8,305 infections in 24 hours. Still, it's higher than two weeks ago, when about 3,000 cases were recorded daily.

Among major public events that could be affected by the new measures is the Euro 2020 soccer tournament. Some matches are being played in St. Petersburg, which saw more than 1,000 new cases for the first time since the end of February.

Russia, with 129,361 deaths recorded by the government, is the hardest-hit country in Europe.

Based on reporting by AFP, AP, dpa, and Reuters

Negotiators have adjourned talks on reviving the Iran nuclear deal for consultations in their capitals, saying on June 20 that further progress was made to restore the agreement but it's now up to the governments involved to make political decisions.

Enrique Mora, the European Union's envoy to the negotiations, gave no indication when the talks would resume but said progress had been made on a number of technical issues and the participants would have a clearer idea of how to close a deal when they return.

"We have now more clarity on technical documents -- all of them quite complex -- and that clarity allows us to have also a great idea of what the political problems are," Mora said.

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's envoy at the negotiations, said he expected the diplomats to return for the final round in about 10 days and said they could finalize negotiations next month.

"I believe we have all chances to arrive at the final point of our negotiations, maybe even by mid-July, unless something extraordinary and negative happens," he said.

In a written statement, senior diplomats from Britain, France, and Germany, known as the E3, urged speedy decision-making.

"Delegations will now travel to capitals in order to consult with their leadership," the diplomats said. "We urge all sides to return to Vienna and be ready to conclude a deal. The time for decision is fast approaching."

The comments came after the latest round of negotiations involving Iran and six world powers that have been going on in Vienna since April.

The meeting was overshadowed by the election of Ebrahim Raisi in Iran, which puts hard-liners in control of Iran's government.

Raisi, who won nearly 62 percent of the vote in the June 18 election, will take office in early August, replacing Hassan Rohani, who has served the maximum two consecutive terms. He was a key architect of the nuclear deal, which lifted some international sanctions in exchange for Iran agreeing to curbs on its nuclear program.

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EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell said on June 20 he hoped the election of Raisi would not be an obstacle to reaching a deal in Vienna.

"We are very close. We have been working for two months," Borrell told reporters during a visit to Beirut. "So I hope that the results of the elections is not going to be the last obstacle that will ruin the negotiation process."

Israel's new prime minister warned that Raisi's election was "the last chance for the world powers to wake up before returning to the nuclear agreement and to understand who they're doing business with."

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Raisi was "infamous among Iranians and across the world" for alleged crimes against humanity for his part in execution trials three decades ago.

"A regime of brutal hangmen must never be allowed to have weapons of mass destruction that will enable it to not kill thousands, but millions," Bennett said.

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Israel has long opposed Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran insists is intended for peaceful purposes.

The United States in 2018 withdrew from the landmark pact under which Iran agreed to curtail its nuclear ambitions in exchange for the lifting of many sanctions against it.

The remaining parties to the deal are Iran, Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany, and the European Union.

The United States is present, but not directly negotiating, mainly due to Iran's refusal to meet face-to-face. Instead, the U.S. delegation is at a nearby location in Vienna, with the other delegations and the EU as go-betweens.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 deal, Tehran has rebuilt some of its stockpiles of enriched uranium, a potential pathway to weapons.

Trump's successor, Joe Biden, has indicated a willingness to rejoin the agreement once Washington is certain that Tehran is willing to respect its commitments.

With reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters