The European Union has sharply criticized Minsk's attempt to force a Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya to return home early from the Olympics after criticizing coaches of her national team, and welcomed EU-member Poland's decision to grant the 24-year-old athlete a humanitarian visa.

"The attempt to forcibly repatriate Krystsina Tsimanouskaya against her own will is another example of the brutality of the repression of [Alyaksandr Lukashenka's] regime that hits all categories of Belarusian society, including athletes, and does not respect any Olympic truce," Nabila Massrali, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said on August 2.

In comments to Reuters, Massrali went on to express Brussels' "full solidarity" with Tsimanouskaya and lauded "the fact that she has now been given a humanitarian visa by Poland."

Tsimanouskaya was seen entering the Polish Embassy on August 2 after appealing for Japanese and international help to avoid being put on a flight against her will and spending the night at Tokyo's international airport after apparently running afoul of Belarusian officials.

"I can confirm that we have issued a humanitarian visa. I can confirm that we will provide all necessary support in Poland if she wishes to use it," Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Jablonski said on August 2.

Polish officials have said the sprinter requested the humanitarian visa and that she will be eligible to seek refugee status once in Poland. The activist group Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation (BSSF) has said it has purchased Tsimanouskaya a plane ticket to Warsaw, and that she plans to seek asylum.

Multiple reports said Tsimanouskaya's husband, Arsen Zhdanevich, had traveled to Ukraine from Belarus as his wife continues to fight repatriation.

Tsimanouskaya has expressed fears she could face arrest in her homeland over criticism she aired on social media of her coaches' decision to enter her in a race she had not prepared to run.

The sprinter's plight, which erupted when she sought help to avoid being hustled by Belarusian handlers onto a flight at Tokyo's Haneda Airport on August 1, has led to offers of help from Poland, France, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry is working with organizers of the Tokyo games as well as the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is also involved in efforts to help resolve Tsimanouskaya's situation.

The international actions to respond to her pleas for help were praised by U.S. Ambassador to Belarus Julie Fisher, whose country has been among the leading international critics of Alyaksandr Lukashenka's rights record and yearlong crackdown on a pro-democracy movement and other dissent since he claimed a disputed reelection in August 2020.

"Thanks to the quick action of Japanese and Polish authorities, Tsimanouskaya is able to evade the attempts of the Lukashenko regime to discredit and humiliate this #Tokyo2020 athlete for expressing her views," Julie Fisher said in a tweet.

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.

Lukashenka has long regarded sports as an effective forum for countering adverse news about decades of human rights violations and political repression in Belarus.

Lukashenka served as head of the Belarusian National Olympic Committee until recently handing over its leadership to his eldest son, Viktar, in a move that was not recognized by the IOC.

Alyaksandr Opeikin, a spokesman for the BSSF, which supports opposition athletes, told Current Time that Tsimanouskaya's fears have been compounded by the airing of several "lambasting programs" on "propaganda TV channels."

Tsimanouskaya was due to compete in the women's 200-meter sprint on August 2. But the athlete said her coaching staff ordered her to pack her bags before taking her to the airport.

Tsimanouskaya had alleged on social media that she was entered by Belarusian officials into the women’s 4x400-meter relay event on July 29 on short notice after some team members were found to be ineligible to compete.

The Belarusian Olympic Committee said in a statement that Tsimanouskaya withdrew from the games on the advice of doctors concerned about her "emotional [and] psychological state.”

Euroradio and the Nick and Mike group on Telegram and YouTube, which monitors human rights in Belarus, published an audio recording on August 1 that they say was recorded when two Belarusian sports officials were talking to Tsimanouskaya.

The two male voices in the recording tell Tsimanouskaya her decision to raise the coaching issue on social networks was "stupid" because "people may lose their jobs" as a result. They say she needs to return to Belarus.

The Nasha Niva newspaper identified one of the individuals in the recording as the head coach of the Belarusian national team in track-and-field, Yury Maisevich. The Nick and Mike group identify the second man as senior Belarusian Olympics official Artur Shumak.

Embed share

'You Did A Stupid Thing': Belarusian Athletics Officials Tell Sprinter To Leave Olympics

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:01:21 0:00

"You just go home. Don't write anything anywhere. Give no comments. I am giving you word-for-word what I was told," one of the men says over the sound of a woman seemingly crying. "If you want to continue to perform on behalf of the Republic of Belarus, just listen to what they recommend. Go home to your parents, or elsewhere. Let this situation go. Otherwise, the more you move, it's like when a fly gets in a spiderweb: The more it turns around, the more it gets tangled."

The other male voice in the audio suggests that Tsimanouskaya say nothing to her husband or relatives and echoes the call for her to go back to Belarus.

Tsimanouskaya confirmed to Current Time that it is her voice in the audio. Current Time is the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

The IOC has asked the NOC to provide detailed explanations on the situation faced by Tsimanouskaya, Deutsche Welle reported on August 2.

The IOC in March announced its refusal to recognize Viktar Lukashenka's leadership of the Belarusian national effort for reasons that included a failure to ensure "better protection of the athletes’ rights and preserve the athletes from any discrimination or undue pressure."

Lukashenka has been banned from the Tokyo Olympics by the IOC, which investigated complaints from athletes that they faced reprisals and intimidation in fallout from the protests against his disputed re-election.

With reporting by Reuters, Deustche Welle, Euroradio, Nick and Mike, AP, AFP, TASS, and Tribuna.com

Kosovo has awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal on the Rule of Law to Beau Biden -- the late son of U.S. President Joe Biden – for his work helping to strengthen the Balkan country's justice system.

In a ceremony in Pristina hosted by Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on August 1, U.S. Ambassador Philip Kosnett received the medal on behalf of Biden’s family.

Beau Biden worked in Kosovo after the 1998-99 war with U.S. military forces and also with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to help train local prosecutors and judges.

He died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46.

In a prerecorded message that was aired during the event in Pristina, President Biden described the award as a “a great honor to recognize the legacy of our son.”

Embed share

U.S. President's Late Son Beau Biden Honored In Kosovo

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:00:49 0:00

He said his son “fell in love with the country” when he spent time there.

“That's why he was so committed to working with the people of Kosovo to make sure that the war crimes were thoroughly investigated and professionally prosecuted, to help Kosovo build a fair judicial system capable of bringing justice and reconciliation to the country," Biden said.

Biden visited Kosovo as vice president in 2016 when the country named a street after Beau Biden.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 with Western backing, but Serbia still refuses to recognize it and considers Kosovo part of its territory.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, and CNN

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said it is monitoring the situation surrounding a Belarusian Olympic athlete who accused her coaches of trying to remove her from the Tokyo games after she criticized them on social media.

Sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya sought the protection of Japanese police at Haneda airport on August 1, saying she was being sent back to Belarus against her wishes.

“The IOC…is looking into the situation and has asked the [the Belarus National Olympic Committee] for clarification,” the IOC said in a statement.

Earlier, Tsimanouskaya, 24, said in a video message posted on YouTube that she didn’t want to return to Belarus and had asked the IOC to “intervene.”

“I was put under pressure and they are trying to forcibly take me out of the country without my consent,” she said.

Tsimanouskaya was due to compete in the women's 200-meter event on August 2. But the athlete said that her coaching staff ordered her to pack her bags, before taking her to the airport.

Tsimanouskaya had alleged on social media that she was entered into the women’s 400-meter relay event on July 29 at short notice by Belarusian officials, after some team members were found to be ineligible to compete.

The Belarusian Olympic Committee said in a statement that Tsimanouskaya withdrew from the games on the advice of doctors concerned about her "emotional [and] psychological state.”

Several hours later, Tsimanouskaya said she was "safe" and under police protection in Japan. Her message was published on Telegram by the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation (BSSF), an organization that supports opposition athletes.

Aleksandr Opeikin, a spokesman for the BSSF, told the Associated Press that Tsimanouskaya has been targeted by supporters of the authoritarian government of Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

“The campaign was quite serious and that was a clear signal that her life would be in danger in Belarus,” he said.

Tsimanouskaya would ask for asylum from the Austrian Embassy, Opeikin said.

The BSSF was founded last August by retired Belarusian swimmer Alyaksandra Herasimenia as protests erupted in Belarus after the disputed reelection of Lukashenka.

The organization provides financial and legal help to Belarusian athletes targeted by the authorities after calling for an end to the violent police crackdown on demonstrators.

In January, nearly 350 Belarusian athletes and other members of the sports community signed an open letter calling for the presidential election to be annulled and for all "political prisoners" and those detained during mass demonstrations that followed to be released.

Lukashenka has been banned from the Tokyo Olympics by the IOC, which investigated complaints from athletes that they faced reprisals and intimidation as a result of the protests.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters

Lilly King echoed fellow U.S. swimming medalist Ryan Murphy's criticism of the presence of Russian athletes at the Tokyo Olympics and raised it a notch on August 1 by saying, "There are a lot of people here that should not be here."

She was the third prominent American to publicly question the stringency of ongoing penalties for Russian national programs found to have doped extensively.

The head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), Travis Tygart, blasted "the Russian state and sport officials" in an e-mail to Reuters, saying they "put the dark cloud over themselves and, in the process, tragically, pushed their athletes out in the storm."

Russia is still serving a multiyear ban on international competition after Russia was found to have a massive, state-sponsored cheating program ahead of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics that helped evade anti-doping rules in a wide array of sports.

It has sent depleted squads under Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) banners to the past two Olympics.

Tygart said the "rebrand" of Russia makes "a mockery of the games by their thirst for medals over values" and challenged the ROC to make its athletes' test results public if it wants to end the doubts.

"They should put their money where their rhetoric is by making individual tests by athlete name public and allow a transparent international accounting of the reality of whether things have changed within Russia, as the evidence of the last years is that nothing has, unfortunately," Tygart told Reuters.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach repeated his defense of Russian participants, 335 of whom are competing in Tokyo.

"They have all gone through the qualifications and appropriate tests like all other athletes participating here. Therefore, they have the right to be treated accordingly," Bach told dpa.

The winner of a silver and a bronze this week in the 200- and 100-meter breaststroke events, King was responding on August 1 to the president of the ROC saying his squad's medals are the "best answer" to critics.

Russian athletes deemed clean from doping are competing under the ROC team banner at these games, although they can't use the Russian name, flag, or anthem.

ROC President Stanislav Pozdnyakov tweeted this week that critics “supposed that as a matter of fact our athletes can’t compete without doping" but said Russians in Tokyo “proved the opposite, not just with words but with their deeds and results.”

Tygart said Russian officials "want to continue to lie, deny, and attack those with the courage to stand up to their deceit and blatant disregard for the rules and the truth."

Without mentioning Russia by name, Ryan this week suggested after finishing behind Russian swimmer Yevgeny Rylov in two medal races that those events were "probably not clean."

He later said he wasn't targeting Rylov but the sport.

“I was asked a question about doping and swimming and I answered honestly," Ryan said. "I do think there’s doping in swimming.”

King was more direct concerning Russia's history of cheating.

“I wasn’t racing anyone from a country who should have been banned and instead got a slap on the wrist and rebranded their national flag,” Lilly said, sitting next to Murphy. “So, I personally wasn’t as affected. But Ryan was.”

Russian athletes have won 40 medals in Tokyo, 11 of them gold.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, and dpa

Christian Schmidt of Germany takes over as the United Nations' top official in Bosnia-Herzegovina on August 1 amid recent pressure inside and outside the country over the fate and direction of the post of the UN's high representative.

Schmidt replaces outgoing Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko, who as high representative has safeguarded civilian and rule-of-law aspects of the 1995 Balkan peace agreement for 12 years.

The 63-year-old Schmidt brings a reputation as a tough regional and federal politician who doesn't shy away from controversial decisions.

The outgoing Inzko has recently been forced to pushed back against critics of UN oversight of Bosnia, including Russia and China, which last month failed with a joint proposal to phase out the high representative's position.

The most strident domestic voice against international oversight is the secession-minded leader of the mostly Serb entity that, along with a Bosniak and Croat federation, makes up Bosnia: Republika Srpska's Milorad Dodik.

Bosnia is still governed under the 25-year-old Dayton peace accords that helped end ethnic violence following the breakup of Yugoslavia and which included the post of high representative, with its power to impose decisions or dismiss officials.

Inzko has suggested that the international community "changed gears too quickly from...a robust, strong, international presence -- to domestic responsibility [and] domestic institutions" in Bosnia.

SEE ALSO:

Bosnian Serb Deputies Approve Laws To Block UN Envoy's Genocide Denial Ban

Inzko told AP last week that, going forward, "the new approach should be more prescriptive; it should be more robust, and there must be a sense of urgency."

The country faces an array of problems that arise from parallel structures of regional and executive power.

Dodik and his allies on July 30 approved two new laws to block a decision last week by the outgoing Inzko to ban genocide denial.

Inzko has warned that “there is no reconciliation without the recognition of crimes and without responsibility.”

The wars that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s are estimated to have killed at least 130,000 people and displaced millions.

Schmidt was appointed in May to succeed Inzko by the ambassadors of the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council, the international body that still guides Bosnia’s peace process.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

The U.S. Justice Department says the Russian hackers behind the massive SolarWinds cyberespionage campaign broke into the email accounts of some of the most prominent federal prosecutors' offices in the United States during 2020.

The Justice Department said 80 percent of the Microsoft e-mail accounts used by employees in the four U.S. attorney offices in New York were breached.

Altogether, the Justice Department said the e-mail account of at least one employee in 27 U.S. attorney offices were compromised during the Russian hacking campaign.

In a statement on July 30, the Justice Department said it believes the accounts were compromised from May 7 to December 27.

That time frame is notable because the SolarWinds campaign was first discovered and publicized in mid-December.

The Russian hacking scheme infiltrated dozens of private-sector companies and think tanks as well as at least nine U.S. government agencies.

In April, the administration of President Joe Biden announced sanctions in response to the SolarWinds hack and Russian efforts to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

The punitive measures included the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the United States.

Russia has denied any wrongdoing.

The Administrative Office of U.S. Courts confirmed in January that it was also breached.

That gave the SolarWinds hackers another entry point to steal confidential information like trade secrets, espionage targets, whistle-blower reports, and arrest warrants.

The list of affected offices include several large and high-profile ones like those in Los Angeles, Miami, Washington, and the Eastern District of Virginia.

The Southern and Eastern districts of New York, where large numbers of staff were hit, handle some of the most prominent prosecutions in the country.

Based on reporting by AP

Several thousand nurses gathered in Budapest on July 31 to demand better pay and working conditions in Hungary's ailing public health system.

The protest rally came after a recent survey revealed that many nurses in Hungary are thinking about leaving the country for higher salaries elsewhere -- a development that would further burden a system already short of workers.

Nurses wearing white T-shirts and carrying white balloons gathered in a central Budapest square. Hundreds of them arrived from outside the capital and travelled hours to attend the rally.

The crowd also included supporters from several of Hungary's largest trade unions.

Demonstrators said the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened an already precarious situation for health-care workers while their demands for pay raises and reduced working hours have gone unheeded by the government.

"The past period has been very difficult for us," said Kata Gornicsak, who has worked for 26 years as a chief nurse in a Budapest hospital.

"The COVID pandemic has turned our lives upside down,” she said. “The reason we are here is not because of hope but desperation. We want respect, which we are not getting at all.”

Like many countries in Central Europe and Eastern European, where local salaries are much less than Western European levels, Hungary faces a shortage of doctors and medical workers.

Zoltan Balogh, chairman of the Chamber of Hungarian Health-Care Professionals, said the survey conducted by his organization suggests there could be "a huge wave of nurses quitting when pandemic travel restrictions are lifted across Europe."

Balogh says that, before the pandemic, about 400-500 nurses were already leaving Hungary every year.

Ibolya Pinter Gal, a veteran nurse for more than three decades has been caring for COVID-19 patients in an intensive care unit since March 2020. She says she was promised extra pay for the high-risk work, but still has not received it.

"We are the mid-level professionals who are always forgotten when salaries are raised," she said.

Hungary's Minister of Human Resources Miklos Kasler was invited to the July 31 rally but did not attend.

Kasler did send a letter thanking nurses for their work.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

Two judokas from Georgia have been thrown out of the Tokyo Olympic Games after leaving the Athletes' Village to go sightseeing, the Japanese Kyoto news agency reported on July 31.

Tokyo organizers said the two participants had violated strict COVID-19 protocols.

It is the first dismissal of athletes at the Tokyo Olympics since the games begun on July 23, organizing committee spokesman Masanori Takaya said.

An official with Georgia’s National Olympic Committee identified the two as silver medalists Vazha Margvelashvili, 27 and Lasha Shavdatuashvili, 29 and said they had ventured out of the compound to meet "one of their good acquaintances" who lives in Japan.

"When they went outside of the village, no one stopped them at the exit. So they thought that they could go outside," the official who did not want to be named told the AFP news agency on July 31.

"They wanted just to have a bit of open air, to relax after a tough day of competition, after a tough lockdown period,” the official said.

Tokyo 2020 organizers said on July 31 they had taken disciplinary action on July 29 against at least one Olympics participant, without revealing how many people were involved or their identity.

Takaya, said at a press briefing on July 31 it was an "egregious case" of rule-breaking and the offenders are no longer allowed to enter Olympic facilities.

The Georgian NOC official said the pair had their accreditation revoked on July 29, but that they have now left Japan to return home.

Both athletes had been beaten to the gold medals by different Japanese judoka this week.

Athletes are tested daily while in Japan, where they are living in biosecure 'bubble' environment and must leave the country 48 hours after they have finished competing.

Athletes are not allowed to take public transportation and can only leave their accommodation to travel to Olympic venues.

Japan is facing a surge in coronavirus cases.

Based on reporting by Kyodo, dpa and AFP

CHISINAU -- Former Moldovan Finance Minister Natalia Gavrilita has welcomed her nomination by President Maia Sandu as prime minister-designate after her Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) won snap elections earlier this month.

In a Twitter statement posted early on July 31, Gavrilita said she was "honored and humbled" to be nominated by President Sandu, who is also a member of the pro-Western PAS.

"It is a great responsibility to fulfill expectations of Moldovan people to improve institutions, ensure rule of law, and build economic prosperity," Gavrilita said.

Gavrilita and the cabinet that she proposes is expected to be approved by parliament.

That's because PAS won a parliamentary majority with 63 of the 101 seats in the legislature as a result of the July 11 elections.

PAS had campaigned on a platform of carrying out reforms and tackling corruption. It also advocates closer ties with the European Union and the United States.

The 43-year-old Gavrilita had been Moldova's finance minister in 2019 when Sandu was briefly prime minister in a government that fell in a no-confidence vote within months.

Before that, Gavrilita worked with the British-based consultancy Oxford Policy Management and at the non-profit Global Innovation Fund.

She received her education as an economist at Harvard University in the United States and at Moldova State University in Chisinau.

"I have full confidence that the designated prime minister will put together an integrated and professional team," Sandu wrote on Facebook on July 30.

Wedged between Ukraine and EU member Romania -- with which it shares a common language -- Moldova is one of Europe's poorest states and has long been divided over whether to pursue closer ties with Brussels or maintain its Soviet-era relations with Moscow.

SEE ALSO:

Moldovans Hail End To 'Coalition Nightmare' Following Pro-European Party's Win, But Challenges Loom

President Sandu defeated her Moscow-backed predecessor Igor Dodon in a presidential election last November and called the July 11 elections in a successful bid to consolidate power.

"People expect a change for the better and for that we need firm actions and competent decisions that will have the interest of our citizens at heart," Sandu wrote on Facebook.

With reporting by Reuters and unimedia.md

The United States says it has laid off nearly 200 local employees from its diplomatic missions in Russia ahead of an August 1 deadline set by the Kremlin to do so -- a move made by Moscow in response to U.S. sanctions and the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the United States.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on July 30 that the layoffs are regrettable and will severely impact the operations of U.S. diplomatic missions in Russia.

"Starting in August, the Russian government is prohibiting the United States from retaining, hiring, or contracting Russian or third-country staff, except our guard force,” Blinken said. “We are deeply saddened that this action will force us to let go of 182 local employees and dozens of contractors at our diplomatic facilities in Moscow, Vladivostok, and Yekaterinburg.”

The layoffs will potentially impact the safety of U.S. personnel "as well as our ability to engage in diplomacy with the Russian government," he added.

Blinken said the United States regrets the ban but "will follow through on our commitments while continuing to pursue a predictable and stable relationship with Russia."

The Russian Foreign Ministry was silent on the matter. The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment from RFE/RL.

Russia earlier this year announced a ban on almost all non-American staff at the embassy in Moscow as well as the U.S. consulates in Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok. That move came after Washington expelled Russian diplomats from the United States and tit-for-tat closures of diplomatic facilities in both countries amid deteriorating relations.

Russia announced its ban after U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order on April 15 outlining the expulsions of 10 Russian diplomats and sanctions against dozens of Russian individuals and entities.

Biden signed the order in response to Russian efforts to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the jailing of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, and other actions against the United States and its interests. In addition, the U.S. Treasury placed limits on the Russian sovereign debt market.

Russia responded by declaring 10 employees at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow as personae non gratae. They had to leave the country by May 21. The U.S. Embassy suspended routine consular services, and since May has been processing immigrant visas only in cases of life-or-death emergencies.

In his July 30 statement Blinken, thanked the dismissed local employees in Russia, saying the United States was "immensely grateful for the tireless dedication and commitment" they showed and their work to improve U.S.-Russia relations.

"Their dedication, expertise and friendship have been a mainstay of Mission Russia for decades," Blinken said.

With reporting by AP

Britain has joined Israel in accusing Iran of being behind an attack last week on an Israeli-managed oil tanker off the coast of Oman that killed two people, a Briton and a Romanian.

The July 27 incident that damaged the Liberian-flagged, Japanese-owned Mercer Street tanker was the first fatal attack on commercial shipping in the region explicitly linked by foreign leaders to heightened tensions with Iran in recent years.

“We believe this attack was deliberate, targeted, and a clear violation of international law by Iran,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, adding that Britain and its allies planned a coordinated response over the strike.

Earlier in the day, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett accused Iran of "trying to shirk responsibility" for the incident and said Tehran's denials were "cowardly."

The U.S. Navy said on July 31 that a “drone strike” had targeted the Mercer Street and that its USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier and guided-missile destroyer USS Mitscher were escorting the damaged tanker to a safe port.

The Mercer Street is managed by London-based Zodiac Maritime, part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group.

In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Said Khatibzadeh described the allegation that Iran carried out the attack as “baseless.”

He told a weekly press conference on August 1 that Israel "has created insecurity, terror, and violence" and said "these accusations about Iran's involvement are condemned by Tehran."

Iran has blamed Israel for the assassination of a top nuclear scientist last year and a series of attacks on its nuclear facilities.

And Al Alam TV, the Iranian government's Arabic-language television network, cited unidentified sources as saying the attack was in response to a suspected, unspecified Israeli attack on an airport in Syria.

Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Iranian targets in Syria as part of a shadow war between the regional foes. In recent months, vessels linked to each nation have been mysteriously targeted in waters around the Middle East.

Tensions have risen in the Persian Gulf since the United States reimposed sanctions on Iran in 2018 after then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal with major powers.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP

SOFIA -- President Rumen Radev has asked a newly elected lawmaker from Bulgaria's antiestablishment party, There Is Such a People (ITN), to form the country's next government after the party narrowly won parliamentary elections on July 11.

ITN's nominee for prime minister, the relatively unknown 44-year-old Plamen Nikolov, was announced on July 30 shortly before Radev formally gave him the mandate to form a new government.

Nikolov will have seven days to put together his proposed cabinet and win support from at least 121 lawmakers in Bulgaria's fragmented 240-seat parliament.

ITN won only 65 parliamentary seats in the July 11 elections.

So far, no political force has announced whether it will support a government formed by ITN.

Even if Nikolov wins support from two apparently sympathetic protest parties -- Democratic Bulgaria and a group called Stand Up, BG! We Are Coming! -- his cabinet would only have the backing of 112 deputies.

In an attempt to form a majority coalition, ITN already has begun talks with the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), which won 36 parliamentary seats.

ITN representatives also have met with members of a mostly ethnic Turkish party called the Movement For Rights and Freedoms (DPS). It controls 29 seats in the new parliament.

All parties in parliament have rejected the idea of forming a coalition with the GERB party of the previous prime minister, Boyko Borisov, which won 63 seats in the July 11 elections.

"People voted for you with the expectation of consolidating the front of change against the failed corruption model of power," Radev told Nikolov on July 30, noting that the mandate must be returned if he is unable to gather support from a majority of parliament.

Nikolov told Radev: "I will do my best to keep everything within the established legal deadlines."

Speaking to reporters in Sofia on July 30, Nikolov said his government would have five "top priorities."

He said the first priority would be a recovery and sustainability plan under which Bulgaria expects to receive some 6 billion euros ($7 billion ) from the European Union.

He said controlling an expected new wave of the coronavirus would be his government's second priority.

Other priorities include recalculating Bulgarians' pensions, reforming the electoral system, and implementing judicial reforms, Nikolov said.

Toshko Yordanov, head of ITN's parliamentary group, told journalists on July 30 that all five priorities are supported by Democratic Bulgaria and Stand Up, BG! We Are Coming!

Yordanov said some of ITN's priorities also are shared by the BSP.

ITN was set up as an antiestablishment party by Stanislav Trifonov, a popular late-night talk show host and folk-pop singer, shortly before a corruption scandal in 2020 sparked weeks-long mass protests against Borisov's GERB-led government.

Trifonov is known to millions of Bulgarians simply as "Slavi." He and ITN won over disenchanted voters amid widespread poverty and frustration over endemic corruption.

RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service reports that Nikolov does not have a wide base of public support beyond his affiliation with Trifonov as a member of ITN.

Nikolov had appeared in a segment of Trifonov's popular Show Of Fame television program called Casting For Politicians. The segment was aired in 2018 by Bulgaria's largest television broadcaster, bTV.

"I run the office of an American company for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa," Nikolov said at the time.

Nikolov also said in his Casting For Politicians appearance that "education is the most serious element of national security."

Born in the northern Bulgarian town of Gorna Oryahovitsa, Nikolov studied in Austria and received a doctorate of philosophy in law, politics, and economics.

According to the ITN website, Nikolov also has more than 15 years of experience "in business development and project management."

If Nikolov fails to put together a coalition in support of his proposed government, the mandate would next be handed over to the second-place party in the July 11 elections -- GERB.

Bulgaria's constitution says that if the second-place party also can't win majority support in parliament for its proposed government, the president has the right to decide who receives the mandate for a third attempt.

If that political force fails, the constitution says the president must call new parliamentary elections.

That happened after elections on April 4 when no one was able to put together a government with majority support in the legislature.

Russia's media regulator Roskomnadzor has requested YouTube block the Navalny Live channel of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny.

Navalny associate Lyubov Sobol said on her Twitter account on July 30 that the channel, along with her personal YouTube channel, had been added to Roskomnadzor’s registry of banned materials.

Sobol stated that Roskomnadzor's request that was filed with YouTube in recent days is illegal because a June 9 court decision to ban organizations linked to Navalny as extremist groups had not come into force because the court's decision is being appealed.

According to Sobol, Roskomnadzor can only ask YouTube to block some specific programs on the channels, but not the whole channels because the ban isn't final.

Roskomnadzor has been blocking Navalny’s website -- navalny.com -- since July 26.

A Moscow City Court last month ruled in favor of a prosecutor's motion to declare groups related to Navalny as extremist. The move has prevented those associated with Navalny and his network of regional offices across Russia from seeking public office. It also carries possible lengthy prison terms for activists who have worked with the organizations, a move seen by critics as a thinly veiled attempt to scare off potential opposition candidates.

Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's most vocal domestic critic, is serving a 2 1/2 year jail sentence for parole violations he says were trumped up. His jailing has strained Russia's relations with the West, which has demanded that he be freed and criticized the extremism ruling.

Lawmakers in Republika Srpska, the Serb-controlled region of Bosnia-Herzegovina, have approved two new laws to block a decision last week by the outgoing UN high representative for Bosnia to ban genocide denial.

A total of 70 deputies of the 73 present in the National Assembly of the Republika Srpska on July 30 approved the laws a week after UN High Representative for Bosnia Valentin Inzko amended Bosnia's constitution to prohibit the denial of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes and introduce prison sentences of up to five years for genocide deniers and for any glorification of war criminals.

Inzko, who has the authority to impose decisions or dismiss officials, had explained the move saying that “there is no reconciliation without the recognition of crimes and without responsibility.”

"Both laws were adopted by the votes of all parties that are located in Republika Srpska. With these decisions, the implementation of Inzko's decision will not be possible," said Nedeljko Cubrilovic, the president of the assembly.

He called Inzko's decision "wrong" and said it complicated the situation in the country.

"With this decision, he pushed Bosnia-Herzegovina into its biggest crisis since the war," Cubrilovic said at a press conference after the session.

Under the 1995 Dayton agreement that ended Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, two entities -- a Muslim-Croat federation and the predominantly Serbian Republika Srpska -- are held together by the joint central institutions.

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of Bosnia’s joint presidency, has claimed that the 1995 Srebrenica genocide in which some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb forces “did not take place” even though the massacre has been deemed genocide by various verdicts of both the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Inzko's decision came only a week before the end of his term. After 12 years in office, Inzko is handing over to Christian Schmidt, a German, on August 1.

A court in the Russian city of Vladimir has rejected jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's lawsuit against a decision that bans his lawyers from bringing mobile phones and laptop computers into the penitentiary during visits.

Judge Maksim Ignatovich of the Vladimir October district court ruled on July 30 that "Navalny's administrative lawsuit must be left without satisfaction" for the plaintiff. No explanation for the decision was provided.

Navalny, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critics, was arrested in January upon his return from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin -- accusations that Russian officials reject.

Navalny was arrested in January upon his arrival from Germany where he was treated after being poisoned in Siberia with what was defined by European labs as a Novichok nerve agent in August last year. He has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering the poisoning, which the Kremlin has denied.

A Moscow court in February converted a 3 1/2 year suspended sentence on a charge that Navalny and his supporters call politically motivated to real jail time, saying he broke the terms of the original sentence by leaving Russia for Germany for the life-saving treatment he received.

The court reduced the time Navalny must spend in prison to just over 2 1/2 years because of time already served in detention.

With reporting by Interfax and TASS

The head of the Russian Investigative Committee has ordered a probe into complaints that a production by the prominent Moscow theater Sovremennik (Contemporary) was insulting to World War II veterans.

The committee said in a statement on July 29 that the move was made after "complaints by representatives of society and media reports."

"Society's negative reaction has been a result of not only the use by the theater's actors of swear words in one of their performances, but also a number of people think that veterans [of World War II] were insulted," the statement said, adding that one of the main duties of the Investigative Committee is to protect the rights of war veterans.

The statement did not mention the specific performance in question, but many in Russia believe it concerns the theater's performance of the play, The First Bread.

Last week, media reports said that the Kremlin-backed Officers of Russia nongovernmental organization had sent "numerous" complaints to the Prosecutor-General's Office, the theater's leadership, and the Moscow Mayor's Office, saying the play was "offensive" because it had an "excessive use of swear words" and "blatant propaganda of same-sex love."

The group, which brings together army veterans, also says that a monologue by a character played by the popular actress Liya Akhedzhakova contains phrases that insult war veterans. The Ukrainian-born Akhedzhakova is an outspoken Kremlin critic who has openly condemned Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea in 2014.

Two days after the reports about the complaints were published on July 21, the theater said it changed the monologue of the character played by Akhedzhakova in the play, eliminating the swear words from it.

In 2013, Russia approved a controversial law banning any content that presents “distorted ideas about the equal social value of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations." Rights groups see the legislation as the de facto outlawing of LGBT activism.

The Kremlin has recently used the pretext of "insulting" war veterans as a tool to suppress dissent. In February, jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny was ordered to pay a hefty fine for "defaming" a World War II veteran who appeared in a video in 2020 advocating the removal of presidential term limits.

The First Bread performance was based on a play by Rinat Tashimov and staged by Polish director Benjamin Kotz.

The Sovremennik theater was founded in the late 1950s by a group of young Soviet actors during the Khrushchev Thaw. Dozens of actors who were extremely popular in the former Soviet Union started their careers at the Sovremennik.

ZARECHNY, Kazakhstan -- Kazakh opposition activist Aset Abishev, who was jailed for supporting the activities of the banned Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement, has been released from a penal colony after serving more than 2 1/2 years in prison.

Abishev said after leaving the correctional colony in the town of Zarechny in the southern Almaty region on July 30 that he was in a hurry to attend the burial of outspoken opposition figure and noted theater director Bolat Atabaev, who died a day earlier.

SEE ALSO:

Noted Kazakh Theater Director, Outspoken Opposition Figure Dies At 69

Abishev was released more than two weeks after the Qapshaghai City Court for the Almaty region unexpectedly supported, without explanation, his early release application after rejecting several previous requests.

Abishev was sentenced to four years in prison in November 2018 after a court in Almaty found him guilty of participating in the activities of a banned organization and financially supporting a criminal group.

Abishev has rejected the verdict, calling the case against him politically motivated and denying that the DVK movement or its founder -- fugitive former banker and a vocal critic of Kazakhstan's government, Mukhtar Ablyazov -- were extremist.

Kazakhstan banned the DVK in March 2018 after deeming it an extremist organization.

Kazakh human rights organizations had recognized Abishev as a political prisoner and had demanded his release.

In June 2020, Abishev's name was included in a letter from a group of U.S. senators, in which they urged authorities in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian nations to release "unjustly detained prisoners at high risk of COVID-19."

Georgian authorities are investigating the death of Azerbaijani opposition blogger Huseyn Bakixanov, who died on July 14 under unclear circumstances after apparently falling from a Tbilisi hotel.

News about the Azerbaijani government critic's death emerged only on July 29, two weeks after incident.

Two days before the event, Bakixanov made a video statement on YouTube while in an ambulance saying that five men he had met a few days earlier had attacked him in downtown Tbilisi.

"I do not believe that it was a random attack, because it happened just a couple of days before I am scheduled to get my asylum-seeker ID card" from Georgia, Bakixanov said at the time. "I cannot say for sure that the Azerbaijani government organized the attack, but it cannot be ruled out."

The Tbilisi-based Rights Georgia said on July 29 that Bakixanov had been in contact with the nongovernmental group about the asylum process in Georgia and a third country.

Tbilisi police say they were investigating his death as an apparent suicide.

A lawyer for the hotel where Bakixanov fell to his death said that they had hired Bakixanov on July 14.

Kakha Tsereteli, the lawyer of Stamba Hotel, said that Bakixanov went on the roof and committed suicide while receiving a tour of the building.

Bakixanov was arrested in Baku during an anti-government rally on May 7. He was then sentenced to 15 days in jail and allegedly tortured.

Shortly after that, Bakixanov left Azerbaijan for Georgia, where he continued to criticize the government via media outlets and his YouTube channel.

Azerbaijan has one of the world's most restrictive media environments and has been known to "aggressively target" opposition figures and journalists abroad, using tactics such as assaults, detentions, and unlawful deportations, according to a report by U.S.-based watchdog Freedom House.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Georgian Service, apsny.ge, JAMnews, and Civil.ge

Moldovan President Maia Sandu has nominated former Finance Minister Natalia Gavrilita to try to become the country's new prime minister.

The next step will be Gavrilita's approval by parliament, where Sandu's pro-Western PAS party enjoys a majority after winning snap elections earlier this month on a platform of carrying out reforms and tackling corruption.

Sandu, who advocates closer ties with the European Union and the United States, defeated her Moscow-backed predecessor Igor Dodon in a presidential election in November and called the snap parliamentary elections to consolidate her power.

Gavrilita, 43, was finance minister when Sandu was prime minister in 2019, in a short-lived government that fell in a no-confidence vote within months.

Before that, she worked with the British-based consultancy Oxford Policy Management and at the nonprofit Global Innovation Fund.

"I have full confidence that the designated prime minister will put together an integrated and professional team," Sandu wrote on Facebook on July 30.

Wedged between Ukraine and EU member Romania -- with which it shares a common language -- Moldova is one of Europe's poorest states and has long been divided over whether to pursue closer ties with Brussels or maintain its Soviet-era relations with Moscow.

"People expect a change for the better and for that we need firm actions and competent decisions that will have the interest of our citizens at heart," Sandu wrote.

With reporting by Reuters and unimedia.md

The chief editor of The Project investigative news outlet has left Russia with no plans to return and is trying to evacuate his staff after the group was declared an "undesirable" organization by the Prosecutor-General's Office in Moscow.

The U.S.-registered media outlet has published a series of well-researched, unflattering, and sometimes embarrassing investigations into Russia's ruling elite.

Roman Badanin told Reuters in an interview in New York that was published on July 29 that he had no plans to return to Russia in the foreseeable future. He said that's because he may face criminal prosecution and imprisonment there for up to six years under Russia's controversial 2015 law on "undesirable organizations."

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

Badanin said he and his family are in New York temporarily and he does not know where exactly he will settle.

He was on holiday abroad with his wife and children when The Project was labelled "undesirable" and the outlet's offices were searched on July 15. He said he decided on the spot not to return to Russia.

The mid-July raids were seen as part of a wider crackdown ahead of parliamentary elections in September on media that authorities view as hostile and foreign-backed.

According to Badanin, he and his colleagues were also exposed due to a criminal investigation into alleged slander by The Project as well as a push by authorities to label some journalists, including Badanin and his colleagues, as "foreign agents."

Russia’s controversial "foreign agent" legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly. It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as "foreign agents," and to submit to audits.

SEE ALSO:

Journalists' Homes Searched After Report On Russian Minister

Last month, police in Moscow carried out searches at the homes of Badanin and other colleagues from The Project hours after it published a report questioning how Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev and his relatives acquired their wealth.

The journalists' lawyers said later that the searches were linked to a lawsuit filed by businessman Ilya Traber, who accuses The Project of slander.

"We are trying to evacuate staff -- if the staff members agree, of course -- to nearby countries," Badanin said.

He added that his deputy, Mikhail Rubin, is also in New York and has no plans to return to Moscow.

Badanin said The Project would continue to function in some form, although details of how that would work in practice remain unclear.

"The main difference is that a large part of the team will be out of Russia in order to avoid the possibility of any legal and extra-legal action against them," Badanin said.

With reporting by Reuters

Former U.S. marine Paul Whelan, convicted last year in Russia on espionage charges he denies, has been placed in solitary confinement in a remote prison for an unknown violation of the penitentiary's regulations..

Whelan's lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov said late on July 29 that the correctional colony's authorities told him by phone that Whelan is in what Russia's penitentiary system calls a "punitive isolation cell" where he was placed for a violation of internal rules.

Whelan's other lawyer, Olga Karlova, said that his brother David confirmed to her that Whelan was in solitary confinement.

David Whelan told the Interfax news agency that it was the second time since early July that his brother had been placed in a punitive isolation cell.

According to David Whelan, his brother had just served 15 days in solitary confinement for unknown reasons just before his current stint in isolation began.

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

The 51-year-old is serving his sentence at Correctional Colony No. 17 in the region of Mordovia -- an area about 350 kilometers east of Moscow historically known as the location of Russia's toughest prisons, including Soviet-era labor camps for political prisoners.

He has rejected the espionage charges and has accused his prison guards of mistreatment.

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

Whelan holds U.S., Canadian, British, and Irish passports. He was head of global security at a U.S. auto-parts supplier when he was arrested. He and his relatives insist he visited Russia to attend a wedding.

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

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

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

With reporting by TASS and Interfax

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on Iranian authorities to "immediately and unconditionally" release those detained during protests against water shortages and economic hardships in Khuzestan and other provinces and to investigate the abusive use of lethal force.

Demonstrations than began on July 15 in dozens of towns and cities in Khuzestan, a province with a large ethnic Arab population, later expanded to other regions of Iran, including parts of Tehran, amid the worst drought in Iran in at least 50 years that has triggered weeks of power blackouts.

Thousands of workers in Iran's oil industry have also launched strikes for better wages and working conditions.

SEE ALSO:

'Hopeless And Dissatisfied': Growing Anger At Iranian Officials As Protests Spread

At least nine protesters were reported killed and many others were detained during the protests.

"The rising death toll and mass arrests raise grave concerns about the Iranian authorities' response to recent protests in Khuzestan and other provinces," HRW said in a statement published on July 30.

In addition to the drought, Iran’s economy has been hit hard by U.S. sanctions and by the COVID-19 pandemic. Inflation is over 50 percent annually, and unemployment is on the rise. Pensioners have been protesting, and there have been reports of wage arrears.

"The Iranian political leaders' primary response to widespread demands for basic rights has been unchecked repression," said Tara Sepehri Far, an Iran researcher at HRW.

From Khuzestan, protests expanded in several other provinces, including Isfahan, Lorestan, Eastern Azerbaijan, Tehran, and Karaj.

Embed share

Protests Spread In Iran Over Water Shortages, Economic Troubles

Embed share

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

---

width px height px

---

The URL has been copied to your clipboard

No media source currently available

0:00 0:01:00 0:00

HRW said that rights groups have verified the identities of at least nine people who were shot dead or died of injuries during the protests, including a 17-year-old boy, in Khuzestan and Lorestan.

At least 171 people were arrested, HRW, said, adding that the actual number of deaths and arrests may be higher.

The New York-based group called again on the member countries of the United Nations Human Rights Council to establish a UN-led inquiry into alleged serious rights violations during and in the aftermath of the widespread protests.

"Only a transparent investigation into the deaths of protesters, holding security forces accountable for wrongdoing, and a commitment to address long-term grievances can begin to address the local population's loss of trust in the authorities," HRW said.