The Russian government is considering allowing state-owned oil producer Rosneft to ship gas to Europe via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a move that could preempt the imposition of volume restrictions by the European Union.

State-owned energy giant Gazprom, the country's largest producer of natural gas, owns Nord Stream 2 and has a monopoly on Russian gas exports.

Gazprom is expected to complete construction of Nord Stream 2 , which runs from Russia to Germany on the Baltic Sea floor, later this year. The pipeline will have the capacity to deliver 55 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year.

However, EU energy regulations forbid a company that owns a pipeline from filling more than 50 percent of its capacity with its own gas. A German court on August 25 ruled that Nord Stream 2 is not exempt from EU rules.

That would force Gazprom to fill 27.5 bcm with gas from other Russian producers.

Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak told Interfax on September 2 that the government had received a request from Rosneft to export gas through the pipeline. He said a decision will be made at a later date.

Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin had earlier sent a letter to President Vladimir Putin requesting the right to export 10 bcm of gas through Nord Stream 2.

Ukraine has been seeking to stop the almost-complete pipeline and, having failed to convince the United States to impose more sanctions, has called on Europe to observe its own laws and restrict Gazprom from filling up the pipeline with its own gas.

Kyiv stands to lose as much as $2 billion a year in fees should the Kremlin reroute all Russian natural gas bound for Europe that currently transits Ukraine through the new pipeline.

With reporting by Interfax and Kommersant

Russia has refused to extend the mandate of international observers to monitor two border crossing points with Ukraine, a U.S. official said.

“The United States deeply regrets that the Russian Federation has indicated that it will not join consensus to extend the mission’s mandate and financing arrangement at the end of September,” Courtney Austrian, the charge d’affaires at the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said in a September 2 statement.

Austrian said the OSCE mission has carried out its mandate to provide “impartial reporting” of border crossing at two points in a professional manner and served as a tool to build confidence between Russia and Ukraine.

She said the Kremlin’s decision to end the mandate “looks to be just the latest in a long line of broken promises and the most recent demonstration that maintaining positive relations with its neighbors is simply not a priority for Russia.”

There was no immediate reaction by Russia to Austrian’s comments.

Russia is accused of sending troops and weapons over the border into eastern Ukraine and fomenting a war in an attempt to destabilize its neighbor and bring it back into its orbit.

The war, now in its eighth year, has resulted in the death of more than 13,200 people and devastated Ukraine’s economy.

KYIV -- A Ukrainian court has extended by two months the house arrest of Viktor Medvedchuk, a Kremlin-leaning lawmaker and tycoon who is accused of supporting fighters in two eastern provinces.

Medvedchuk, who heads Opposition Platform-For Life, the second-largest party in the parliament, will remain under house arrest until October 31, the court said.

The 67-year-old Medvedchuk, who has a close personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, is accused of funneling profits from his businesses into the two separatist-controlled regions in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine has been battling the Russia-backed separatists since 2014 in a war that has killed more than 13,200.

Medvedchuk denies the charges and calls them politically motivated.

The lawmaker was first placed under house arrest in May after Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) searched his home and office in Kyiv.

In a sign of things to come, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in February signed off on sanctions against Medvedchuk and three television stations believed to be owned by the tycoon in a move that caught the country by surprise.

Zelenskiy later described it as the start of his campaign to reduce the influence of a handful of tycoons who control the country from behind the scenes.

Civil society activists accuse Medvedchuk of undermining crucial reforms that would help Ukraine build a rules-based society and move closer to its goal of joining the European Union and NATO.

They also accuse his stations of spreading Russian disinformation.

The United States sanctioned Medvedchuk in 2014 for undermining democracy in Ukraine.

DUSHANBE -- A close relative of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has been given a fine while some others received prison sentences over a stabbing incident that occurred in the Central Asian nation in May.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an official at the Danghara district court in the southern Khatlon region told RFE/RL on September 1 that the decision was handed down in late July in the case against Amriddin Nakhshov, the 35-year-old nephew of Rahmon's wife. Nine other co-defendants were also found guilty.

According to the official, Nakhshov and four of the defendants were ordered to each pay fines of 60,000 somonis ($5,250), while the remaining five defendants were handed prison sentences of between three and five years for their roles in the brawl that took place in mid-May in downtown Danghara.

Nakhshov, who is the director-general of the Nakhsh gold company, and his associates were accused of attacking a group of workers from the Minu Farm company.

Police officials said at the time that 10 workers of Minu Farm were severely injured in the attack, of whom four sustained serious stab wounds.

Nakhshov was charged with hooliganism, while some of his co-defendants were additionally charged with breaking into private property.

A man who witnessed the incident told RFE/RL at the time that the brawl was caused by the refusal of Minu Farm's chief, Sayod Ghiyosov, to meet Nakhshov's demand related to an unspecified land ownership claim.

Minu Farm is linked to Shamsullo Sahibov, who is President Rahmon's son-in-law.

Earlier in August, Tajik Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimzoda told reporters that the trial of Nakhshov and his associates was over, but did not provide any details.

Minu Farm's leadership has issued a statement, saying that Amriddin Nakhshov "just tried to stop the brawl and called on the youth to stay away from disorder."

All of those convicted in the case are expected to be pardoned as a mass amnesty to mark the former Soviet republic's independence is expected to be approved by lawmakers in the coming days.

Rahmon has nine children. One of Rahmon’s daughters, Ozoda, is the president’s chief of staff, while his eldest son, Rustam Emomali, is the chairman of the parliament's upper chamber, Majlisi Milli (Supreme Assembly).

Several other members of Rahmon’s family and relatives occupy important official positions or control major businesses.

Rahmon, who runs the Central Asian nation since 1992, has been criticized for widespread corruption and a crackdown on dissent.

MOSCOW -- The walls of the apartment block in Moscow where prominent Russian human rights defender Lev Ponomaryov lives have been vandalized with hate messages on his 80th birthday.

Graffiti saying "Hide-out for the defender of terrorists" was found on September 2 on the walls outside his apartment, as well as on the building that houses Ponomaryov's For Defense of Inmates' Rights group.

Ponomaryov greeted the messages with a grin, calling them a "gift" and "congratulatory messages" as the veteran rights campaigner celebrated turning 80.

Police are investigating the incident.

In March, Ponomaryov shut his well-respected For Human Rights NGO due to the country's controversial laws on "foreign agents."

The organization was established as an unregistered group in 2019 after a Supreme Court ruling to liquidate his movement with the same name, which had conducted rights monitoring and advocacy for more than two decades.

The original group was shut down because Ponomaryov refused to register it as a foreign agent, a requirement of a 2012 law on nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity.

At the end of 2020, the legislation was modified to allow the Russian government to include individuals on its “foreign agents” list and to impose restrictions on them.

Ponomaryov is a former Soviet-era lawmaker and State Duma deputy who helped found the Memorial human rights group. In 1991, he headed the legislature's investigation into the August coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

On December 28, 2020, he was added as an individual to the Russian Justice Ministry's list of media accused of carrying out the functions of a "foreign agent." The government gave no explanation for including Ponomaryov on the register.

Russia's "foreign agents" legislation has been widely criticized by Western governments and Russian and international rights groups as an effort by the government of President Vladimir Putin to stifle dissent. Human Rights Watch has described the laws as “restrictive” and intended “to demonize independent groups.”

With reporting by Mediazona

ASHGABAT -- Authorities in Turkmenistan, where the government has yet to officially register a single case of coronavirus, have extended school holidays indefinitely amid reports on the ground of a spike in deaths believed to be caused by COVID-19.

"The situation with the virus in Ashgabat is very bad. People who are infected with the virus are constantly being brought to the hospitals. About one of every two are sick with it," an Ashgabat-based health official told RFE/RL.

Some schools opened on September 1, but students were immediately told that as of September 4, they will be back on holiday. Schools for older students didn't even open, and aren't expected to until next month at the earliest, according to one official.

“It is now being recommended that classes should be conducted online in secondary schools from October 1,” the Ashgabat-based education official, who asked not to be named, said.

Meanwhile, funeral parlors in Ashgabat are said to be overwhelmed with work as dozens die of COVID-19 each day.

Workers at funeral parlors told RFE/RL that because of the rapid increase of daily COVID-19 deaths, the price of caskets has dramatically increased in recent weeks, adding that many of those who do not have enough money are having to bury their loved ones in plastic bags.

Local authorities across the country have been urging families and religious clerics to ask those who have lost someone to refrain from organizing post-burial gatherings and prayers in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus.

In addition, all public events, weddings, birthdays, and other gatherings have been banned across the country. No official reason was given for the ban.

The defense team of Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who is serving a lengthy prison term in Russia on espionage charges he calls trumped up, has requested he be handed over to the United States to finish serving his sentence.

Whelan’s lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, told Russian media he has sent a request to the High Court of Mordovia, the region where Whelan is serving his sentence. The court has yet to set a date for the hearing, he said.

Zherebenkov had earlier asked the Moscow City Court to consider handing his client over to the United States to continue serving his sentence, but the court refused to consider the matter and forwarded it to Mordovia.

Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian, and Irish passports, was detained by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in Moscow on December 28, 2018, while he was in the country to attend the wedding of a friend, and accused of espionage.

Russian security forces say he took possession of a flash drive with photos and names of students from a school for border guards, a claim he calls “ludicrous.”

He was sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony.

The United States continues to call for his release.

Based on reporting by the BBC and TASS

Police in Spain have detained notorious Georgian organized crime boss Levan Abuladze -- known in the criminal underworld by the nickname Levan Sukhumsky -- who has been on the run since December 2020 when he escaped from a Russian court building where he had been brought for a pretrial hearing.

Spanish National Police said in a statement on September 2 that Abuladze was arrested at the Barcelona airport while trying to enter the country on a fake Ukrainian passport. Police alleged he had plans to continue running his organization in the country, but was thwarted as a result of joint efforts with Georgian police.

Abuladze, who is a Georgian citizen, is referred to as a thief in law, the highest title in the criminal world's hierarchy in the former Soviet Union.

In December 2020, he managed to escape from a court building in the Russian city of Vladimir, about 200 kilometers east of Moscow, after his handcuffs were removed shortly before a hearing so that he could use a toilet.

In mid-December, Abuladze completed a four-year prison sentence in Russia for illegal drug trafficking and forgery.

Russian authorities initially had planned to deport Abuladze to his native Georgia, but in September, prosecutors filed additional charges against him for "occupying the highest rank in the criminal hierarchy," a crime that carries a maximum punishment of 15 years in prison.

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) describes the thieves in law as "a Eurasian crime syndicate that has been linked to a long list of illicit activity across the globe." It says the syndicate poses a threat to the United States and its allies.

Thieves in law originated in Stalinist prison camps during the Soviet era.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the OFAC says the thieves in law network has expanded across former Soviet republics, Europe, and the United States, with crimes that include money laundering, extortion, bribery, kidnapping, and robbery.

According to the OFAC, the syndicate's members are "initiated or 'crowned' after demonstrating an 'ideal' criminal biography and take an oath to uphold a code that includes living exclusively off their criminal profits and supporting other thieves in law."

Being a thief in law was criminalized in Russia in April 2019. In Georgia, it was criminalized in 2005.

Two other former Soviet republics, Armenia and Ukraine, also have made it a crime to be a top member of the criminal hierarchy.

With reporting by RIA Novosti and TASS

Polish President Andrzej Duda has imposed a state of emergency in parts of two regions bordering Belarus amid an influx of migrants from the former Soviet state.

The September 2 decision came following a request by his government earlier in the week.

The emergency rules would ban demonstrations in a thin strip along the border as well as require people to carry identity documentation.

It will last for 30 days but could be extended by Duda.

About 3,000 migrants tried to enter Poland last month from Belarus.

Poland and the EU believe the illegal crossings are being orchestrated by strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka to extract revenge for sanctions against his authoritarian rule.

The EU has imposed several rounds of economic penalties against members of Lukashenka’s government, state-owned companies, as well as tycoons that have benefitted from his rule following his brutal crackdown on protesters.

Migrants from Belarus have also entered Latvia and Lithuania, two other EU member states that border the country. Most of the migrants are from the Middle East, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Poland last week began the construction of a 2.5-meter-tall fence along its 418-kilometer border with Belarus to slow the inflow.

The state of emergency is the first in Poland’s postcommunist history.

Reporting by Reuters, AP, Deutsche Welle

DUSHANBE -- Tajikistan has awarded posthumously two former Afghan political figures, Ahmad Shah Masud and Burhanuddin Rabbani, with the country's third-highest honor, the Order of Ismoili Somoni.

Afghanistan In Turmoil: Full Coverage On Gandhara

Read RFE/RL's Gandhara website for complete coverage of developments in Afghanistan. Gandhara is the go-to source for English-language reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Azadi and its network of journalists, and by RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, which offers extensive coverage of Pakistan's remote tribal regions.

Tajik President Emomali Rahmon signed the decree awarding the two men the honor on September 2. According to the decree, Masud and Rabbani were recognized for their contribution to ending a devastating 1993-97 civil war in Tajikistan.

Ahmad Shah Masud, nicknamed the Lion of Panjshir, was one of the leading military commanders of the Afghan resistance to Soviet troops from 1979-89 and fought against the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan from 1996-2001.

After Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan, Masud served as defense minister from 1992 until his assassination on September 9, 2001.

Rabbani served as Afghanistan's president from 1992 to 2001. Between 1996-2001 his authority was not recognized by Taliban militants, who controlled many regions of the country.

Rabbani was killed on September 20, 2011, by a bomb attack during a meeting with Taliban representatives at his home.

Both Masud and Rabbani were ethnic Tajiks involved in peace talks that ended the war in Tajikistan in 1997.

The signing of the decree awarding the two men the honor comes as the Taliban battles resistance forces in the Panjshir Valley, which is mainly populated by ethnic Tajiks.

Tajikistan has officially stated that Afghanistan's new government under the Taliban must include Tajiks, Uzbeks, and representatives of the country's other ethnic groups.

The head of Tehran’s city council says Iran's Interior Ministry has approved hard-liner Alireza Zakani as the capital city's new mayor.

Mehdi Chamran announced on September 2 that the ministry had signed the relevant decree, three weeks after the city council vote for the 55-year-old to replace Pirouz Hanachi as the city's leader.

Zakani, who heads a parliamentary research center, was one of the seven candidates approved by the authorities to run in the presidential election earlier this year.

But he withdrew from the race to support the eventual winner, fellow hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi.

As a lawmaker, Zakani is well-known for his outspoken opposition to Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

He also has served since the late 1990s as the head of Iran's volunteer Basij paramilitary militia, an organization affiliated with the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Journalists at the online magazine Village Kazakhstan say they have come under pressure from unknown state officials over a recent report about the life of a boy who was raped three years ago by teenagers in Kazakhstan's southern region of Turkistan.

"We have to inform you that unknown individuals who introduce themselves as officials of state entities are attacking us right now, demanding we remove the article from our website. We demand you stop putting pressure on independent journalists," the magazine said in its Telegram channel on September 1.

The article, published on September 1 and written by journalist Asem Zhapisheva, tells the story of a 7-year-old boy who was raped repeatedly in the village of Abai in 2018.

The story was first reported by local journalist Amangeldy Batyrbekov, who wrote in his online S-Inform newspaper about the boy's ordeal and the reluctance of the regional authorities and police to launch a probe into it.

The reporting led to a public outcry, forcing the replacement of the Central Asian nation's ombudswoman for children and the suspension of local police and education officials in the Turkistan region.

Eventually, one of the perpetrators was sentenced to seven years in prison, while several other teens avoided prosecution because they were underage at the time.

The Village Kazakhstan's September 1 report focused on the problems the boy and his family continue to face, including comments from the his mother and grandmother that they continue to receive threats from local authorities and relatives and friends of the convicted boys.

The victim's lawyer, Qurmanghazy Musir, whose pressure campaign eventually prompted police to launch a criminal case into the crime, has been slapped with several libel lawsuits from those incriminated, costing him time, energy and money, they said.

Batyrbekov also faced libel charges after he wrote about the rape in 2018. In September 2019, he was sentenced to two years and three months in prison on libel charges.

In January 2020, Judge Taubai Qadyrbaev of the Turkistan Regional Court accepted Batyrbekov's appeal and ruled that he be immediately released from custody and offered apologies to the journalist "on behalf of the state and the court."

However, later in 2020, Batyrbekov was again charged with libel through several other cases, which he eventually won.

Batyrbekov told RFE/RL that a new libel lawsuit had been filed against him by three judges over his Facebook posts, which the journalist called baseless as well.

Kazakhstan's Ministry of Information and Social Development said in a September 2 statement that it is "ready to provide assistance to Village Kazakhstan" and "protect the rights" of its reporters.

Kazakhstan ranked 155th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

Tajik Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimzoda says his country is unable to host many refugees from neighboring Afghanistan, as thousands look to flee after Taliban insurgents took control of the country.

Rahimzoda cited a lack of infrastructure to host Afghan refugees as the reason and called on international organizations, including the United Nations, to assist the Central Asian state to build such infrastructure.

He was speaking during a meeting with Mulugeta Zewdie, the country director for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, on September 1.

Rahimzoda noted that 80 Afghan families were currently in a neutral segment of the Tajik-Afghan border area and seeking to enter Tajikistan, fearing for their lives.

Some 5,000 Afghan government troops have already entered Tajikistan as they fled from Taliban advances in recent weeks. The troops were later sent back to Afghanistan.

Afghanistan In Turmoil: Full Coverage On Gandhara

Read RFE/RL's Gandhara website for complete coverage of developments in Afghanistan. Gandhara is the go-to source for English-language reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Azadi and its network of journalists, and by RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, which offers extensive coverage of Pakistan's remote tribal regions.

He also said his ministry was overwhelmed with work related to any possible influx of refugees, stressing that the ongoing instability and the growing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan might cause a "flow of terrorists to other countries."

In the last 15 years, Tajikistan has accepted more than 3,000 families who left Afghanistan and allocated 70 hectares of land in the country's south for setting up a proper camp for refugees two decades ago.

"However, in 20 years no international organizations provided any practical assistance to create infrastructure to admit refugees and persons who seek asylum. Because of that, the Republic of Tajikistan does not have the capacity to accept a big number of refugees or asylum seekers," the ministry quoted Rahimzoda as saying.

In July, almost 350 ethnic Kyrgyz shepherds from Afghanistan with their families and some 4,000 livestock fled the country and entered Tajikistan. They were later sent back to their village in Afghanistan, even though the Kyrgyz authorities asked Dushanbe to secure their safe passage to Kyrgyzstan.

Last month, authorities in Uzbekistan said they had sent 150 Afghan refugees back to Afghanistan under an agreement with the Taliban and at the request of the refugees themselves.

In July, Tajikistan said it was ready to shelter up to 100,000 Afghan refugees but later backed away from that statement.

SOFIA -- Bulgaria's parliament has set November 14 as the date for a presidential election as the country also gears up for its third parliamentary vote this year, after political parties gave up efforts to form a governing coalition following inconclusive polls.

Lawmakers decided on the date for the vote on September 2, adding that a runoff, if needed, will be held a week later.

Incumbent Rumen Radev, who has maintained high approval ratings since his election in 2016, is running for a second five-year term for the largely ceremonial position.

Radev, a 58-year-old former air force commander, is supported by the anti-establishment ITN party and the Socialists, and is an ardent critic of former long-serving Prime Minister Boyko Borisov of the center-right GERB party.

Other political parties have yet to announce their candidates for president.

Borisov led the Eastern European country for most of the past decade until April, when inconclusive parliamentary elections led to the appointment of an interim government by Radev.

Snap national polls in July again produced a fractured parliament and Bulgaria now looks set to hold its third general elections in November after three attempts by ITN, GERB, and the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) to build a majority in the National Assembly failed.

SEE ALSO:

Hoping Third Time's A Charm, Bulgarian President Asks Socialists To Form Government

Radev still has to set a date for the parliamentary elections.

The prolonged political uncertainty could hamper the European Union's poorest member state's ability to effectively deal with a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and tap the bloc's multibillion-euro coronavirus recovery fund.

In the July 11 elections, the ITN won 65 seats in the fragmented 240-member parliament, ahead of GERB's 63 seats and the BSP's 36.

With reporting by Reuters

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is urging Iranian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release a financial reporter who was reportedly arrested this week on security charges, saying that the jailing of journalists for doing their jobs is “an outrageous form of censorship that must end.”

The New-York-based media freedom watchdog made the call in a statement on September 1 after Amir-Abbas Azarmvand, who works for the state run Iranian economic newspaper SMT, was arrested at his parents’ home in Tehran by security agents of the Intelligence Ministry, according to exile-run outlets.

Azarmvand was presented with an arrest warrant citing recent critical reporting for SMT on the “difficult economic situation of union workers and some of the new economic decisions by the government,” IranWire reported, quoting a colleague of the journalist who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the fear of reprisal.

According to the source, Azarmvand was charged with “spreading propaganda against the system” and transferred to Evin prison, a primary site for political detainees.

SEE ALSO:

Six Iranian Prison Guards To Stand Trial After Leak Of 'Shocking' Abuse Videos

The report said security agents also confiscated Azarmvand’s laptop, cellphone, and some books.

IranWire and the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said Azarmvand had also been arrested in the fall of 2018 and 2020 for his journalistic work, but provided no further details.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is calling for international solidarity with Belarus’s “persecuted” independent journalists as a crackdown on media and civil society intensifies following last year's disputed presidential election.

“We call on the international community to vigorously support their resistance and to continue offering a refuge to journalists who are forced to flee the persecution,” RSF said in a statement on September 1, nearly a week after the Belarusian Supreme Court ordered the closure of the country’s only independent journalists’ association on “spurious grounds.”

The Paris-based media watchdog said the move to close the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAZh) was “a political decision culminating a crackdown on independent media in Belarus that began more than a year ago.”

The ongoing crackdown on Belarusian opposition and independent media started after the official results of the August 2020 presidential election awarded authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka a sixth term, sparking an unprecedented wave of protests amid allegations the vote was rigged.

SEE ALSO:

Belarus Closes Journalists' Association Amid Ongoing Crackdown On Media

Mass protests against Lukashenka were met with the heavy-handed -- and sometimes violent -- detention of tens of thousands of people. Much of the opposition leadership and many independent journalists have been jailed or forced into exile.

The order to liquidate the BAZh came on August 27 after the Supreme Court upheld a lawsuit filed by the Justice Ministry. The formal reason for the order was that the association did not correct alleged violations identified by the Justice Ministry during an inspection launched in June. The BAZh argued there were no legal grounds for its dissolution.

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 BAZh had been “constantly harassed” by the authorities, according to RSF.

“It was denied access to its headquarters, its bank account was frozen, and it was subjected to searches and seizures carried out in the absence of any [BAZh] representative and without being told anything about the searches," RSF said.

The organization "has been promoting press freedom for more than 25 years in very trying circumstances, but it never had to face a crackdown of this scale,” said Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

Reacting to the Supreme Court’s dissolution order, BAZh President Andrey Bastunets said that its 1,500 members were “united by the awareness of their mission: to expand the space of freedom of speech in Belarus.”

“We will continue to do our work regardless of the decisions of courts and administrative bodies, by all legal means," he said.

RSF noted that the authorities have also disbanded other organizations such as the Belarus Press Club and PEN Belarus, which defended writers’ rights and freedom of expression.

Belarus, described by RSF as Europe’s “most dangerous country” for journalists, ranks 158th out of 180 countries in the group’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

Four visiting U.S. senators told Lebanese officials on September 1 that the United States was eager to help that country tackle its fuel shortages but warned against Beirut seeking to import Iranian oil to alleviate the problem.

The Democratic senators said turning to Iranian supplies could have "severely damaging consequences."

The visit follows statements last month from the leader of the Iran-backed Hizballah militant group suggesting an Iranian fuel tanker was en route to Lebanon and that others would follow.

The United States has clamped down with tougher sanctions against Iran since Washington withdrew from a nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers in 2018.

The senators' visit also comes with Lebanese politicians unable to form a government for over a year, which could enable negotiations with international financial institutions to help address Lebanon's economic crisis.

“It is inexcusable that in the middle of this life-threatening crisis, the political leaders in Lebanon have refused to make the tough choices in order to form a government,” Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said near the end of the two-day visit.

Hassan Diab and his government resigned days after a devastating blast at Beirut’s port that killed at least 214 people, wounded some 6,000, and damaged huge swaths of the city.

Another visiting senator, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, criticized Hizballah as a “malignant cancerous terrorist organization” and suggested he'd heard “very troublingly about maligned Iranian influence, particularly in providing fuel.”

The World Bank has described Lebanon's economic crisis as one of the world's most severe since the 1850s.

Based on reporting by AP

The Russian Supreme Court has barred Dmitry Potapenko, a candidate for the center-left Russian Party for Freedom and Justice, from running in upcoming legislative elections because he allegedly held shares in Russian companies listed on foreign exchanges.

Potapenko, who was running for the State Duma, denied the allegation in an interview with Novaya gazeta on September 1, saying that he did not own shares in Yandex and Sberbank but depositary receipts.

"In Russia, you do not own shares," the businessman and radio host told the Russian daily.

A depositary receipt is issued by a bank to represent a foreign company's publicly traded securities. Yandex is traded on the U.S. NASDAQ exchange and Sberbank on the London Stock Exchange.

Potapenko claimed in his interview with Novaya gazeta that the Central Election Commission, which filed the suit against his candidacy, had presented documents that contained fake signatures, but the Supreme Court and the Prosecutor-General's Office did not accept his arguments.

Potapenko said he plans to appeal the decision after he formally receives it on September 2.

Earlier the court canceled the registration of six Duma candidates from the liberal Party of Growth on similar grounds, and lawsuits alleging candidates from the liberal Yabloko party own foreign assets are expected to be filed.

Russia's nationwide legislative elections, which will determine 450 Duma seats as well as some mayors and regional heads, are set to take place on September 17-19.

A Central Bank audit has said that 22 candidates have been excluded from party lists for owning foreign assets, including some in which candidates owned single shares purchased through investment apps.

With reporting by Kommersant, TASS, and Novaya gazeta

Romanian Prime Minister Florin Citu sacked his justice minister late on September 1, plunging the EU member’s governing coalition into crisis.

The centrist prime minister accused Justice Minister Stelian Ion of undermining a 50 billion lei ($12 billion) community development plan aimed at modernizing infrastructure. The plan needed the Justice Ministry's approval.

"I will not accept ministers in the Romanian government who oppose the modernization of Romania," Citu told a news briefing.

"Blocking the activity of the government only because you do not agree to develop communities means violating the mandate given to you by parliament through the governing program,” he added.

The move threatens a coalition made up of Citu's Liberal Party, Ion's USR-PLUS, and the ethnic Hungarians group, which jointly control 56 percent of parliament.

Following the sacking, USR-PLUS decided to withdraw its support for the prime minister and called for the start of coalition talks to form a new government. If coalition talks fail to find a new prime minister, USR-PLUS said it would support a censure motion against the Citu government.

"Tonight, Prime Minister Florin Citu has just shown that he has no respect for the law, for the constitution," Ion said. “In this way, Florin Citu actually signed his own departure from the government because it is only a matter of time until Florin Citu will go home.”

A rupture in the coalition could endanger the government's agenda to curb its yawning deficit and fight the coronavirus pandemic, leaving it without a majority.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Romania was struggling with a widening budget shortfall from years of political instability and fiscal largesse.

With reporting by Reuters and RFE/RL’s Romanian Service

An employee of a German security company contracted by the Bundestag has gone on trial on espionage charges after being accused of passing floor plans of buildings used by the German parliament to the Russian secret services.

The 56-year-old suspect, identified only as "Jens F.", did not make any statements at the opening of the trial in Berlin on September 1.

The suspect is accused of handing a computer disk containing more than 300 files of floor plans to the military attaché of the Russian Embassy in 2017.

Prosecutors have said the embassy employee "mainly works for the Russian military secret service GRU" and that the alleged German spy appears to have acted on his own initiative.

The court noted that a plea bargain had been offered with a jail term of 20 months to two years, but the suspect declined the deal on the advice of his legal team, which argues that there was no proof its client passed the material on to Russia.

The defense alleges that the prosecution's case is based on the suspect's former status as an army officer in communist East Germany.

The German magazine Spiegel has reported that Jens F. was an officer of a tank division and worked for the Stasi secret police between 1984 and 1990.

The case has further damaged relations between Moscow and Berlin that were already strained due to a number of espionage cases and accusations that Russia was behind cyberattacks on the West, including one in 2015 that shut down the computer system of the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament.

Moscow has denied any involvement in that attack.

Based on reporting by AFP and the BBC

The U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe on September 1 announced plans to build a border-guard facility on the Tajik-Afghan-Uzbek border, where tensions have risen in recent months as Taliban fighters captured Afghan regions that abut Central Asia's post-Soviet republics.

The embassy said a groundbreaking ceremony to launch the project is scheduled for "early 2022."

"The new border detachment will replace the old one in Shahritus and allow the Border Service to deploy troops to the border areas as soon as possible in response to threats," it said in a statement.

The facility will house an unspecified number of border guards and their families.

Central Asians states bordering Afghanistan are concerned about security threats emanating from the war-torn country and the potential for tens of thousands of refugees to pour over the border to avoid life under the fundamentalist Taliban.

The United States and Russia have each responded to Taliban gains with increased diplomatic outreach among Tajikistan and its neighbors.

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"The United States and Tajikistan enjoy strong security cooperation, and this Border Detachment project is another example of our shared commitment to the security and sovereignty of Tajikistan and Central Asia," the embassy quoted U.S. Ambassador John Pommersheim as saying.

It cited more than $300 million in U.S. security assistance to Tajikistan since 2002.

During talks with visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in Dushanbe on August 25, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon expressed his vision for a future Afghan government under Taliban control with all ethnic groups represented in the next cabinet.

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Russian-Led Military Group Struggles To Find Its Role -- And Relevance -- Amid Taliban Takeover

Thousands of Tajiks are said to have volunteered recently to help locals defend the heavily Tajik region of the Panjshir Valley, which has so far resisted Taliban capture, although participation in foreign military ventures is banned under Tajik law.

Russia, which has military bases in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, has vowed to defend Moscow's allies in Central Asia against any security threat from Afghanistan.

The Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) said last week that the alliance planned to hold fresh military exercises in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in connection with the ongoing situation in Afghanistan.

Three more sets of CSTO military maneuvers will be held close to the Tajik-Afghan border in October, with a fourth scheduled for November.

An Iranian newspaper has quoted a Tehran risk management official as saying that 6-in-10 of the city's buildings don't meet seismic standards and would be heavily damaged if a major earthquake hit.

The report in the Hamshahri newspaper quotes city risk management department head Reza Karami-Mohammadi as saying 1-in-5 of Tehran's buildings would be "completely destroyed" in a big earthquake.

Iran lies on the Iranian Plateau at the juncture of the Eurasian Plate to the north and the Indian Plate to the southeast and is one of the most seismically active countries in the world.

"Sixty percent of the buildings do not comply with the anti-seismic standards and will be seriously damaged" if a magnitude-6.5 or bigger quake were to strike, Karami-Mohammadi was quoted as saying.

He was reportedly speaking at a local council meeting to urge renovations to the Iranian capital's aging cityscape.

Tehran is home to around 9 million of Iran's 83 million or so people.

In 2017, a magnitude-7 earthquake near Iran's border with Iraq killed some 600 people and injured more than 9,000 others.

In 2003, a slightly smaller quake killed more than 26,000 people and leveled much of the historic city of Bam in southern Iran.

Based on reporting by AFP

France and Germany have called on Iran to immediately resume talks intended to revive the moribund nuclear deal with world powers, after Tehran said it could take another "two to three months" to get back to the negotiating table.

"We vehemently ask Iran to return to the negotiating table constructively and as soon as possible," a spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry said at a briefing in Berlin on September 1. "We are ready to do so, but the time window won't be open indefinitely."

The same day, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian stressed the "importance and urgency of an immediate resumption of negotiations" during a telephone call with his recently appointed Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

The deal, under which Iran agreed to curbs on its controversial nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, was implemented in 2015 but was abandoned by the United States three years later.

At least six rounds of direct and indirect negotiations in Vienna to resume the accord stalled after a June election was won by hard-line Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

The German and French calls for Iran to return to the talks followed discouraging signals from the staunchly anti-Western Amir-Abdollahian on state television on August 31.

"We are not seeking to flee the negotiation table," Amir-Abdollahian said, adding that the government believes "a real negotiation is a negotiation that produces palpable results allowing the rights of the Iranian nation to be guaranteed."

Amir-Abdollahian said the Vienna talks are "one of the questions on the foreign policy and government agenda," but that "the other party knows full well that a process of two to three months is required for the new government to establish itself and to start making decisions."

In August, France, Germany, and fellow signatory Britain voiced grave concerns about reports that Iran had produced uranium enriched to 20 percent fissile purity, raising fears that Tehran might be pursuing nuclear weapons.

Iran has denied that it seeks to develop a nuclear weapon.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP

A Moscow court has handed a suspended sentence to a participant of the January 23 rally to support opposition politician Aleksei Navalny after convicting him of attacking an officer and damaging a police car during the dispersal of demonstrators.

The Tver district court sentenced Gleb Borisov to a suspended sentence of five years on September 1.

Borisov is one of several persons who were handed prison terms or suspended sentences this year on charges of attacking police during nationwide demonstrations held on January 23 and January 31 to protest the arrest of the Kremlin critic.

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 recovering in Germany, Navalny had violated the terms of parole from an old embezzlement case that is widely considered as being politically motivated. Navalny's 3 1/2-year suspended sentence from the case was converted to a jail term, though the court said he will serve 2 1/2 years in prison given time already served.

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

MOSCOW -- Moscow police have detained the chief of the Alliance of Doctors nongovernmental organization and taken her to a court hearing, where she is being charged with allegedly violating restrictive measures aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

The group's spokeswoman, Aleksandra Zakharova, said police detained Anastasia Vasilyeva, a supporter of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, even though she had planned on coming to the Preobrazhensky district court for the hearing on her own on September 1.

"She was detained. It is not yet clear why. Perhaps they want to forcibly take her to court. Today is just a court hearing on the case of ‘sanitary standards’ violations," lawyer Dmitry Dzhulai told the state-run TASS news agency.

SEE ALSO:

Who Has Russia Labeled As A 'Foreign Agent'?

Vasilyeva is one of two Navalny supporters still facing charges for publicly calling for people to take part in unsanctioned rallies to support the Kremlin critic in January.

The other person whose hearing in the case is pending is a leading member of the Pussy Riot protest group, Maria Alyokhina.

Several other close associates and supporters of Navalny, including his brother Oleg, have been handed parole-like sentences restricting their freedom in recent weeks.

Media reports said that Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh and his close associate Lyubov Sobol fled Russia after they were sentenced, which had not been confirmed either by the two women or their lawyers.

The Alliance of Doctors NGO was declared a "foreign agent" in March by the Justice Ministry.