moscow — A Russian court Monday gave a life sentence to a man convicted in a car bombing that seriously wounded nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin.

Prosecutors said the May 2023 bombing in the Nizhny Novogorod region was conducted at the direction of Ukraine’s security services. Prilepin was seriously injured, and his driver died in the bombing.

The convicted defendant, Alexander Permyakov, is from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and once fought with the Russian-backed separatists there, news reports said. 

Prilepin was known for his vehement defense of both the Russia-backed eastern Ukraine rebels who rose up in 2014, and of Russia’s fighting in Ukraine that began in February 2022.

Since Russia sent troops into Ukraine, two prominent nationalist figures have been killed. Darya Dugina, a commentator on Russian TV channels and the daughter of Kremlin-linked ideologue Alexander Dugin, died in an August 2022 car bombing that investigators suspected was aimed at her father.

Vladlen Tatarsky, a well-known military blogger, died in April 2023, when a statue given to him at a party in St. Petersburg exploded. Russian political activist Darya Trepova was convicted in the case and sentenced to 27 years behind bars. She said she was following orders from a contact in Ukraine. 
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Washington — On a quiet May morning, two months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the homepage of Kremlin-owned news website Lenta.ru was flooded with anti-war and anti-government articles. The articles disappeared from the webpage within the hour, but because of the effort of internet archivists, they can still be viewed separately today. 

This is one of many examples of the Russian government’s attacks on free media, one that activists and archivists hope to counter. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, almost all independent media has been banned or blocked, and journalists are frequently imprisoned over trumped-up charges, according to Reporters Without Borders.

To preserve over two decades of independent Russian journalism, exiled journalists and activists teamed up with PEN’s Freedom to Write Center to create the Russian Independent Media Archive, or RIMA.

“There is no freedom to write if there is no freedom to read,” Liesl Gerntholtz, director of PEN’s Freedom to Write Center, told VOA.

Currently, the website houses over 6 million documents from 98 outlets, starting from the year 2000 — when Russian President Vladmir Putin first came to power.

Co-founders Anna Nemzer, Ilia Veniavkin and Serob Khachatryan began the project around the time of the Ukraine invasion. The restrictive anti-war censorship laws that followed threatened press freedom and journalist safety in Russia, Nemzer told VOA.

More than 1,500 journalists fled the country after the invasion and 22 were imprisoned at the end of last year, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“I remember thinking: how can we help these people?” Nemzer told VOA. “We couldn’t help them relocate; we couldn’t help them avoid prison if they stayed in Russia, but we thought the least we could do was save archives of their work.”

At the time of the invasion, Nemzer was on a business trip outside of her home in Moscow, and she remains exiled today.

Nemzer hopes the archive will protect work that is or might be “deliberately erased” by the government.

The main audience for the archive is journalists, academics and researchers who may not have access to relevant documents when they write about Russia. Gerntholtz of PEN sees this archive as the “first draft of history,” she told VOA.

But Nemzer also believes she is doing a service for the archived independent journalists, both in and outside Russia, by preserving their work.

PEN’s Freedom to Write Center agreed to help develop the project because of these shared views — the organization sees media archiving as a natural extension of protecting the reporters themselves, Gerntholtz told VOA.

Gerntholtz added that the organization is concerned about Russia’s “crackdown on free expression” that has only intensified after 2022.

“Free expression in Russia has been at risk for a really long time,” Gerntholtz told VOA. “We’ve seen more writers and artists who’ve been jailed for anti-war expression. We’ve seen civilian and professional journalists jailed for their activism journalism.”

She cited the April 2024 arrests of journalists Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin as an example of the Russian government silencing anti-corruption reporting. They were arrested on extremism charges for their work for late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.

Even before the invasion, a “huge attack” on journalists was already underway, Nemzer told VOA. She saw Russia’s government declare many independent media outlets as undesirable organizations and prosecute her peer journalists under foreign agent charges.

The Kremlin passed the undesirable-organization law in 2015, giving the government the power to shut down foreign and international organizations. However, critics say this law is a way to target government-critical news outlets. More than 175 organizations have been declared undesirable. 

Because of these crackdowns, Nemzer faced many hurdles in archiving decades of material. Mastering the technology to construct the archive to the scale it is today was especially challenging, and it is still a work in progress, she told VOA.

The co-founders collaborated with the world’s largest internet archive, the Wayback Machine, to use the technology to create a special archived collection.

The Wayback Machine archives over a billion URLs a day, according to its director, Mark Graham. RIMA has been able to access their collection efforts to preserve not just written articles, but also video and audio journalism.

“Material published on the web is not permanent or persistent,” Graham told VOA. “The reliability of the access to that information going into the future is uncertain.”

Among the millions of stories archived in RIMA, over 50,000 come from exiled independent news source The Moscow Times.

Since the Ukraine invasion, The Moscow Times and its staff have “faced nothing but challenges,” Alexander Gubsky, longtime publisher of the Times, told VOA. The staff had to relocate from Russia to Amsterdam within two weeks because of the Russian government’s hostile policies toward journalists, according to Gubsky.

“They want to shut us up,” Gubsky said. “We tell the truth, and they cannot allow the truth.”

Preserving the work of targeted individuals and outlets is one of the main reasons why Nemzer of RIMA helped create the archive, she told VOA.

However, Gubsky told VOA that the Times has an archive of their own work on their website, and prefers that curious readers turn their attention there.

He said that while RIMA is an “interesting project,” the Times owns the copyright for all their own articles, and their primary source of income is from licensing and syndication.

Graham of the Wayback Machine told VOA that the organization responds to legitimate requests from rights holders regarding the distribution of their material. He added that archiving public articles falls under fair use.

“RIMA is set up to facilitate a kind of exploration in a way that you simply can’t do if all you have is access to a few individual websites,” Graham said.

As RIMA continues to expand, Nemzer already has her sights set on the future. She hopes to take advantage of evolving artificial intelligence to help sort the archive.

Nemzer also aims to create similar projects for other countries with leadership that suppresses media and has already talked to journalists from Belarus, Afghanistan and Iran. 

“Writers play a particular role in challenging autocracy, in exposing human rights abuses and speaking truth to power,” Gerntholtz said. “And journalists are crucial to challenging powerful people and governments.” 
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Budapest — Ukraine’s new foreign minister held a “frank” conversation with his Hungarian counterpart on “difficult issues” on Monday, against a backdrop of a frosty relationship between the neighboring countries.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been the only EU leader to maintain close ties with the Kremlin since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

He has repeatedly stalled efforts to punish Moscow and to aid war-torn Ukraine in its fight against the invading forces.

Budapest refuses to approve the release of more than $7.25 billion to Kyiv, complaining about discriminatory measures against Hungarian companies.

“We had a very frank one-on-one conversation discussing difficult issues, among other things,” Andriy Sybiga told reporters after a meeting with Hungary’s top diplomat, Peter Szijjarto, in Budapest.

The negotiations between the two ministers “lasted about an hour, twice as long as planned,” according to a statement from the Ukrainian ministry.

Speaking at a press conference, Sybiga welcomed Orban’s first visit to Kyiv at the beginning of July and called for “the development of bilateral relations,” saying he could “count on Budapest’s support” in its EU integration process.

“Our meeting today has convinced me that … there is a mutual and common will to develop neighborly relations,” Szijjarto added.

But Hungary’s foreign minister also urged Kyiv to refrain from “unilateral, sudden steps” that could “pose a challenge” to the central European country’s energy supply.

In July, Budapest accused Kyiv of threatening its energy security by barring Russian energy giant Lukoil from using the Ukrainian section of the Druzhba pipeline.

Earlier this month, Hungarian energy company MOL made a deal guaranteeing the supply of Russian oil.

The two ministers also agreed to accelerate efforts by an intergovernmental working group set up to address a long-running feud over minority rights in Transcarpathia, a western Ukrainian region home to an ethnic Hungarian community. 
…

…

VIENNA — Picknicking with friends in the park after prayers at a Vienna mosque, Saima Arab, a 20-year-old pedicurist originally from Afghanistan, is thankful for her freedoms in Austria.

“We could never do this in Afghanistan, never cook, go out, just sit in public like this,” said Arab, who came to Austria in 2017. “Home is like a prison there.”

Many Austrians, however, are worried about their country’s ability to integrate migrants, especially Muslims, and their desire for stricter immigration laws was a key issue in Sunday’s election which gave victory to the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) for the first time.

Both the FPO and the runner-up, the ruling conservative Austrian People’s Party (OVP), ran on pledges to tighten asylum laws and crack down on illegal immigration.

The FPO victory added to critics’ concerns about the rise of the far right in Europe after electoral gains in recent months by the Alternative for Germany and the National Rally in France.

“Whatever the government looks like after the election, I’m certain it’ll work towards toughening up asylum and immigration law,” Professor Walter Obwexer, an adviser to the government on migration law, said before the vote.

Arab, who also spoke to Reuters in an interview conducted before the election, said she did not like to talk about politics but hoped she too would vote in Austria one day.

The number of people in Austria born abroad or whose parents were jumped by more than a third between 2015 and last year, and now account for around 27% of the population of about 9 million.

Together the FPO and the OVP won over 55% of the vote and one of the two is almost certain to lead the next government, feeding expectations that Austria, like neighboring Germany and Hungary, and France, will adopt tougher rules.

Opinion polls showed immigration and inflation were key voter concerns. Such is the worry that Austria is taking in migrants faster than it can integrate them that even some Austrians of Muslim origin feel Austria is stretched.

“I wonder if the system is close to collapse,” said Mehmet Ozay, a Turkish-born Austrian FPO supporter, arguing there were too many asylum seekers not contributing to state coffers.

Taylor Swift concert

The FPO has combined its tough talk on immigration with criticism of Islam.

The issue took center stage last month when police arrested a teenager with North Macedonian roots on suspicion of masterminding a failed Islamic State-inspired attack on a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna.

Running on the campaign slogan “Fortress Austria,” the FPO promoted “remigration,” including returning asylum seekers to their countries of origin, especially if they fail to integrate, and limiting asylum rights.

That has unsettled some who feel the party, which dropped some of its more polarizing slogans in the campaign, is demonizing foreigners.

The FPO, which did not reply to a request for comment, denies this. It says asylum seekers are a drain on state resources, and draws attention to crimes some of them commit.

“The FPO routinely talk about refugees and asylum seekers as rapists and thieves and drug dealers,” said Hedy, a social worker and Austrian citizen who arrived as a refugee from Afghanistan. He declined to give his last name.

“Something very similar happened to the Jews in Vienna before the Second World War,” he said, adding that the FPO, which wants to ban “political Islam,” would embolden xenophobes.

The FPO, whose first leader was a former Nazi lawmaker, has sought to distance itself from its past, and in 2019 helped pass a law allowing foreign descendants of Austrian victims of National Socialism to acquire Austrian citizenship.

This month FPO leader Herbert Kickl called Adolf Hitler the “biggest mass murderer in human history,” as he roundly denounced the Nazi dictator’s legacy in a television debate.

Still, Alon Ishay, head of the Austrian Association of Jewish Students, said he saw some parallels between targeting of Jews in the early Nazi era and attitudes to Muslims now.

“There are rhetorical similarities when you talk about deportation, when you talk about taking people’s citizenship away,” he said, also speaking before Sunday’s election.

FPO-backer Ozay disagreed, saying that Muslims such as himself were free to do as they liked in Austria.

“If there were daily attacks by FPO voters I would understand the fear that things would get even more extreme if Kickl came to power,” he said. “But that’s not how it is. It’s just fear stirred up by the other parties.”
…

HELSINKI — Norway may put a fence along part or all the 198-kilometer (123-mile) border it shares with Russia, a minister said, a move inspired by a similar project in its Nordic neighbor Finland.

“A border fence is very interesting, not only because it can act as a deterrent but also because it contains sensors and technology that allow you to detect if people are moving close to the border,” Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl said in an interview with the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK published late Saturday.

She said the Norwegian government is currently looking at “several measures” to beef up security on the border with Russia in the Arctic north, such as fencing, increasing the number of border staff or stepping up monitoring.

The Storskog border station, which has witnessed only a handful of illegal border crossing attempts in the past few years, is the only official crossing point into Norway from Russia.

Should the security situation in the delicate Arctic area worsen, the Norwegian government is ready to close the border on short notice, said Enger Mehl, who visited neighboring Finland this summer to learn about how the entire 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) Finnish-Russian land border was closed.

The Finnish government was prompted to close all crossing points from Russia to Finland in late 2023 after more than 1,300 third-country migrants without proper documentation or visas — an unusually high number — entered the country in three months, just months after the nation became a member of NATO.

To prevent Moscow using migrants in what the Finnish government calls Russia’s “hybrid warfare,” Helsinki is currently building fences with a total length of up to 200 kilometers (124 miles) in separate sections along the border zone that makes up part of NATO’s northern flank and serves as the European Union’s external border.

Finnish border officials say fences equipped with top-notch surveillance equipment — to be located mostly around crossing points — are needed to better monitor and control any migrants attempting to cross over from Russia and give officials time to react.

Inspired by Finland’s project, Enger Mehl said that such a fence could also be a good idea for Norway. According to NRK, her statement was supported by police chief Ellen Katrine Hætta in Norway’s northern Finnmark county.

“It’s a measure that may become relevant on all or part of the border” between Norway and Russia, Enger Mehl said.

The Storskog border station is currently surrounded by a 200-meter (660-foot) -long and 3.5-meter (12-foot) -high fence erected in 2016 after some 5,000 migrants and asylum-seekers had crossed over from Russia to Norway a year earlier.

Norway, a nation of 5.6 million, is a NATO member but isn’t part of the European Union. However, it belongs to the EU’s Schengen area, whose participants have abolished border controls at their mutual borders, guaranteeing free movement of citizens.
…

Moscow — Russia announced Sunday that Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin will meet Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran on Monday.

The announcement came as Russia has condemned Israel’s “political murder” of Iran-backed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut.

Mishustin will hold talks with Pezeshkian and First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, the government statement said.

“It is planned to discuss the full range of Russian-Iranian cooperation in the trade and economic and cultural and humanitarian spheres,” Russia said.  

The talks will focus on “carrying out large joint projects in fields involving transport energy, industry and agriculture,” the statement added.  

Western governments have accused Iran of supplying both drones and missiles to Moscow for its war on Ukraine, a charge Tehran has repeatedly denied.

Pezeshkian is set to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit to Russia next month to attend the BRICS summit.

After leaving Iran, Russian Prime Minister Mishustin will attend a meeting in Armenia on Tuesday of the Eurasian Economic Forum, the government said Sunday, referring to a body within the framework of a grouping of former Soviet states.

The statement said the meeting would discuss digitalization, market operations and cooperation within the Eurasian Economic Union, made up of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.

Russia often presents the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) as an alternative to Western political and economic groupings.
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Lisbon — Thousands of protesters waving Portuguese flags and roaring the national anthem rallied in Lisbon on Sunday to express their anger at “illegal” and “uncontrolled” immigration.

The demonstrators marched behind banners demanding the “end of mass immigration” and the expulsion of immigrants guilty of crimes, at the protest called by the far-right Chega party, the country’s third-largest political force.

Immigration is “very good” but “rules are needed,” said Cecilia Guimaraes, a 66-year-old teacher whose parents emigrated to Canada. 

“We emigrated legally. That’s how it should happen in a developed country,” she told AFP, complaining of a rise in insecurity she fears is linked to foreign arrivals.

Chega lawmaker Rui Afonso said Portugal and other European countries were unable to control entries, which generated a “feeling of insecurity” because “we don’t know their past.”

Afonso added that European nations were ill-equipped to “decently” take in immigrants who were sometimes “forced to live on the street and fall into crime.”

Among the protesters was Chega leader Andre Ventura, whose party more than quadrupled its seats at this year’s election.

Tensions surfaced as the market approached working-class neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. Some protesters engaged in a standoff with pro-immigration activists in favor of a Portugal open to foreigners.

Posters reading “No Portugal without immigrants” also covered walls and bus stops along the route of the march.

The number of foreigners living in Portugal jumped by 33.6 percent last year to reach more than one million, about one-tenth of the total population, according to the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum.

The center-right government toughened migration policy in June. It scrapped a measure allowing immigrants to apply for regularization if they could prove they had been working for at least one year even if they had entered the country illegally. 
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Berlin — A man has been arrested after allegedly setting two fires in the western German city of Essen that left 30 people injured and driving a van into two shops, authorities said Sunday. 

Emergency services were alerted to two fires in residential buildings in quick succession shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday, police said. The injured people included eight children who were seriously hurt, and two of them were in a life-threatening condition after inhaling smoke. 

Shortly after the fires broke out, a van drove into two shops in the city, causing damage to property but no injuries. The suspect then allegedly threatened people with weapons, but several men managed to push him back with shovels and poles and hold him until police arrived. 

Police said the suspect was a 41-year-old Essen resident with Syrian citizenship. They said the man’s motive appeared to be that his wife had left him, and he targeted houses and shops where people who supported her lived. 

The fire service said that, when it arrived at the scene of the first blaze, smoke was billowing from the entrance of the building and people were calling for help from windows. Neighbors had put up ladders to help people escape, but they weren’t long enough to reach the upper floors. 

The suspect hasn’t commented so far on what happened Saturday but was previously known to authorities for threats and damage to property, police said. Prosecutors were seeking to have him kept in custody on suspicion of arson and attempted murder. 
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KYIV — More than 100 Ukrainian drones were shot down over Russia Sunday, officials said, sparking a wildfire and setting an apartment block alight in one of the largest barrages seen over Russian skies since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense reported that it had shot down 125 drones overnight across seven regions. The southwestern region of Volgograd came under particularly heavy fire, with 67 Ukrainian drones reportedly downed by Russian air defenses.

Seventeen drones were also seen over Russia’s Voronezh region, where falling debris damaged an apartment block and a private home, said local governor Aleksandr Gusev. Images on social media showed flames rising from the windows of the top floor of a high-rise building. No casualties were reported.

A further 18 drones were reported over Russia’s Rostov region, where falling debris sparked a wildfire, said Gov. Vasily Golubev.

He said that the fire did not pose a threat to populated areas, but that emergency services were fighting to extinguish the blaze, which had engulfed 20 hectares (49.4 acres) of forest.

Meanwhile, 13 civilians were injured in an overnight barrage on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia Sunday after Ukrainian military leaders warned that Moscow could be preparing for a new military offensive in the country’s south.

The city was targeted by Russian guide bombs in 10 separate attacks that damaged a high-rise building and several residential homes, regional governor Ivan Fedorov wrote on his official Telegram channel. More people could still be trapped beneath the rubble, he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said that the Zaporizhzhia attack had damaged the city’s transport links. “Today, Russia struck Zaporizhzhia with aerial bombs. Ordinary residential buildings were damaged and the entrance of one building was destroyed. The city’s infrastructure and railway were also damaged,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

“In total, 13 people were injured, and two were rescued from under the rubble. I thank all the emergency services for their rapid response and providing necessary assistance. The rubble clearing is still ongoing.”

The attacks come after the Ukrainian military warned Saturday that Russian forces may be preparing for offensive operations in the wider Zaporizhzhia region. Vladyslav Voloshyn, spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern military command, said that Russia was amassing personnel in this direction.

Ukraine’s air force also reported that 22 Russian drones were launched over the country overnight. It said that 15 were shot down in Ukraine’s Sumy, Vinnytsia, Mykolaiv, and Odesa regions, and that five more were destroyed using electronic defenses. The fate of the remaining two drones was not specified.
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Puerto de la Estaca, Spain — Rescue teams on Sunday resumed searching for at least 48 migrants who went messing the day before when their boat overturned just as it was being rescued off Spain’s Canary Islands, killing at least nine people.

Hopes of finding survivors were slim as sea rescue teams searched the waters off El Hierro, an island in the Atlantic archipelago.

It is the latest in a series of such disasters off the coast of Africa.

“The search operation is resuming,” Spain’s maritime rescue organisation told AFP.

The 48 are “presumed dead,” Canaries regional president Fernando Clavijo told journalists on Saturday night.

More bodies will likely appear “over the next two, three days,” washed up by the current, he added.

Twenty-seven migrants were rescued and nine bodies recovered after the boat, which had set out from Nouadhibou in Mauritania, some 800 kilometers (nearly 500 miles) away, overturned off El Hierro.

The tragedy hit when rescuers arrived to assist the migrants after they themselves called emergency services, Spanish officials said.

Migrants rushed to one side of the precarious boat, causing it to tip.

The migrants “had gone two days without food or water”, which may have fueled their panic, Anselmo Pestana, head of the Canary Islands prefecture, told journalists in the port of La Estaca.

Spanish government sources said the boat may have been carrying up to 90 people, instead of 84 as originally announced, which could put the number of missing at more than 50.

This disaster follows the death of 39 migrants in early September when their boat sank off Senegal while attempting a similar crossing to the Canaries, from where migrants hope to reach mainland Europe.

Thousands of migrants have died in recent years setting off from west Africa to reach Europe via the Atlantic aboard overcrowded and often dilapidated boats.

 
…

…

BRUSSELS — Pope Francis on Sunday wrapped up a weekend trip to Belgium, where he faced some of the strongest criticism yet levied during one of his foreign trips.

The 87-year-old pontiff was pressed by high-profile figures at three of the five major events on his three-day visit in unusual and sometimes fierce language for a papal trip.

In a meeting with Belgian dignitaries on Friday, both King Philippe and Prime Minister Alexander De Croo called for more concrete action to help survivors of abuse by Catholic clergy. And in later events at two Catholic universities, officials denounced his stance on the role of women in the church and society.

Francis did not specifically mention the criticisms at his last event in Belgium on Sunday, a celebration of Mass at Brussels’ King Baudouin soccer stadium. But the pope did add to the prepared text for his sermon and made a strong condemnation of Catholic clergy abuse.

“There is no place for abuse,” the pontiff said, drawing scattered applause from the estimated 37,000 attendees. “There is no place for the cover-up of abuse.

“I ask everyone, do not cover up abuse. I ask bishops, do not cover up abuse.”

The Belgian tour, which started with a one-day visit to nearby Luxembourg, was Francis’s 46th trip abroad since being elected as pope in March 2013. The visit was meant to focus on the 600th anniversary of the two Catholic universities.

Francis has also faced such criticism on previous tours, especially on the issue of clergy sexual abuse. On a trip to Chile in 2018 groups of demonstrators protested outside his events and Catholic churches were attacked before his visit.

But the pope, leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, is not usually confronted directly in public by political leaders or Catholic officials organizing his events.

Professors and students at UCLouvain, where Francis gave a talk on Saturday afternoon, issued a press release moments after the pope had finished speaking, saying they wanted to express their “disapproval” of his views.

The pope’s speech at the university largely called for global action on climate change, but he also responded to a letter to him from students and professors that had asked about the Catholic Church’s teaching on women.

Francis emphasized that the church, which bans ordination of women to the priesthood, was not run like a corporation. He described women as having “a fertile welcome, care [and] vital devotion.”

The Vatican did not respond to the university’s statement.

Francis apologized on Friday for sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Belgium, saying the Church must “be ashamed and ask forgiveness.” He also held a two-hour meeting with a group of survivors, who pressed him to provide better financial compensation for victims.
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VIENNA — Austrians elect a new parliament Sunday with the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) aiming to secure its first general election win in a neck-and-neck race with the ruling conservatives that has been dominated by economic worries and immigration.

Having led opinion polls for months, the FPO’s edge over the Austrian People’s Party (OVP) has shrunk to almost nothing as Chancellor Karl Nehammer casts himself as a statesman and depicts his rival, FPO leader Herbert Kickl, as a toxic menace.

Whoever wins will fall well short of an absolute majority, polls show but claim the right to lead a coalition government. Projections are due minutes after polls close at 5 p.m. (1500 GMT), with results being finessed over the ensuing hours.

“What’s at stake is whether the FPO will appoint the chancellor or not,” said Kathrin Stainer-Haemmerle, political science professor at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences.

“Should that happen, then I have to say the role of Austria in the European Union would be significantly different. Kickl has often said that (Hungarian Prime Minister) Viktor Orban is a role model for him and he will stand by him.”

The Eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPO, which is critical of Islam and pledges tougher rules on asylum-seekers, won a national vote for the first time in June when it beat the OVP by less than a percentage point in European elections.

An FPO victory would make Austria the latest European Union country to register surging far-right support after gains in countries including the Netherlands, France and Germany.

President Alexander Van der Bellen, who oversees the formation of governments, has voiced reservations about the FPO because of its criticism of the EU and its failure to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The party also opposes EU sanctions on Moscow, citing Austria’s neutrality.

He has hinted he might thwart Kickl, noting the constitution does not require him to ask the first-placed party to form a government, even though that has long been the convention.

The OVP, which like the FPO backs tougher immigration rules and tax cuts, is the only party open to forming a coalition with the far-right party. Polls suggest they could muster a majority together, but Nehammer says his party won’t join a government with Kickl.

“Ideally I would vanish into thin air for you, but I won’t do you that favor, Mr. Nehammer,” Kickl, 55, said this week when asked if he would stand aside to let his party be junior partner under the OVP.

‘Fortress Austria’

Kickl has relished the role of opposition firebrand but has at times appeared uncomfortable trying to moderate his tone to widen his leadership appeal.

The FPO wants to stop granting asylum altogether and build a “fortress Austria” preventing migrants from entering, even though that would be widely viewed as illegal or impractical.

In his closing campaign speech, Kickl said sanctions against Moscow were hurting Austria even more than Russia, adding, “if you look at Germany, VW for example, the threat of mass unemployment and everything that then spills over into Austria.”

Nehammer has sought to depict Kickl as a conspiracy theorist shouting from the sidelines while he is running Austria.

The 51-year-old Nehammer has since 2021 led a coalition with the left-wing Greens, but the alliance has proved fractious with the economy struggling and inflation worrying voters.

Some voters think Nehammer’s crisis-management efforts against severe flooding that struck Austria this month probably helped him regain ground in the election race.

Susanne Pinter, 55, a Greens supporter in Vienna said the floods had helped Nehammer look statesman-like, as she fretted about the prospect of a far-right victory.

“If the FPO wins … it’ll have bad consequences for women, people of migrant origin and climate change,” she said. 
…

UNITED NATIONS — European, Arab and Islamic nations have launched an initiative to strengthen support for a Palestinian state and prepare for a future after the war in Gaza and escalating conflict in Lebanon, Norway’s foreign minister said Friday.

Espen Barth Eide told The Associated Press that “there is a growing consensus in the international community from Western countries, from Arab countries, from the Global South, that we need to establish a Palestinian Authority, a Palestinian government, a Palestinian state — and the Palestinian state has to be recognized.”

Eide said many issues need to be addressed, including the security interests of Israel and the Palestinians, recognition and normalization of relations after decades of conflict and the demobilization of Hamas as a military group.

“These are pieces of a bigger puzzle,” Norway’s chief diplomat said. “And you can’t just come in there with one of these pieces, because it only works if all the pieces are laid in place.”

But even if the puzzle is completed, it’s unlikely to gain traction with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Still, Eide believes that after decades of failed or stalled negotiations, “we need to take a new approach” to achieving an independent Palestinian state.

To accelerate work on these issues, Eide said almost 90 countries attended a meeting Thursday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s current gathering of world leaders. He and Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister co-chaired the session to launch “The Global Alliance for the Implementation of a Palestinian State and a Two-State Solution.”

“We have to see how we can come out of this deadlock and try to use this deep crisis also as an opportunity to move forward,” Eide told a U.N. Security Council meeting on Gaza later Friday.

Norway is the guarantor of the 1993 Oslo Accords, hailed as a breakthrough in the decades-long conflict between Arabs and Jews, which created the Palestinian Authority and set up self-rule areas in the Palestinian Authority. Eide said more than 30 years later, Israel’s “occupation” is continuing, and there are no negotiations leading to a final settlement and an independent Palestinian state, which led to Norway’s decision in May to recognize a Palestinian state.

Eide brought up the alliance again Saturday during his address to the annual meeting of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, stressing that “while cease-fires in Gaza and Lebanon are most urgently needed, ending hostilities must not be confused with lasting solutions.”

He again called on the 44 U.N. member nations that haven’t done so to recognize the state of Palestine and allow it to become a full member of the United Nations.

And he called on “everyone who can, to help to build Palestine’s institutions, and on regional actors to help embed a political settlement in a broader regional framework.”

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that his country, the joint Islamic-Arab ministerial committee, Norway and the European Union launched the alliance “because we feel responsible to act to change the reality of the conflict without delay.”

He told the assembly Saturday that the coalition aimed “to promote the two-state solution,” calling on all countries to join the group and to recognize the Palestinians as an independent state.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged all countries to take practical measures “to bring about the free Palestine next to a secure Israel.”

First meetings will be in Saudi Arabia and Belgium

Eide said this new effort is built on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, “but updated to today’s reality.”

The 2002 initiative, endorsed by the Arab League and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, offered Israel normalized relations in exchange for a full withdrawal from territories captured in 1967. 
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brussels — Pope Francis’ burdensome trip through Belgium reached new lows Saturday when defiant Catholic university women demanded to his face a “paradigm change” on women’s issues in the church and then expressed deep disappointment when Francis dug in. 

The Catholic University of Louvain, the Francophone campus of Belgium’s storied Catholic university, issued a scathing statement after Francis visited and repeated his view that women are the “fertile” nurturers of the church, inducing grimaces in his audience. 

“UC Louvain expresses its incomprehension and disapproval of the position expressed by Pope Francis regarding the role of women in the church and society,” the statement said, calling the pope’s views “deterministic and reductive.” 

Francis’ trip to Belgium, ostensibly to celebrate the university’s 600th anniversary, was always going to be difficult, given Belgium’s legacy of clerical sexual abuse and secular trends that have emptied churches in the once staunchly Catholic country. 

Francis got an earful Friday about the abuse crisis starting with King Philippe and Prime Minister Alexander Croos and continuing on down to the victims themselves. 

But it’s one thing for the pope to be lambasted by the liberal prime minister for the church’s mishandling of priests who raped children. It’s quite another to be openly criticized by the Catholic university that invited him and long was the Vatican’s intellectual fiefdom in Belgium. 

Church needs ‘paradigm shift,’ say students

The students made an impassioned plea to Francis for the church to change its view of women. It is an issue Francis knows well: He has made some changes during his 11-year pontificate, allowing women to serve as acolytes, appointing several women to high-ranking positions in the Vatican, and saying women must have greater decision-making roles in the church. 

But he has ruled out ordaining women as priests and has refused so far to budge on demands to allow women to serve as deacons, who perform many of the same tasks as priests. He has taken the women’s issue off the table for debate at the Vatican’s upcoming three-week synod, or meeting, because it’s too thorny to be dealt with in such a short time. He has punted it to theologians and canonists to chew over into next year. 

In a letter read aloud on stage with the pope listening attentively, the students noted that Francis’ landmark 2015 environmental encyclical Laudato Si (Praised Be) made virtually no mention of women, cited no women theologians and “exalts their maternal role and forbids them access to ordained ministries.” 

“Women have been made invisible. Invisible in their lives, women have also been invisible in their intellectual contributions,” the students said. 

“What, then, is the place of women in the church?” they asked. “We need a paradigm shift, which can and must draw on the treasures of spirituality as much as on the development of the various disciplines of science.” 

Francis said he liked what they said, but repeated his frequent refrain that “the church is woman,” only exists because the Virgin Mary agreed to be the mother of Jesus, and that men and women were complementary. 

“Woman is fertile welcome. Care. Vital devotion,” Francis said. “Let us be more attentive to the many daily expressions of this love, from friendship to the workplace, from studies to the exercise of responsibility in the church and society, from marriage to motherhood, from virginity to the service of others and the building up of the kingdom of God.” 

Louvain said such terminology had no place in a university or society today. It emphasized the point with the entertainment for the event featuring a jazz rendition of Lady Gaga’s LGBTQ+ anthem “Born This Way.” 

“UC Louvain can only express its disagreement with this deterministic and reductive position,” the statement said. “It reaffirms its desire for everyone to flourish within it and in society, whatever their origins, gender or sexual orientation. It calls on the church to follow the same path, without any form of discrimination.” 

The comment followed a speech Friday by the rector of the Dutch campus of the university in which he ventured that the church would be a much more welcoming place if women could be priests. 

The university’s back-to-back criticism was especially significant as Francis was long held up in Europe as a beacon of progressive hope following the conservative papacies of St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. 

Pope prays at king’s tomb

Yet Francis toed the conservative line earlier in the day too. 

He went to the royal crypt in the Church of Our Lady to pray at the tomb of King Baudouin, best known for having refused to give royal assent, one of his constitutional duties, to a parliament-approved bill legalizing abortion. 

Baudouin stepped down for one day in 1990 to allow the government to pass the law, which he would otherwise have been required to sign, before he was reinstated as king. 

Francis praised Baudouin’s courage when he decided to “leave his position as king to not sign a homicidal law,” according to the Vatican summary of the private encounter, which was attended by Baudouin’s nephew, King Philippe, and Queen Mathilde. 

The pope then referred to a new legislative proposal to extend the legal limit for an abortion in Belgium, from 12 weeks to 18 weeks after conception. The bill failed at the last minute because parties in government negotiations considered the timing inopportune. 

Francis urged Belgians to look to Baudouin’s example in preventing such a law and added that he hoped the former king’s beatification cause would move ahead. 
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paris — Hundreds of people came out Saturday in Paris, marching in support of the right to abortion for women across the world, just six months after France became the first country to guarantee in its constitution a woman’s right to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy. 

The protest, organized by civil society groups to mark International Safe Abortion Day, also called for greater and easier access to abortion in France, denouncing budget cuts, staff reductions and the closure of abortion centers and maternity wards, which organizers say all contribute to penalizing women. 

Sarah Durocher, president of France’s not-for-profit family planning services, said French women sometimes must travel to another region to access the medical services needed to abort, denouncing the “obstacle course” they sometimes face. 

Thibault Thomas, 28, said the ongoing trial of a man who has confessed to drugging his wife so that dozens of men could rape her while she was unconscious, was one of the reasons that motivated him to attend the protest Saturday. 

“There’s a mood in France, a particular context with the Mazan trial,” he said, referring to the name of the small Provence town where the couple had bought their retirement home, and where the repeated rapes occurred. 

“This sweeps away all the excuses, or all the mitigating circumstances that we thought could have existed before,” Thomas said. “In fact, it is something broader, generalized.” 

Earlier this year, France became the only country to explicitly guarantee a woman’s right to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy, when lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a bill to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution. 

Abortion in France has been legal since 1975 and enjoys wide support across most of the political spectrum. 

Enshrining the right in the Constitution sought to prevent the kind of rollback seen in the United States in recent years. 

Still, many in the protest Saturday said the right to abort could never be taken for granted, especially at a time when far-right nationalist parties are gaining influence in France and other European countries. 

“Every time the far right comes to power, sexual and reproductive rights are threatened. I don’t see why there would be a French exception,” said Durocher, stressing that every nine minutes, a woman dies somewhere in the world for not having been able to access safe abortion. “So obviously these rights are threatened.” 

Also in the Saturday march was a small organization representing Colombian women in Paris, carrying a large purple banner with a feminist sign. 

“In France, fortunately, it is enshrined in the constitution. But we know that when we exert pressure in France or in Latin America, we also help all women to say, ‘We are not alone,'” said 49-year-old Talula Rodriguez. “We’re all going to fight for rights, rights over our bodies.” 
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WARSAW, Poland — The death toll in Poland from recent floods rose to nine after two more bodies were found, the national police chief said Saturday. 

One person is still missing, police chief Marek Boron said during a government meeting on the effects of the floods that hit southwestern Poland earlier this month. 

The floods following torrential rains inundated houses and damaged bridges and roads in the towns of Stronie Slaskie, Nysa and many villages in the area. More than 20 people have died in Poland and elsewhere in Central Europe from the floods. 

A German citizen is among the dead in Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said earlier this week. 

In the wake of the floods, Poland’s 2025 draft budget will set aside $836 million as a reserve for dealing with natural disasters, the government said Saturday. 

The worst floods in at least two decades left many towns in southwestern Poland submerged, and the government plans to free up millions of dollars from the budget and European Union funds to deal with the aftermath. 

The deluge has also compounded the financial worries of a government facing the prospect of EU budget discipline measures. 

In a statement published after the government adopted the 2025 budget with changes due to the floods, it said that the reserve for counteracting and removing the effects of natural disasters would be increased. 

It said that around $5 million in EU funds would be allocated to helping regions affected by the floods. 

Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski said that no decision has been made on whether changes to the 2024 budget would be necessary. 
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United Nations — China ‘s Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned Saturday against the expansion of the war in Ukraine, which has accused Beijing of assisting Russia in its war.

Kyiv has been particularly scornful of Beijing’s calls for talks to resolve the conflict, but Wang reiterated China ‘s offer to help broker an end to fighting.

“The top priority is to commit to no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting, and no provocation by any party, and push for de-escalation of the situation as soon as possible,” he told the U.N. General Assembly.

“China is committed to playing a constructive role, engaging in shuttle mediation and promoting talks for peace, not throwing oil on the fire or exploiting the situation for selfish gains.”

Wang also called for an immediate cease-fire in the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, but only noted the resumption of fighting in Lebanon without commenting on the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike.

“There must not be any delay in reaching a comprehensive cease-fire, and the fundamental way out lies in the two-state solution,” Wang said.

“China has always been a staunch supporter of the just cause of the Palestinian people to regain their legitimate national rights, and a staunch supporter of Palestine’s full U.N. membership.”
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KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces hit a medical center in Sumy in northeastern Ukraine on Saturday morning, then struck again as the building was being evacuated, killing a total of nine people, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukrainian prosecutors said that at the time of the attacks, 86 patients and 38 staff members were in the hospital.

“The first attack killed one person and damaged the ceilings of several floors of the hospital,” Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram.

As people were being evacuated, the Russians struck again, killing five more people, he said.

Ukrainian emergencies service later said nine people were killed and 10 wounded in all.

“Everyone in the world who talks about this war should pay attention to where Russia is hitting. They are fighting hospitals, civilian objects, and people’s lives,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram.

“Only force can force Russia to peace. Peace through force is the only right way.”

Klymenko did not specify what weapons were used in Saturday’s attacks, but the regional administration and air forces said the strike was carried out by drones.

Attacks on Sumy city and the Sumy region have become much more frequent since Ukrainian forces launched an operation in Russia’s Kursk region in August and captured dozens of settlements.

Sumy city is located just 32 kilometers from the Russian border. Russian forces, which began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, have been attacking the region and the city with drones and guided bombs.

Ukrainian air forces earlier on Saturday said they shot down 69 of 73 drones during an overnight Russian attack that included two ballistic and two cruise missiles.

About 15 Russian attack drones were destroyed by air defenses in the capital, Kyiv, and on its outskirts, the military administration there said.
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Islamabad — Taliban leaders in Afghanistan have defended their Islamist rule amid intensified accusations of “gender-based” discrimination against women and girls at this week’s U.N. General Assembly.

“The situation is not as it is portrayed and propagated abroad,” Maulavi Abdul Kabir, the Taliban deputy prime minister for political affairs, asserted in an interview with an Afghan television channel aired Friday.

Kabir’s comments came a day after nearly two dozen countries jointly supported Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Australia in their initiative to hold the Taliban accountable for their alleged campaign to systematically exclude women from public life since the Taliban regained power in 2021.

The de facto Afghan rulers have imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law, known as Sharia. The enforcement includes banning girls’ secondary school education, prohibiting Afghan women from most workplaces, and requiring them not to speak aloud and to cover their faces and bodies in public.

Kabir, while speaking to the local Ariana News station on Friday, asserted that Western allegations of the Taliban driving women out of public spaces were misplaced, insisting that the human rights of all Afghans are protected under Islamic principles.

“Education for girls beyond the sixth grade and at universities is currently suspended,” he responded when asked when secondary schools would reopen for girls. “The Islamic Emirate has not decided to keep them closed indefinitely, nor has the cabinet approved any such policy,” Kabir reiterated, using the official title of their government in Kabul.

However, the Taliban deputy prime minister said that women are allowed to pursue education in religious seminaries, known as madrassas, across Afghanistan, including in the capital.

“There are female teachers. It is a single-sex Islamic educational system that requires hijab under the prevailing societal norms. It also permits women to pursue medical education,” Kabir stated.

He said that the Taliban government employs 85,000 women in health, immigration, education, passport and other departments. “There are hospitals in Kabul being run by female directors,” Kabir said.

Nations urge Taliban to address concerns

Countries such as Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Finland, Honduras, Ireland, Iceland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malawi, Morocco, Moldova and Romania are supporting the four-nation push to start proceedings against the Taliban at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The United States in not a member of the ICJ.

In their joint statement issued in New York on Thursday, these countries urged the Taliban to respect international treaties on eliminating discrimination against women, to which Afghanistan is a party.

They hailed the initiative spearheaded by Germany, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands to push proceedings against the Taliban, urging the de facto Taliban authorities to address international concerns or face the legal challenge.

“This action is without prejudice to our firm position that we do not politically recognize the Taliban de facto authorities as the legitimate representation of the Afghan population,” the statement stressed. “Afghanistan’s failure to fulfill its human rights treaty obligations is a key obstacle to normalization of relations.”

The Taliban government is not formally recognized by any country, nor is it allowed to represent Afghanistan at the United Nations, mainly over human rights concerns.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on the sidelines of this week’s General Assembly that the Taliban’s treatment of women can be compared to “some of the most egregious systems of oppression in recent history.”

“We will continue to amplify the voices of Afghan women and call for them to play a full role in the country’s life, both inside its borders and on the global stage,” he said.

Kabir criticized the U.N. for not granting the Afghanistan seat at the world body to the Taliban.

“We have met our obligations,” he said. “The Islamic Emirate controls the entire geographical territory of the country. People are satisfied with us, and we are governing with the help of the people.”
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New York — Among those in New York City for the 79th United Nations General Assembly is exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

On Monday, Tsikhanouskaya and Evgenia Kara-Murza, the Russian human rights activist and wife of former political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, received the annual human rights prize awarded by the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, founded by the late Tom Lantos, who was the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the U.S. Congress.

Addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva that same day via video link, Tsikhanouskaya said she was speaking on behalf of the more than 1,400 Belarusians imprisoned for political reasons by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s government.

“Many of them are held in complete isolation, incommunicado … no letters, no phone calls, no contact with the outside world,” she said. “My husband, Syarhei, has been cut off for over a year. I do not know if he is alive.”

Tsikhanouskaya was interviewed in New York by Victoria Kupchinetsky of Voice of America’s Russian Service.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: What is the purpose of you coming here to New York to the General Assembly?

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: The U.N. is a good platform where you can meet not only your allies, but also the countries who might be useful to your cause. We are, as Belarusians … fighting for the restoration of democracy in Belarus, for the release of our political prisoners. And we are looking for world leaders who can somehow assist us with these questions. People in Belarusian prisons are dying. This is the most painful topic for us in the democratic movement. And I think that countries who still have some relationship with this [Lukashenko] regime, they can assist us in solving the humanitarian crisis.

VOA: Why do you think Lukashenko released those dozens of political prisoners? Do you know if there are any negotiations about an exchange similar to the recent prisoner exchange with Russia?

Tsikhanouskaya: Lukashenko wants to sell the release of about 100 people as an act of humanity. But it has nothing in common with this. I think this release is connected with the pressure that is imposed on Lukashenko’s regime. They want to have the sanctions lifted, they want to be relevant in the political world, but they are not.

Our task is to make sure that the policy of our democratic allies will not change toward Belarus. And, of course, putting pressure on the regime, strengthening Belarusian civil society, agents of democratic forces. We are looking for venues how we can release political prisoners [for] humanitarian reasons. … People are dying. We are looking for countries, for organizations, that can be mediators on this issue.

VOA: Are you collecting materials, evidence, against Lukashenko to present in The Hague, at the international tribunal?

Tsikhanouskaya: I’m totally sure that in the world, justice has to be restored, and Lukashenko has a long list of crimes — crimes against humanity, crimes of the deportation of Belarusians, crimes of the abduction of Ukrainian children, the immigration crisis, the hijacking of airplanes, bringing our country into the war [against Ukraine], and so on and so forth. And, of course, for years we have been collecting evidence of these crimes, and we want to use international mechanisms — the ICC [International Criminal Court], ICJ [International Court of Justice, aka World Court] — [words indistinct] to bring Lukashenko and his cronies to account, though these instruments are rather slow, honestly speaking. But we are consistent in our approach, and hopefully very soon will start a special investigation against the crimes.

VOA: What is the ultimate goal of your struggle — to actually remove Lukashenko from power or something else?

Tsikhanouskaya: Our goal is to restore justice in Belarus, hold free and fair elections in my homeland, but I understand that we can’t do this while Lukashenko is there. So, our ultimate goal is to release political prisoners, hold free and fair elections, but before this, of course, we have to weaken the regime as much as possible and strengthen national identity, civil society, democratic forces, to have a smooth and fast transition period. And of course, we want Belarus to return to the family of European countries.
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The number of Ukrainian citizens seeking to adopt children has increased dramatically since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Lesia Bakalets reports from Kyiv, Ukraine. Camera: Vladyslav Smilianets.
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