An airplane taking Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to Berlin for medical treatment left the Siberian city of Omsk on Saturday.Russian doctors announced earlier they had acquiesced to demands to allow opposition leader Alexey Navalny medical treatment in Germany — ending a standoff over who would administer care to the politician following what Navanly’s family says was a deliberate attempt to poison him in Siberia earlier this week.”The patient’s condition is stable,” Dr. Anatoly Kalinichenko of Hospital No. 1 in the city of Omsk, where Navalny has been in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator, said Friday.”As we are in possession of a request from relatives to permit him to be transported, we have now taken the decision that we do not object to his transfer to another in-patient facility,” he added.Kalinichenko also said that “having received the request from relatives for transportation,” Navalny’s family would take “full responsibility.”Navalny will be treated at Berlin’s Charité Hospital.The decision capped a day of seesawing as local Russian doctors initially concluded it was too dangerous to move Navalny only to change their minds amid public outcry.That came after Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, issued a public appeal online to Russian President Vladimir Putin to facilitate the move.Navalny’s supporters also argued any delay in a medical evacuation put his survival at risk — and, perhaps, put off discovering what had felled the politician so suddenly.A plane chartered by a German humanitarian organization with a history of evacuating mysteriously ill dissidents from Russia, Cinema for Peace, arrived in Omsk early Friday. Doctors who arrived on the flight believed Navalny was fit enough for travel, several hours before Russian physicians reached the same evaluation.Diagnosis In a preliminary diagnosis Friday, Russian doctors in Omsk said a “metabolic disorder” tied to a low blood-sugar level had caused Navalny to suddenly lose consciousness aboard a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to his Moscow home early Thursday.Other Russian health officials announced that traces of an industrial chemical had been found on his skin and hair.Still others said that Navalny had been exposed to a dangerous substance that posed such a danger to others that moving him would require caution.Navalny’s associates have openly suggested foul play followed by a government-backed cover-up.“What was the factor that influenced that this young and sporty man to this extent that he was nearly dead and had to be put in coma and on a ventilator … is still unclear,” Leonid Volkov, the politician’s chief strategist, said in a press conference in Berlin on Friday. Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmys, who was traveling with the politician at the time of the incident, insists Navalny was poisoned when he drank some black tea at an airport cafe.“I was with Alexey from the very start of the morning,” she said. “I sat in the seat next to him on the plane, and have no shared symptoms with his poisoning.”The case has attracted International attention.German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have expressed concern over Navalny’s condition.Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden weighed in, saying Navalny’s “coma after being poisoned” was “unacceptable.”Donald Trump continues to cozy up to Russia while Putin persecutes civil society and journalists. Now, opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma after being poisoned. It’s unacceptable. Unlike Trump, I’ll defend our democratic values and stand up to autocrats like Putin. https://t.co/OLjoGDaG4f— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 21, 2020The U.S. Embassy in Moscow indicated it was monitoring the situation.“If true, the suspected poisoning of Russian oppositionist Aleksey #Navalny represents a grave moment for Russia, and the Russian people deserve to see all those involved held to account. Our thoughts are with his family,” said U.S. Embassy spokesperson Rebecca Ross in a tweet.Navalny’s supporters in Russia have arranged single-picket demonstrations in several cities. Authorities have detained temporarily many of them for violating a ban on protests during the coronavirus pandemic.Kremlin responseBefore Friday’s decision to allow treatment in Germany, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated the government would help facilitate the move and wished Navalny a “speedy recovery.” Peskov said the government would investigate the incident should toxicology reports show Navalny had been poisoned.Navalny has long been a problematic figure for the Kremlin, detailing corruption and excess at the highest levels of the government on his popular YouTube channel.The channel’s mix of investigative journalism and caustic humor has resonated with younger Russians in particular — a group Putin has struggled to court.Navalny has made no secret of his political ambitions.He launched a campaign for president to challenge Putin in 2018 that was undone by a lingering criminal conviction.His supporters — and the European Court of Human Rights — agreed that the charges were levied to keep him out of the race. 
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Russian doctors said Friday that gravely ill Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny could be flown to Germany to receive medical care after the opposition politician’s allies accused the Russian authorities of trying to stop his evacuation.Navalny’s life was not in immediate danger; he was in an induced coma and his brain was in a stable condition, the medical staff at a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk said.Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, said she expected him to be flown out on Saturday morning.Navalny, a longtime opponent of President Vladimir Putin and a campaigner against corruption, collapsed on a plane Thursday after drinking tea that his allies believe was laced with poison.German doctors flew in to evacuate Navalny, 44, at the request of his wife and allies who said they feared authorities might try to cover up clues as to how he fell ill and that the hospital treating him was badly equipped.Medical staff at the Omsk hospital initially said  Friday that while Navalny’s condition had improved slightly overnight, he was in too unstable a state to be safely transported out of the country.But late on Friday they said they would not object to his being moved after the German doctors were granted access to Navalny and said they thought he was fit to travel.A senior doctor at the hospital, Anatoly Kalinichenko, said the hospital could help transport Navalny to the airport and that he would be moved within several hours.”We have taken the decision that we do not object to him being transferred to a different hospital,” Kalinichenko said.Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, walks near a hospital where Alexei receives medical treatment in Omsk, Russia, Aug. 21, 2020.Wife’s appealNavalny’s wife, Yulia, earlier sent a letter to the Kremlin directly appealing for it to intervene and grant permission for him to be allowed to be flown out.”It’s a shame it took so long for the doctors to make this decision. The plane has been waiting since morning. The documents were also ready then,” Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, said Friday evening.Alexander Murakhovsky, the head doctor at the hospital, said earlier that Navalny had been diagnosed with a metabolic disease that may have been caused by low blood sugar.He said traces of industrial chemical substances had been found on Navalny’s clothes and fingers and that doctors did not believe he had been poisoned.Navalny has been a thorn in the Kremlin’s side for more than a decade, exposing what he says is high-level graft and mobilizing crowds of young protesters.He has been repeatedly detained for organizing public meetings and rallies and sued over his investigations into corruption. He was barred from running in a presidential election in 2018.Navalny fell ill while flying back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk where he had met allies ahead of regional elections next month. He was taken on a stretcher, motionless, from the plane and rushed to a hospital after the aircraft made an emergency landing in Omsk.
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A former U.S. Army Special Forces officer was arrested Friday on charges of spying for Russia in the second foreign espionage case announced by the Justice Department this week. Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, who left the army in 2008, allegedly worked for Russian military intelligence from 1996 to 2011, periodically visiting Russia and meeting with Russian agents, according to a 17-page indictment unsealed on Friday in the Eastern District of Virginia. Debbins, 45, is accused of providing Russia agents with information about his chemical and Special Forces unit. In 2008, after leaving the Army, he allegedly gave the Russians classified information about his military activities as well as the names of his former Special Forces team members for possible recruitment by Russia. The case comes four days after the arrest of former CIA officer Alexander Yuk Ching Ma on charges of spying for China. “Two espionage arrests in the past week — Ma in Hawaii and now Debbins in Virginia — demonstrate that we must remain vigilant against espionage from our two most malicious adversaries — Russia and China,” Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers said in a statement Friday. Debbins was given a code name and signed a statement pledging to serve Russia, according to the indictment. He is charged with conspiring to provide U.S. national defense information to agents of a foreign government. The charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Ma, the former CIA officer, also faces life in prison if convicted.
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Police on Friday questioned former Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat about testimony given to officers by businessman Yorgen Fenech, the suspected mastermind of the death of anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.Muscat resigned after it was revealed he was friends with and had received expensive gifts from Fenech, who is awaiting trial for alleged complicity in Caruana Galizia’s death. Fenech denies the charges.The former premier was at police headquarters just outside Valletta for about an hour Friday. He told journalists as he walked out that he had been questioned in relation to Fenech’s statement to police, details of which were reported by the Sunday Times of Malta.”I replied to all their questions, and the police confirmed again that I am not considered a suspect,” Muscat told reporters. Police have not commented.FILE – A person holds a placard depicting Daphne Caruana Galizia, prepared by the Committee to Protect Journalists, as people gather at the site where the journalist was assassinated a year earlier, in Bidnija, Malta, Oct. 16, 2018.A car bomb killed Caruana Galizia in October 2017. Three other men are accused of setting off the bomb and are awaiting trial.Fenech, one of Malta’s top businessmen, was arrested in November.Muscat announced his resignation immediately after Fenech’s arraignment and stepped down in January. Fenech also had links with Muscat’s then chief of staff, Keith Schembri.Media have reported Fenech told investigators that Muscat asked him if Schembri featured in secret recordings made by Melvin Theuma, the self-confessed middleman in the murder plot who is cooperating with police and has turned state’s evidence. Fenech reportedly replied that he was doing his best to protect Schembri.Muscat has denied the claims.A Fenech company won a contract from Muscat’s government to build a power station in 2014, and a Dubai-based company owned by Fenech was identified in a Reuters investigation as a vehicle to funnel funds to secret Panama companies owned by Schembri and former Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi.Both resigned shortly before Muscat. Both deny wrongdoing and no evidence has emerged that money was exchanged.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Friday the discovery of a vast natural gas field in the Black Sea. With the prospect of long-term energy security, Erdogan is also vowing to step up energy exploration in Aegean and eastern Mediterranean waters that Greece says it controls.”Turkey has made its biggest natural gas discovery,” said Erdogan at a news conference, calling it a “historic day” and adding that the discovery offers Turkey a “new era.”The Turkish president said the new gas field contains 320 billion cubic meters of natural gas and could start producing by 2023, to coincide with the centenary celebrations marking the foundation of the Turkish Republic.Reuters news agency, citing sources, claimed the find could meet Turkish energy needs for the next 20 years.Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks with the Turkish drilling ship Fatih, in background, in Istanbul, Aug. 21, 2020.Some analysts warn it could take a decade before Turkey fully reaps the rewards of the discovery. The depth of the Black Sea makes extraction challenging and expensive. Production costs are estimated to be as high as several billion dollars, at a time when natural gas prices are at near-record lows because of a supply glut.”There are a lot of unknowns,” said analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. “We don’t know how much it’s going to cost to extract, what the purity of the gas is, all at a time of record low gas prices.”The discovery of indigenous energy reserves is a critical strategic goal of Ankara.”Turkey is a major gas importer. It is one of the fastest-growing energy consumers,” says energy expert Mithat Rende, a former Turkish ambassador to Qatar. (Dorian Jones/VOA)”Turkey is a major gas importer. It is one of the fastest-growing energy consumers,” said energy expert Mithat Rende, a former Turkish ambassador to Qatar. “Turkey is heavily energy-dependent on imported gas and oil. What we need is our own resources.”Turkey spends around $40 billion a year on imported oil and gas. A significant factor behind the Turkish currency’s chronic weakness, which hit a record low this month, is that Turkey spends more on imports than exports, causing a large account deficit.Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, speaking Friday from the drilling ship that discovered the gas field, said the energy discovery was a financial game changer. “It will remove the current account deficit,” said Albayrak. “We will be soon talking about current account surpluses.””Turkey is committed to long-term contracts of buying piped gas from Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia. You can’t simply walk out of those contracts,” said Yesilada. “Selling gas on the world market will not be easy either, as there is an oversupply.”The Black Sea gas find is the fruit of the Turkish government’s aggressive search for energy. Since 2017, Ankara purchased five research vessels that have combed Turkey’s surrounding seas for years.Turkey’s energy quest is at the center of an increasingly bitter dispute with Greece. The neighbors are contesting energy rights in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean seas, where Turkish and Greek navies are currently facing off.This week, Washington deployed a warship to the region to monitor the situation.The Black Sea gas discovery is giving impetus to Turkish efforts in the Mediterranean. “We hope to see similar good news in the Mediterranean as well,” said Erdogan. “We will be accelerating our drilling activities in the Mediterranean.”Ankara is already facing calls from the European Union to step back from its exploration, but such requests were again rejected. “The EU is spoiling Greece,” said Erdogan.Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 2nd right and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, 2nd left, symbolically open a valve during a ceremony in Istanbul for the inauguration of the TurkStream pipeline, Jan. 8, 2020.Friday’s announced gas discovery is timely for Ankara, offering potentially significant leverage over Moscow. Turkey and Russia are poised to renew a 25-year-old energy deal that expires next year.Mehmet Ogutcu of the London Energy club says under the current deal, Russia is Turkey’s leading gas supplier, charging rates double what other European countries pay the Russian energy company Gazprom. “The revising of the Russian contract is a top priority in Ankara,” said Ogutcu.Turkey’s quarter-century of dependency on Russian energy has underscored bilateral ties. A more energy-dependent Turkey would deny Moscow an instrument of leverage over Ankara. “We need a more balanced energy relationship, but Turkish-Russian relations are not based only on Russian gas,” says Ogutcu. “There are so many issues. It’s a valuable relationship.”
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Every day, like clockwork, to-do lists for those protesting against Belarus’ authoritarian leader appear in the popular Telegram messaging app. They lay out goals, give times and locations of rallies with business-like precision, and offer spirited encouragement. “Today will be one more important day in the fight for our freedom. Tectonic shifts are happening on all fronts, so it’s important not to slow down,” a message in one of Telegram’s so-called channels read Tuesday. “Morning. Expanding the strike … 11:00. Supporting the Kupala (theater) … 19:00. Gathering at the Independence Square.”  The app has become an indispensable tool in coordinating the unprecedented mass protests that have rocked Belarus since Aug. 9, when election officials announced President Alexander Lukashenko had won a landslide victory to extend his 26-year rule in a vote widely seen as rigged.  Peaceful protesters who poured into the streets of the capital, Minsk, and other cities were met with stun grenades, rubber bullets and beatings from police. The opposition candidate left for Lithuania — under duress, her campaign said — and authorities shut off the internet, leaving Belarusians with almost no access to independent online news outlets or social media and protesters seemingly without a leader.  Opposition supporters rally to protest against disputed presidential election results on Independence Square in Minsk, Aug. 20, 2020.That’s where Telegram — which often remains available despite internet outages, touts the security of messages shared in the app and has been used in other protest movements — came in. Some of its channels helped scattered rallies to mature into well-coordinated action. The people who run the channels, which used to offer political news, now post updates, videos and photos of the unfolding turmoil sent in from users, locations of heavy police presence, contacts of human rights activists, and outright calls for new demonstrations — something Belarusian opposition leaders have refrained from doing publicly themselves. Tens of thousands of people across the country have responded to those calls.  In a matter of days, the channels — NEXTA, NEXTA Live and Belarus of the Brain are the most popular — have become the main method for facilitating the protests, said Franak Viacorka, a Belarusian analyst and non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council.  “The fate of the country has never depended so much on one (piece) of technology,” Viacorka said.  Charges of fomenting mass riots In the days following the vote and the subsequent internet outage, NEXTA Live’s audience shot from several hundred thousand followers to over 2 million. Its sister channel NEXTA has more than 700,000 followers. Belarus of the Brain’s following grew from almost 170,000 users in late June to over 470,000 this week.  Their influence in a nation of 9.5 million is hard to underestimate, and authorities have taken notice and are pursuing those behind the channels.  Last week, officials opened a criminal probe into NEXTA and its founder, 22-year-old blogger Stepan Putilo, on charges of fomenting mass riots — an offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Blogger Igor Losik, who founded Belarus of the Brain, was arrested before the election, but the channel continues to operate.  “We have indeed become the bullhorn of the situation that is unfolding in Belarus right now,” Putilo, who is Belarusian but lives in Warsaw, Poland, said in a recent interview with Lithuanian news outlet Delfi. “We have become the voice of this revolution, but by no will of our own. It just happened.” Putilo first created NEXTA — which is pronounced NEKH-ta and means “somebody” in Belarusian — as a YouTube channel in 2015, when he was just 17. His profile rose last year when his 30-minute video about the country’s iron-fisted leader, “Lukashenko. Criminal Records,” was viewed almost 3 million times. A court in Belarus declared the film extremist, but it is still available on YouTube. Putilo turned to Telegram in 2018. His two channels focused mostly on Belarusian politics. His team received thousands of messages from users sending in photos, videos and news items each day and posted the most newsworthy, taking pride in often sharing information from sources inside the government or law enforcement.  After the demonstrations began, thousands of messages turned into hundreds of thousands, and the underground operation now appears inundated. In response to a request from The Associated Press for an interview, NEXTA editor-in-chief Roman Protsevich wrote: “Sure, it’s possible, but the question is when. …” — and then stopped responding.  Putilo hasn’t responded to requests for comment.  Piercing ‘information blackout’When the protests began, the NEXTA channels were often the first places anywhere on the internet to carry grisly pictures of police violently clashing with demonstrators. This week, they were filled with videos of workers protesting at industrial plants.  Journalists in Belarus have praised the channels for breaking news — but note that traditional media also played an important role.  “Telegram channels did help to pierce the information blackout, but I have to say that it wasn’t just them,” said Andrei Bastunets, head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists. “Telegram channels (run by bloggers) played a mobilizing, an organizing role, while more balanced information could be found on Telegram channels of media outlets.”  Social media platforms have played major roles in previous uprisings, including in the Arab Spring, anti-government protests in Hong Kong and demonstrations against racial injustice in the United States.  But, since 2016, when Russia was accused of using Facebook and other platforms in an effort to influence or interfere in the U.S. election, many have seen social media in a more dystopian light, said Hans Kundnani, senior research fellow at London-based think tank Chatham House.  “What’s happening in Belarus right now is kind of a reminder that actually social media can be used in a positive way from a democratic perspective,” Kundnani said. Protesters in the streets echoed his sentiment.  “Telegram channels and websites that don’t belong to our government are the main source of information today as we cannot at all rely on state media,” said Roman Semenov, who follows the NEXTA channels and joined a rally in central Minsk on Wednesday evening. “It’s a Telegram revolution.”  
 
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Autocrats fall when people lose their fear — and that moment can be signaled dramatically by a simple jeer. As it was last week when Europe’s so-called “last dictator,” Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko, was booed during a speech at a Minsk factory by workers who chanted for him to step down.“Until you kill me, there will be no other elections,” Lukashenko told the sullen crowd. “Shoot yourself,” one emboldened worker shouted at him as he left the stage — a brazen statement no one would have dared utter to his face before the current turmoil rocking Belarus.The visit was meant to have demonstrated Lukashenko’s strong support from a core group of Belarusians, say analysts. The factory, which makes tractor wheels, is one of the large Soviet-like state-run industrial plants that have in the past been pro-Lukashenko strongholds. For veteran observers and journalists, the debacle at the factory was reminiscent of the fall 32 years ago of another European autocrat — Nicolae Ceaușescu, the longtime Communist leader of Romania.He similarly misjudged the mood of a crowd — as well as the tide of events. In 1984, Ceaușescu had easily sidestepped a planned coup d’état, dispatching nimbly a key military unit to help with the maize harvest. But in December 1989, history caught him up with him as he tried to whip up support against growing anti-government protesters who had been undeterred by a violent state reaction.Eight minutes into a speech before a mass meeting in Bucharest’s Revolution Square, during which he labeled protesters as “fascist agitators who want to destroy socialism,” he was booed, triggering a bewildered frown from the autocrat and an impotent wave of his hand. Power seemed to drain away from the Conducător, or leader.Belarusian opposition supporters rally in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 17, 2020. Workers heckled President Alexander Lukashenko as he visited a factory that day, and strikes grew across Belarus, raising the pressure on the authoritarian leader to step down.“A fatal moment of weakness, shown live on television, sealed his fate,” writes historian Victor Sebestyen in his book Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire. “The panic on his face was the beginning of his end. As the first barracker, a taxi driver called Adrian Donea, said later: ‘We could see he was scared. At that moment we realized our force.’”It is unlikely that Lukashenko will share thefate of Ceaușescu, who was executed along with his wife, Elena, after a kangaroo court passed death sentences on the couple. It would more likely be a quick flight to Moscow, where he would take his place as a semi-tolerated guest alongside Ukraine’s ousted Viktor Yanukovych, suggest Western diplomats.And there seems to be plenty of fight left in Lukashenko, according to Keir Giles, an analyst with Chatham House.“Having failed to swiftly translate popular support into tangible political achievements, there are signs the protests against the fraudulent presidential election in Belarus may be losing momentum in the face of the state’s resilience and still-confident security and enforcement apparatus,” he warns.“Attempts to blame the unrest on the West have focused on groups Lukashenko and Russia can both call enemies. And now Lukashenko is not only inventing anti-Russian policies supposedly held by the opposition, such as suppressing the Russian language and closing the border with Russia, but also a supposed military threat from NATO,” Giles adds.“If this is believed in Moscow, where Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has already described events in Belarus as part of a ‘struggle for the post-Soviet space,’ this makes a Russian intervention more likely,” he says.Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, center, speaks to an employee of the Minsk Tractor Wheel Plant in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 17, 2020.A 2007 research study by American political scientists Jennifer Gandhi and Adam Przeworski on “Dictatorial Institutions and the Survival of Autocrats” found authoritarian leaders survive by pursuing one or other of two options — either intensifying repression if they can, or broadening out their support base via nominal reforms. Judging by this week’s reaction at the Minsk factory, reform would appear now not to be a viable option for Lukashenko.According to former British Foreign Secretary Malcom Rifkind, there is no reason for him to stop his brutal crackdown as that would be a sign of weakness which would diminish his hold on power.“We have the precedents of Tiananmen Square in China, the Iranian ayatollahs suppressing a popular uprising some years ago, and (Nicolas) Maduro in Venezuela clinging to power despite the desperate opposition of his own people. Lukashenko knows that it will be a dacha in Russia at best and a prison cell in Minsk at worst, if he appeared to submit to international pressure at such a time,” Rifkind adds in a commentary for the Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security research group based in London.But that may not be enough — as the ill-fated Ceaușescu discovered, let down by his own involuntary acknowledgement of surprise. Lukashenko’s only option may be to secure some form of Kremlin intervention. Chatham House’s Keir Giles, believes the West should carefully calibrate its responses and avoid offering a pretext for Russian intervention.But being kept in power by Putin, though, would leave Lukashenko diminished, the leader in name but in effect a temporary placeman for the Kremlin, no longer the king of his castle. 
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Family and associates of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny accuse Moscow of blocking his medical evacuation to Germany to cover up what they say is an attempt to poison him.Speaking to reporters outside the hospital in Omsk on Friday, Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, and Ivan Zhdanov, a Navalny associate, said the decision put his life in mortal danger.”They refuse to hand over Alexei for his further transporting,” Navalnaya said. “We certainly believe that it was made to make sure that a chemical substance which is in Alexei’s body will dissolve. That’s is why he is not handed over to make sure that particles of this substance will dissolve. He is not in a good shape. And we certainly cannot trust this hospital and we demand to hand him over to us so that we will be able to treat him in an independent hospital whose doctors we trust.”Navalnaya spoke out against the Kremlin after the head doctor said moving him would put his life at risk because he was still in an induced coma and his condition was unstable.Navalny’s team quoted a police officer as saying a highly dangerous substance had been identified in his body.”We approached that transit police representative who had come up with a phone (in her hands),” said Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation. “(We asked:) ‘What substance?’ She said: ‘It is confidentiality of an investigation, we cannot tell you, but this substance poses a deadly threat. This substance poses a threat to Alexei’s life as well as to wider public. Everyone around has to wear protective coveralls.’”The frictions arose as a German air ambulance landed in Omsk with the intention of flying Navalny to Germany for possible treatment.The Kremlin said on Thursday that medical authorities would consider any request to move him to a European hospital and the government would launch a criminal investigation if a toxicology report indeed found the poisoning allegations true.When asked about Navalny at the daily briefing Thursday, United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, “We are following with the concern the reports that Mr. Navalny has a sudden illness. We obviously wish him a speedy recovery. Any allegations of suspected poisoning, if confirmed, should be fully investigated.”U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, the ranking Senate member on the U.S. Helsinki Commission, told VOA’s Russian service Thursday the news about Navalny “is extremely concerning.” “The pattern of assaults, poisonings, and other attacks on Russian opposition figures, journalists, and pro-democracy advocates highlights the intensifying threats to civil society, human rights, and media freedom in Russia. I encourage the Russian authorities to investigate this incident and hold accountable those found responsible,” Cardin said. 
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Hundreds of people took to the streets of the Polish city of Bialystok on Thursday evening to demonstrate against the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus.Protesters held a banner reading in Polish: “60 kilometers from here people are fighting for freedom.”Bialystok is a major city near the Polish-Belarusian border.Demonstrators of both Belarusian and Polish origins marched with a gigantic red-and-white former flag of Belarus, which has become the symbol of the nation’s democracy movement.The protesters marched to the front of the Belarusian consulate for a rally.Speakers at the rally who also marched with protesters were Mayor of Bialystok Tadeusz Truskolaski and his deputy Robert Tyszkiewicz, the head of the Parliamentary Team for Belarus.  
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The United States on Thursday defended Belarusian protesters and said it supported international efforts to examine the recent contested election, which gave President Alexander Lukashenko his sixth term in office.“The United States has been inspired by the display of peaceful expression of the Belarusian people seeking to determine their own future,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in People hold a flag with a portrait of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, main opposition candidate in presidential elections, during a rally contesting the official poll results, in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 17, 2020.“The United States supports free and fair elections that reflect the will of the Belarusian people as a matter of principle,” said Pompeo. “The August 9 elections did not meet that standard.”The European Union said Wednesday that it would sanction Belarusian officials it identifies as involved in vote-rigging and violence against protesters.Belarusian security forces have arrested nearly 7,000 protesters in a violent crackdown on the massive demonstrations sparked by the election. There have been widespread reports of police brutality against those detained.Protesters told BBC News that they had been thrown to the ground, placed in overcrowded cells, forced to sign statements they didn’t understand and beaten black and blue with batons. They also said both men and women had been threatened with rape.Pompeo said the U.S. stood behind international investigations into the election and its aftermath.“We support international efforts to independently look into Belarus’ electoral irregularities, the human rights abuses surrounding the election, and the crackdown that has followed,” he said.Videos Chronicle Belarus Opposition Protests Hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators have gathered in Minsk and other Belarusian cities demanding free and fair elections after disputed reelection of President Alexander Lukashenko Tsikhanouskaya allies formed a Coordination Council this week to call for a new election and oversee a peaceful transition of power.  Prosecutor General Alexander Konyuk announced in a video statement that investigators were opening a probe into “calls for actions aimed at undermining national security,” according to the French news agency AFP.  The charge bears a maximum penalty of five years in jail.Hundreds of state TV employees joined a strike Tuesday to call for Lukashenko’s resignation. Lukashenko told factory workers Monday that the country would collapse if he stepped down.
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The brother of a suicide bomber who killed 22 people in 2017 at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 55 years before possibility of parole. “Both brothers bore equal culpability,” said Justice Jeremy Baker, announcing FILE – Hashem Abedi, convicted August 20, 2020, of murder in the 2017 Manchester bombing, is seen in this police mugshot released by the Greater Manchester Police.Manchester-born Hashem Abedi, 23, was convicted in March of murder, attempted murder and conspiring to cause explosions. The sentencing hearing, which he refused to attend, was delayed due to the pandemic. “Although Salman Abedi was directly responsible for detonating the explosive device that evening, it is clear that the defendant had taken an integral part not only in the planning of such an event but in participating in its preparation,” Baker told the court. The youngest of the 22 people killed in the May 22, 2017, blast was 8 years old. Another 260 people were injured, and more suffered psychological effects. Because Hashem Abedi was under 21 at the time of the bombing, the minimum sentence was 30 years. Had he been of age, the starting point would have been life in prison. During sentencing, Baker noted “the substantial degree of premeditation and planning involved” in the attack. He said the motivation behind it was “to advance the ideological cause of Islamism, a matter distinct from and abhorrent to the vast majority of those who follow the Islamic faith.” In a Twitter thread Thursday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the attack a “horrifying and cowardly act of violence which targeted children and families.”  The Manchester Arena attack was a horrifying and cowardly act of violence which targeted children and families. 1/5
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) August 20, 2020“Those who were taken from us will never be forgotten,” he added, “nor will the spirit of the people of Manchester, who came together to send a clear message to the entire world that terrorists will never prevail.” Those who were taken from us will never be forgotten, nor will the spirit of the people of Manchester who came together to send a clear message to the entire world that terrorists will never prevail. 2/5
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) August 20, 2020The 1,024 days that Hashem Abedi has spent in custody will be deducted from his sentence, meaning he has just over 52 years left at minimum. Baker said Thursday that he “may never be released.” A public inquiry into the attack will begin next month. It was pushed back because of police delays in providing key evidence.  
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Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and three other teen activists had a 90-minute meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin Thursday to press their demands for tougher action to curb climate change.Along with Thunberg, the young activists included Luisa Neubauer of Germany and Belgians Anuna de Wever van der Heyden and Adélaïde Charlier. During their meeting they presented an open letter they wrote to world leaders last month.The letter calls on leaders to immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies, halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction and establish annual, binding carbon budgets. It has since been signed by 125,000 people including NGOs, academics, intellectuals and artists.Germany currently holds the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union.Merkel has in the past lauded the youth activists for putting pressure on politicians to act against global warmingFollowing the meeting, Thunberg told reporters she urged Merkel – and all leaders – to start treating the climate situation like a crisis, and get out of their “comfort zones and prioritize the future ahead of the now” and be brave enough to think long-term.The coronavirus outbreak has prevented the Fridays for Future movement that Thunberg inspired from holding its mass rallies in recent months.The young activist first came to world attention in 2018 when she started cutting classes on Fridays to protest outside the Swedish parliament for action on climate. She was soon joined in Sweden by other young activists, and her message quickly spread around the world, prompting young people to follow her example.
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The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Europe office said it has begun discussions with Russia regarding the COVID-19 vaccine that the nation approved last week without the advanced trials normally required to prove a vaccine works.In a virtual news conference from the organization’s Copenhagen office, the WHO Europe’s senior emergency official Catherine Smallwood said there have been several direct discussions between Russia’s teams and the WHO’s pre-qualification colleagues, primarily on how the organization is going to assess the potential vaccine.The WHO Europe’s regional director, Hans Kluge, said that while any potential vaccine is good news, all must go through the same vigorous assessments. Smallwood added “This concern that we have around safety and efficacy is not specifically for the Russia vaccine, it’s for all of the vaccines under development.”  Smallwood acknowledged that the WHO was taking an “accelerated approach” to try to speed development of coronavirus vaccines but said “it’s essential we don’t cut corners in safety or efficacy.”Kluge cautioned that even once a vaccine or vaccines are approved, that will not be the end of the pandemic. “The end of the pandemic will be the day when everyone of us will take the responsibility and have been learning how to behave with the virus. And that depends on us, that day can even be tomorrow.”
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A spokesperson for Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalny said he is in a coma in a Siberian hospital after being poisoned.Kira Yarmysh posted on social media that the 44-year-old Navalny became ill and collapsed as he was flying Thursday from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk and Navalny was rushed to the hospital, where he was placed on a ventilator.Russia’s TASS news agency said Navalny is in serious condition, quoting the head doctor at the hospital.“We assume Alexi was poisoned with something mixed with his tea,” Yarmysh wrote on her Twitter account, adding it was the only thing he had before the flight. “Doctors say the toxin was absorbed faster through the hot liquid.” She said police have been called to the hospital.Yarmysh compared Thursday’s suspected poisoning to an incident last year when he became ill while serving a brief jail sentence and was rushed to a hospital. A doctor told his wife he suffered an acute allergic reaction that could have resulted from being poisoned with an unknown chemical.Navalny is a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin who has been arrested and jailed numerous times for organizing anti-government protests. He also founded a nonprofit foundation aimed at exposing government corruption.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s warm reception in Prague last week reflects welcomed U.S. investment in the country and shared democratic values. Shortcomings in both areas, meanwhile, are seen as contributing to the decline of a once-promising relationship between Prague and Beijing. Just a few years ago, relations between Beijing and Prague were full of promises, marked by frequent visits by heads of state to each other’s capitals. When Xi Jinping arrived in Prague in March 2016, he was a given a 21-gun salute and an elaborate welcome. FILE – Czech Republic’s President Milos Zeman, right, welcomes his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the Prague Castle in Prague, Czech Republic, March 29, 2016.At the height of relations between the two governments, Ye Jianming, the head of China’s investment operations in Prague, had an office in the Czech presidential office compound. But the relationship soured when Ye left the country amid a high-profile international scandal, leaving Czech companies claiming he owed them huge sums. Last week, speaking alongside Pompeo, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis complained the Chinese have “not invested in the Czech Republic in the way I would imagine they should.” By contrast, he said, “there are something like 2,500 U.S. investors here in the Czech Republic who gave jobs to more than 55,000 people.” FILE – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, and the Prime Minister of Czech Republic Andrej Babis address the media during a press conference as part of a meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, Aug. 12, 2020.Hynek Kmonicek, the Czech Ambassador in Washington, expanded on Czech frustrations with China in written replies to questions from VOA. “Chinese investments in the Czech Republic currently are not significant, yet much talked about,” Kmonicek wrote. “Screening of investment for the future is a topic, and there we work closely with our U.S. allies.” Kmonicek said the Czech Republic and the U.S. both value “the principles of democracy and human rights,” which he called “one of the pillars” of his country’s foreign policy. The legacy of Vaclav Havel, the dissident who led the anti-communist movement and became the country’s first popularly elected president, remains “vital” when it comes to the Czech Republic’s “self-definition,” the ambassador said. The sentiment was emphasized at Pompeo’s joint press conference with Babis, who expressed shock over developments in nearby Belarus, where protesters have flooded the streets for days over what they see as a fraudulent reelection of longtime President Alexander Lukashenko. FILE – Belarusian opposition supporters gather for a protest rally in front of the government building at Independent Square in Minsk, Belarus, with Soviet-era sculptures in the foreground, Aug. 18, 2020.“I could not imagine that something like that could happen in Europe, so close to us,” the prime minister said. He called on the European Union to take concrete measures to help ensure that “the [Belarusians] have the same right to be free as we have.” China, in contrast, appears to be backing the man sometimes described as Europe’s last dictator. What appeared to be images of the protests on state-run China Central Television this week were described as an outpouring of support for Lukashenko. The incident caused an outrage on Chinese-language social media. A popular commentator posted the CCTV clip on Twitter, describing her reaction as “speechless.”这这这….都能一本正经地造谣？我已经找不出任何语言来形容他们！ pic.twitter.com/0sOTGzJX7y— 冰玉IceJade (@bingyuicejade) August 17, 2020The Communist Party-controlled Global Times, meanwhile, lamented that Europeans have made China an outcast in spite of what it has done for the continent. The author urged countries in Europe to refuse to be the America’s “diplomatic pawn and strategic vassal.” Asked to comment on the notion that the U.S. is using the Czechs to advance its own goals, Kmonicek said “the only statement of that sort we have noticed came from the chairman of the Czech Communist Party.” The people of then-Czechoslovakia swept the communists from power 30 years ago as the Soviet empire unraveled. The communist party still existing in the country occupies no seat in the Czech senate and their numbers in the lower house of parliament have shrunk in recent years. 
 
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The United States will not seek the death penalty for two British members of an Islamic State execution squad nicknamed the “Beatles,” whose extradition the Justice Department is seeking, Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday.In a letter this week to Priti Patel, Britain’s interior minister, Barr said if Britain granted an extradition request for Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, U.S. prosecutors would not seek the death penalty and would not carry out executions if they were to be imposed.Barr said Kotey and Elsheikh, captured in 2019, were being held by the U.S. military in an unidentified overseas location but that it was becoming untenable to continue to hold them.The pair were members of a four-person group in Islamic State that was known as the Beatles because they spoke English. The group is alleged to have detained or killed Western hostages in Syria, including U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig.The Justice Department is asking British authorities to turn over evidence on Kotey and Elsheikh to allow them to be tried in the United States.Barr said if Britain did not turn over evidence by October 15, the United States would turn the men over for prosecution in the Iraqi justice system.
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German authorities said Wednesday that the multiple attacks on motorcyclists riding on a Berlin highway Tuesday could be religiously motivated.
 
“An Islamist attack cannot be ruled out,” Berlin police and prosecutors said in a joint statement.
 
The 30-year-old suspect, who authorities say is an Iraqi citizen, allegedly hit several motorcycles intentionally with his vehicle. Six people were injured, three severely, in the rush-hour attack. At least one victim has suffered life-threatening injuries.
 
According to police, the suspect allegedly got out of his black Opel Astra after the third crash and placed an ammunition box on top of his car, claiming it contained explosives. When specialists opened the box with a jet of water, they found only tools inside.
 
The suspect was taken into police custody and questioned. Local media identified him as Sarmad D. He will be brought before a magistrate Wednesday for three cases of attempted murder.
 
“Statements by the accused after his actions suggest a religious-Islamist motivation,” German authorities said in the statement. “There are also indications of psychological instability.”
 
Authorities noted that the investigation had not found evidence that the suspect was a member of a terrorist organization. Prosecutors said they were investigating if the man had contacts with extremists.
 
Part of the highway remained closed Wednesday morning but was reopened in the afternoon after the investigation concluded.
 
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The European Union said Wednesday it does not recognize the results of Belarus’s August 9 election that detractors of President Alexander Lukashenko say was rigged to extend his 26 years in office. The EU also said it would move forward with sanctions on Belarus.
 
“The EU will impose shortly sanctions on a substantial number of individuals responsible for violence, repression and electoral fraud,” European Council President Charles Michel said after an EU emergency summit to discuss the crisis in Belarus.
 
Unrest in Belarus further escalated Wednesday when Lukashenko ordered his police to suppress protests in the capital, Minsk, days after a severe crackdown on peaceful protesters that resulted in the deaths of at least two people, the injuring of hundreds of others and the detention of nearly 7,000 people.
 
“There should no longer be any disorder in Minsk of any kind,” the official Belta news agency reported Lukashenko as saying.Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko chairs a Security Council meeting in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 18, 2020.Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has offered military assistance to Lukashenko, warned German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron Tuesday not to interfere in Belarusian affairs. Putin’s warning came as he spoke by phone with Merkel, Macron and Michel.
 
A political opponent of Lukashenko urged EU leaders before the emergency summit not to recognize the presidential election, declaring it was rigged in Lukashenko’s favor. Lukashenko denies the accusation.  
 
Political opponent Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya issued the appeal from exile in neighboring Lithuania. “I call on you not to recognize these fraudulent elections,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “Mr.  Lukashenko has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of our nation and the world.”
 
Tsikhanouskaya says she is the winner of the vote and has called for new elections under international supervision.Belarusian Opposition Leader Flees to Lithuania Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya tells supporters she feared for her children’s safety on 3rd straight night of violent anti-government protestsWorkers in Belarus began striking in recent days as part of a campaign to oust the authoritarian president.
 
Unrest began to escalate after Lukashenko dismissed demands to resign following a severe police clampdown on peaceful protesters.
 
Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde has offered to visit Belarus as the incoming head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which frequently mediates disputes on the continent. Western nations and former states of the Soviet Union are members of the OSCE. 
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The massive American warship, the USS Hershel Woody Williams, has arrived in the Greek island of Crete, on a mission to keep an eye on escalating tensions between NATO allies Greece and Turkey over energy rights in the eastern Mediterranean. The US vessel joins others from the European Union and Russia, raising concerns among some in Greece about what a military buildup could mean.Military experts describe the USS Hershel Woody Williams as a floating base, the second of a new class of massive ships the US Navy is now using as fast transport and support centers for military operations.The 230-meter-long ship, about the size of some skyscrapers, was earlier in Naples, Italy, for a routine logistics stop before it was sent to Crete where it is on standby as Greece and Turkey remain locked in a standoff.  Greek and Turkish battleships have been gathering in the region since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered a research vessel to the eastern Mediterranean to survey for gas and oil.Greek foreign minister Nikos Dendias, left, and Cyprus’ foreign minister Nikos Christodoulides talk during a press conference after their meeting at the Cyprus’ foreign ministry in capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Aug. 18, 2020.Cyprus Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulidis says forces from other EU nations and countries in the region are likely to arrive and join the effort.   He says it is something Greek officials are expecting to build up as we they try to find a diplomatic solution, he says. He praised the buildup as vivid proof of the West’s resolve to block what he said is Turkey’s growing influence in the region.Analyst Kostas Ifandis, a professor of military studies and diplomatic relations, doubts the show of force will change things very much.He says that if the situation gets dicey, we may see other countries like Egypt mobilizing. But from the EU’s standpoint, he says, it is unlikely that this buildup will impact Turkey because its biggest trading partner and closest ally, Germany, is unlikely to join in such a maneuver.German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives for a press conference at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Aug. 19, 2020 following a video meeting of the european council.Currently chairing the EU’s rotating presidency, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been trying to convince Athens and Ankara to enter into negotiations over the conflicting claims each side has to air and sea rights in the region.Germany has been reluctant to support stiff sanctions against Turkey, but it has advised the government in Ankara to pull back its survey vessel from the disputed waters.Turkey has said it will continue to survey the contested region through next week.But the buildup of vessels, submarines and even combat aircraft in the region, has experts fearing an accident that could spark a bigger confrontation between Greece and Turkey.In a recent incident, Greek Defense Ministry officials said a Greek frigate collided with the rear of a Turkish ship as the Greek vessel moved to intercept it.  There was no damage to either vessel but the incident prompted armed forces on both sides to be on heightened alert.
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A political opponent of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko urged European Union leaders Wednesday not to recognize the country’s recent presidential election, declaring it was rigged in favor of Lukashenko.Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya issued the appeal from exile in neighboring Lithuania before European Union leaders hold an emergency summit to discuss the Belarus crisis. “I call on you not to recognize these fraudulent elections,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “Mr.  Lukashenko has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of our nation and the world.”Tsikhanouskaya says she is the winner of the election and has called for new elections under international supervision.Workers in Belarus began striking in recent days as part of a campaign to oust the authoritarian president after he extended his 26-year term in an election detractors contend was rigged. Lukashenko denies manipulating the election.Lukashenko Declared Winner in Belarus Election for 6th Straight Term   Protests erupted challenging the results; rights groups say one person was killed, dozens injured, and several hundred arrests were made Unrest in the country began to escalate after Lukashenko dismissed demands to resign following a severe police crackdown on peaceful protesters days after the August 9 election.EU members have suggested they would place sanctions on Belarusian officials they consider responsible for election fraud and a crackdown on protests that resulted in the deaths of at least two people, the injuring of hundreds of others and the detention of nearly 7,000 people.Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered military assistance to Lukashenko, a close ally. Putin spoke by phone Tuesday with European Council President Charles Michel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.Putin warned Merkel and Macron not to interfere in Belarusian affairs.Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde has offered to visit Belarus as the incoming head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which frequently mediates disputes on the continent. Western nations and former states of the Soviet Union are members of the OSCE.
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Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has called on the European Union to not recognize what she called “fraudulent elections” last week in which she lost to longtime President Alexander Lukashenko. In a video message ahead of an emergency EU summit on the issue Wednesday, Tsikhanouskaya said, “Lukashenko has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of our nation and the world.”In this Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020 file photo Belarusian opposition supporters gather for a protest rally in front of the government building at Independent Square in Minsk, Belarus, with a Soviet era sculptures in the foreground.Official election results showed Lukashenko winning with 80% of the votes, and he has denied allegations that the voting was rigged. Tsikhanouskaya rejected the results, as did protesters who have gathered for mass rallies across the country to voice their opposition to Lukashenko. 
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A Washington, D.C.-based political analyst faces an uncertain future in Belarus – where he remains in prison charged with inciting mass unrest in the run-up to rigged elections that triggered a wave of protests in challenge to strongman Alexander Lukashenko’s 26-year rule. Vitali Shkliarov, 44, is a Belarus native married to an American who news reports say works at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. He was arrested July 29 while visiting his parents in his hometown of Grodno.  KGB agents detained him as he went out to the store to buy a watermelon for his son.  He managed to issue one quick message on his popular Telegram channel: “FILE – Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, candidate for the presidential elections, reacts during a meeting with her supporters in Minsk, Belarus, July 19, 2020.Foreign interference conspiracies The elections — which Lukashenko claims he won in a landslide over Tikhanovskaya despite evidence of mass vote rigging — have led to the largest protests in Belarus since the fall of the Soviet Union.  A state crackdown on demonstrators in the wake of the vote has only fueled public anger, with widespread reports of torture and abuse at the hands of police and security forces.  Authorities report nearly 7,000 arrests.   But as discontent with Lukashenko swelled even before the election, Lukashenko warned of foreign plots to overthrow his government.  Enter Shkliarov.  “Some people were detained with American passports, married to Americans, working in the State Department,” said Lukashenko, in what appeared to be comments directed at Shkliarov’s arrest in particular.  “Vitaly’s become a convenient scapegoat for Lukashenko’s security forces,” said Skliarov’s lawyer, Anton Gashinsky, in an interview with VOA.  “He ideally fits the picture that they’re trying to draw: foreigners came from abroad to organize a revolution.” Workers of the Minsk Tractor Works Plant leave after their work shift as activists with old Belarusian national flags greet them in Minsk, Belarus, August 18, 2020.Shkliarov denies he was active in Tikhanovsky’s campaign and says he is being punished for writing critically about the government in the run-up to the election.  A prolific political commentator on events in America and the former Soviet Union, Shkliarov’s writings have appeared in Foreign Policy magazine and Russia’s independent Novaya Gazeta among other publications. He has also advised on presidential campaigns in Russia, Georgia and the United States —  where he worked as a field staff organizer for former President Barack Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.  The Belarusian human rights group Viasna has recognized him as a political prisoner.  The European Federation of Journalists, EFJ, is also demanding his release.   If found guilty of charges, Shkliarov faces up to three years in prison and fines.   Conditions inside  Shkliarov has detailed a grim existence since his detention last month.  “Like any person daring to criticize an authoritarian regime, I understood you can’t swear off prison. But when they arrested me, I didn’t expect that I would fall into a totalitarian torture chamber,” Shkliarov wrote in a statement released to Novaya Gazeta Monday.  “No, they don’t beat me. But they’re trying to break me. With everything they have,” he added.  Shkliarov said he was put in a dirty, overcrowded cell with no hot water despite increasingly brisk temperatures in Belarus.  Inmates are forced to shave with a dull razor and given one shower weekly – prompting skin breakouts. Patriotic Soviet music blasts through the prison from morning until night. Prisoners are forbidden to lay down throughout the day.   He said he has also been denied contact with family members through mail, and that his writings and letters are read and confiscated by authorities.   Complaints led to a six-hour stint in the stakan – Russian for “the glass” – a vertical isolation cell with no room to sit while deprived of food and water.  “He’s constantly under psychological pressure,” his lawyer, Gashinsky, said to VOA.  “He’s living in conditions he considers inhuman to try and break him psychologically.”   “It shouldn’t be this way. This isn’t 1937,” added Gashinsky in a reference to the height of the Soviet-era repressions. Responding to inquiries from VOA, the U.S. Embassy in Minsk acknowledged a consular officer had been granted access to Shkliarov on August 13 after “repeatedly” raising concerns. “We continue to press for fair treatment, judicial transparency, and regular visits by U.S. consular officials,” read the statement.  “We have no higher priority than the safety and welfare of U.S. citizens abroad,” it said. Other US lawmakers say they, too, are paying attention. U.S. Department of State officials have not responded to VOA requests for comment on Shkliarov’s case.  But some U.S. lawmakers say they are paying attention.  “The government’s ongoing crackdown on the democratic opposition, as well as the arrest of American citizen Vitaly Shkliarov, is a calamity and completely unacceptable,” said Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a statement.  “Now more than ever, the international community must not waver in our steadfast support for democracy, human rights and the aspirations of the Belarusian people.”  It is a message Shkliarov came to identify with during his own experiences on the campaign trail in America.  In an interview with Public Radio International’s The World in 2018, he recalled his experiences urging Americans who were reluctant to vote in the U.S. presidential elections during cold-calls over the phone. “I grew up in a country where nobody asked us. Nobody asked me what president I would love to elect or even who I am. Nobody cared,” Shlkiarov said he would tell people.   “And here you have this democracy. You can actively voice your opinion and influence the decision-making. This is amazing. You guys don’t understand what you have.”   Most, said Shkliarov, promised to cast their ballots.    
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More workers joined a growing strike Tuesday to oust authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko after he extended his 26-year term in an election that detractors contend was rigged.Thousands of workers began walking off the job Monday at state-controlled facilities, joining actors and broadcasters. Unrest began to escalate after Lukashenko dismissed demands to resign following a severe police crackdown on peaceful protesters days after the August 9 election.Workers of the Minsk Tractor Works Plant leave after their work shift as activists with old Belarusian national flags greet them in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 18, 2020.The first government official to challenge Lukashenko was the ambassador to Slovakia, who said in a video Saturday before he resigned that he supported the protests.The ambassador to Spain, Pavel Pustav, posted a statement Tuesday on Facebook urging a vote recount and the prosecution of those who beat peaceful protesters.Officials from Western countries have refused to recognize the election as free and fair, and they have denounced the police crackdown.The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to discuss Belarus in a closed-door session Tuesday, one day before European Union leaders are to discuss the matter.
 
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel Tuesday urged citizens to wear masks and abide by social distancing and other COVID-19 prevention rules if they want to see restrictions lifted in the country. Speaking with reporters in Dusseldorf where she attended the North Rhine-Westphalia state cabinet meeting, Merkel said the number of new cases in Germany has doubled in three weeks and cannot continue. She noted that the surge is likely due to people traveling during the summer holidays and more intermingling. Merkel said she cannot further lift COVID-19 restrictions with the rising new infections and appealed to the public to adhere to the rules.  “If the infection numbers go down, then we can open up more,”” Merkel said. “If they don’t go down or if they go up, then you have to consider what might be necessary.” Merkel said she discussed the COVID-19 pandemic with the state cabinet. Germany’s 16 states largely set their own rules, often leading to a mishmash of differing regional regulations that have prompted confusion and frustration in the country of 83 million. Merkel said she was in favor of a more uniform approach. Germany’s disease control agency on Tuesday reported 1,390 new confirmed coronavirus cases. 
 
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