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The wife of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is being treated for suspected poisoning at a Berlin hospital, visited her husband Sunday, according to the Associated Press.Yulia Navalnaya and an aide did not speak to reporters as they entered the German capital’s Charité hospital to see Navalny. He is in an induced coma and breathing with the aid of a ventilator.Navalny, who was flying to Moscow from Siberia Thursday, fell ill during the flight, prompting the plane to make an emergency landing in Omsk, in Siberia. His aide said Navalny had drunk black tea at an airport cafe.  Supporters of Navalny, a well-known critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, believe the tea was laced with poison.Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, speaks with the media outside a hospital, where Alexei receives medical treatment in Omsk, Russia, Aug. 21, 2020.Navalnaya pushed to have her husband, 44, flown for treatment in Berlin. After his arrival Saturday, hospital spokeswoman Manuela Zingl told AP he would undergo extensive diagnostic tests and that doctors wouldn’t comment on his illness or treatment until they were able to evaluate the results. AP’s report did not include a timeframe for that.On Saturday, Russian health authorities, who at first balked at allowing Navalny to be flown to Germany, said tests hadn’t shown any poisons in his system.Before 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.  The case has attracted international attention.German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron expressed concern last week over Navalny’s condition.U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden also 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 spokeswoman Rebecca Ross in a tweet.Charles Maynes in Moscow contributed to this report.
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Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has tested positive for the novel coronavirus and is in serious condition with a fever, her party’s spokeswoman said on Sunday. Tymoshenko, 59, who twice served as premier before her defeat in the 2010 presidential election, became the first high-profile Ukrainian politician known to have contracted COVID-19. Parliament has been on summer vacation since mid-July. “Her condition is assessed as serious, her temperature is up to 39 [Celsius],” the spokeswoman for her Fatherland party said, declining to say whether Tymoshenko had been hospitalized or give further detail. Ukraine has experienced a sharp rise in infections this week, with a new 24-hour total of 2,328 cases reported on Saturday. The overall number of infections reached 104,958 along with 2,271 deaths. Tymoshenko rose to prominence as co-leader of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004 in which pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko was confirmed as president after a court declared the election result to have been rigged in favor of his pro-Moscow foe. She served twice as prime minister under Yushchenko before the two fell out after years of political turmoil. Tymoshenko ran for president in 2010 and lost to Russian-backed Viktor Yanukovich and in 2011 was sentenced to seven years in prison on abuse of office charges, which she denied, calling the accusations politically motivated. She was freed from prison in early 2014 after Yanukovich was toppled in a popular uprising that put Ukraine on a path away from former Soviet master Moscow toward closer ties with the European Union and the United States.  
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Tens of thousands of people gathered in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, for a rally Sunday against the disputed reelection of President Alexander Lukashenko and a postelection crackdown amid a heavy military presence in the city amid a fresh warning from the army.   Crowds filed down streets of the city center for what is being billed as the March of New Belarus as protests entered a 15th  day in the Eastern European country of 9.5 million.FILE – Opposition supporters protest against disputed presidential elections results at Independence Square in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 18, 2020.Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Belarus since Lukashenko, in power since 1994, was declared the winner of the August 9 poll. More than 7,000 people have been detained and hundreds beaten by police. The EU and the United States have criticized the vote and condemned the postelection crackdown.   Human chains of solidarity with Belarus were planned for later Sunday in 26 countries, including Lithuania, where the human line hopes to stretch to the border with Belarus.   Thirty-one years ago, on August 23, 1989, an estimated 2 million people joined arms across the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in a protest against Soviet rule that became known as the “Baltic Way.”   Belarusian opposition politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya addresses the nation in Vilnius, Lithuania, in this still image taken from handout video released Aug. 21, 2020.Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition candidate who fled to Lithuania after the election and claimed to have won from 60 to 70 percent of the vote, said Saturday that Belarusians must “struggle for their rights” and not be distracted by Lukashenko’s claims that the country was under military threat.   “We are people of Belarus and we are a majority and we will not step away. We are not afraid of them anymore,” she told the AFP news agency.    Her comments came as Lukashenko again claimed NATO troops in Poland and Lithuania were “seriously stirring” near Belarus’s borders.   Dressed in military fatigues, Lukashenko told a military unit in Hrodna Saturday that Belarus’s army must “protect the territorial integrity of our country,” adding “military support is evident.”   NATO said the claims were “baseless.”   “As we have already made clear, NATO poses no threat to Belarus or any other country and has no military buildup in the region,” it said in a statement last week.   Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda also denied the accusation Saturday.   “The regime is trying to divert attention from Belarus’s internal problems at any cost with totally baseless statements about imaginary external threats,” Nauseda told AFP.   The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry also announced Saturday that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun will visit Lithuania and Russia next week for talks on the Belarusian postelection crisis.Tsikhanouskaya’s team said Saturday that Biegun would meet the opposition candidate in Lithuania.   No election in Belarus under Lukashenko has ever been deemed free or fair by the West. 
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At least 13 people suffocated in a crush during a raid on a nightclub in Peru’s capital where a party was being held despite a coronavirus ban on such gatherings, police said.Latin America has been badly hit by the pandemic, and this month Peru reimposed stricter restrictions on movement.The illegal birthday party on Saturday was organized on social media and drew a crowd of around 120 at the Thomas Restobar, the interior ministry said in a statement confirming the 13 deaths.”Faced with the police operation, which did not use any type of weapon or tear gas, those attending the party tried to escape through the single exit, trampling each other and getting trapped in the stairway,” the ministry said. However, some who were at the party and others living near the nightclub in Lima’s Los Olivos district disputed the ministry’s version of events.”It appears that police entered and threw tear gas canisters at them, and boxed them in,” one local resident told RPP radio.Six people, including three police officers, were injured, the interior ministry said.Local media reported that the victims were in their 20s.Women’s Minister Rosario Sasieta said she was outraged.”It should never have happened. We are in a pandemic, in a health emergency. I am calling for the maximum punishment possible for the nightclub owners,” she told RPP.The interior ministry said 23 people had been detained and that authorities are trying to identify the organizers and the owners of the premises.Peru, with a population of 33 million, has recorded more than half a million coronavirus cases and over 27,000 fatalities.This month the country re-imposed a curfew on Sundays in response to the rising number of infections.A nighttime curfew has been in place since March 16 while the borders are closed and school classes have been suspended for the rest of the year. 
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Analysis from the black boxes of a downed Ukrainian passenger plane shows it was hit by two missiles 25 seconds apart and that passengers were still alive for some time after the impact of the first blast, Iran said on Sunday.The announcement by the head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization marks the first official report on the contents of the cockpit voice and data recordings, which were sent to France for reading in July.Tehran has said it accidentally shot down the Ukraine airliner in January, at a time of extreme tensions with the United States. All 176 people aboard the plane were killed.”Nineteen seconds after the first missile hit the plane, the voices of pilots inside the cockpit, indicated that the passengers were alive … 25 seconds later the second missile hit the plane,” Touraj Dehghani-Zanganeh was cited as saying by state television.Iran has been in talks with Ukraine, Canada and other nations that had citizens aboard the downed plane, and who have demanded a thorough investigation into the incident.”The data analysis from the black boxes should not be politicized,” Zanganeh said.Iran’s Revolutionary Guards shot down the Ukraine International Airlines flight with a ground-to-air missile on January 8, just after the plane took off from Tehran, in what Tehran later acknowledged as a “disastrous mistake” by forces on high alert during a confrontation with the United States.Iranian and Ukrainian officials have held talks on the compensation to families of the victims. Another round of talks is set for October. 
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Russian dissident Alexei Navalny is being treated at Berlin’s renowned Charite Hospital for suspected poisoning, after he was transported from the Siberian city of Omsk to Germany on Saturday.The Russian opposition leader is currently in a coma and breathing through a ventilator.Charite said in a short statement that it had admitted Navalny and was carrying out an “extensive medical diagnosis.” The hospital has not given any details about Navalny’s condition.Jaka Bizilj, founder of the Cinema for Peace that facilitated the evacuation of Navalny to Germany in a chartered medical plane, said his condition was stable.”The good news is that he’s stable, so the whole travel did not affect him,” Bizilj said. “But there is no reason to celebrate, because he is in a very critical condition. So, the real work starts now with the doctors at the Charite,” he said.Family and associates of Navalny believe he was poisoned with a cup of tea at an airport where he was to board a plane to Moscow, and blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian doctors, however, said tests showed no trace of poison.Initially, Russian doctors refused to permit Navalny’s evacuation, maintaining it was too dangerous to move him, but later acquiesced to demands to allow his medical treatment in Germany.That came after Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, issued a public appeal online to Putin to facilitate the move.DiagnosisIn 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 coverup.“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 spokesperson, 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.U.S. 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 spokeswoman Rebecca Ross in a tweet.Kremlin responseBefore Friday’s decision to allow treatment in Germany, Kremlin spokesperson 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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At least 17 people were killed in three attacks across Colombia in regions contested by criminal groups, drug traffickers, and dissidents of the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas.Officials and local media reported on Saturday that the attacks occurred within 24 hours in three Colombian provinces.Colombia’s President Ivan Duque condemned the violence.”The rejection of violence is because it mainly hurts the young people of Colombia,” he said. “It hurts that in recent years we have seen that the main victims of violence are youth. It hurts that in many communities these armed groups have always tried to recruit children.”The attacks in the Columbian provinces of Cauca and Narino claimed the life of 12 people, six in each, while the attack in the province of Arauca left five people dead.Just a week ago, eight people were killed by an unidentified armed group in a contested drug trafficking area in Narino. Five other people were killed on August 11 in a neighborhood in the eastern part of the city of Cali.More than 260,000 people have been killed and millions displaced during Colombia’s decades-long drug trafficking conflicts that have involved drug gangs, other criminal groups and former members of FARC who reject the Duque’s 2016 peace deal.     
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A Minsk-based journalism trade group is calling on the Belarusian Information Ministry to immediately unblock more 50 news media websites in what they’re describing as a virtual blackout of reporting on protests over authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko’s bid to extend his 26 years in power.Analyst Franak Viačorka first reported the shutdowns late Friday, which included sites for the U.S.-funded Radio Liberty, a USAGM-run sister agency of VOA, Polish-funded satellite TV channel Belsat, Minsk-based EuroRadio, Belarusian sports news outlet Tribuna, and many others.⚡️Breaking! The website of @svaboda (@RFERL) was blocked by Belarus’ Ministry of Information along with 73 other pages, including https://t.co/pQ13BknCkQ, https://t.co/f1yIxPZHN6, https://t.co/qYCGvlcrcd and many others. @USAGMgov@RFERLPress@Belsat_TV— Franak Viačorka (@franakviacorka) August 21, 2020The blockade came just hours after state-run publishing house Vysheysha Shkola stopped printing prominent independent newspapers Narodnaya Volya and Komsomolskaya Pravda, citing malfunctioning press equipment. It was the third time Komsomolskaya Pravda’s press run was disrupted since the August 9 presidential election.Protests unprecedented in Belarus for their size and duration broke out after the vote in which election officials say Lukashenko won a sixth term in a landslide. Protesters call the results fraudulent and are demanding his resignation.Immediately after the election, various protest groups said they suddenly faced limited access to the Telegram messaging service they use to coordinate anti-government action. They also described an internet shutdown that they blamed on the authorities.The Belarusian Association of Journalists, whose own website has been blocked domestically since August 9, links the mass blackout of websites, along with rolling internet service outages and the print media disruptions, with what it calls “government attempts to block information about post-election protests in the country and severe violence against their participants.”The Belarusian Embassy in Washington did not respond to VOA’s emails requesting comment.”We consider such actions indirect censorship and obstruction of the legitimate activities of media in Belarus,” the journalists’ association said in an open letter to the Information Ministry.”These actions not only violate the rights of journalists and the media, but also restrict the constitutional right of citizens to receive complete, reliable and timely information,” the letter said.BAJ, it said, “demands that the country’s authorities immediately stop pressure on the press, ensure uninterrupted publication of printed publications, and unblock access to the blocked websites.”International reactionThe group also called on international organizations to support their statement.The International Press Institute and more than a dozen other press watchdogs, including PEN America, the European Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and the U.N.-run Internews, recently issued an open letter demanding protection for reporters.The European Federation of Journalists on Friday castigated Belarusian customs officials for denying entry to 17 foreign journalists at Minsk’s airport August 20.”Journalists from Estonia, Poland, Serbia, Germany and Georgia were not allowed to enter,” said the organization’s statement, which cites Belarusian Foreign Affairs Ministry officials who say they refused entry to journalists whose accreditation forms hadn’t yet been fully processed.The latest restrictions come days after at least six on-air presenters resigned from state broadcasting company Belarus One. Some 300 of the national channel’s 2,000 employees also went on strike that day, saying they refused to disseminate state propaganda that plays down the magnitude of street clashes or vilifies protesters.“People feel that if we can’t do honest journalism, then we won’t work,” Kseniya Lutskina, a Belarus One documentarian, told The Guardian.The walkouts are significant since state TV dominates Belarusian broadcasting for news and entertainment programming, and it is a primary source of news for a large majority of Belarusians.In leaving their jobs, members of the media joined growing ranks of police, security officers, and factory workers who are also quitting.Lukashenko on Saturday addressed a rally of several thousand supporters in the city of Grodno, where he threatened to close factories that are on strike as of Monday. Strikes have hit some of the country’s major companies, including vehicle and fertilizer manufacturers, a potential blow to the largely state-controlled economy.Lukashenko alleges that the protests are inspired by Western forces including the United States, and that NATO is deploying forces near Belarus’ western border. The alliance firmly denies that claim.Widespread crackdownPhysical attacks, arbitrary arrests, prolonged detentions, fines and deportations have been widely reported for months. The Belarusian Association of Journalists has documented more than 130 serious violations of journalists’ rights between the beginning of the presidential campaign May 8 and August 11, 48 hours after the election.Several foreign correspondents, such as BBC cameraman Abdujalil Abdurasulov and Associated Press photographer Mstyslav Chernov, have described being briefly detained and beaten.Independent Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta recently published an article stating that Belarus riot police have been particularly targeting Russian correspondents.”Crowds of journalists with a variety of IDs and passports, from Great Britain to Japan, are wandering around Minsk these days. But only Russians are beaten, deported, intimidated, arrested,” the article said, citing an August 7 incident in which a Russian language film crew of one Russian and two Ukrainian nationals were detained and then deported to Odessa.Other Russian nationals detained while reporting from Minsk since August 9 include Meduza correspondent Maxim Solopov, Daily Storm correspondents Anton Starkov and Dmitriy Lasenko, and Russia Today correspondent Konstantin Pridybaylo.The European Federation of Journalists reported August 12 that both of Belarusian journalist Rasl Kulevich’s arms were broken after he was arrested for covering a street demonstration in Rodno for a local publication.Belarusian journalist Rasl Kulevich was arrested on the evening of 11 August while covering demonstrations in Rodno for https://t.co/GK1gQRrfBk.The police beat him and broke both his forearms.#Belaruspic.twitter.com/9uEWfISKAK— EFJ (@EFJEUROPE) August 16, 2020Johan Bihr of Reporters Without Borders recently told VOA he believes instructions to crack down on reporters appear to be coming from the top.“Over the past few days and weeks, President Lukashenko has repeatedly warned and threatened independent media. He scolded the Belarusian Foreign Ministry for accrediting Radio Liberty,” Bihr told VOA on Aug. 14. “He threatened the journalists of (website) Tut.by and (television channel) Belsat, accusing them of instigating a revolution. In this way, he very openly and clearly empowered the state apparatus to crack down on independent journalists and arrange an information blackout in the country.”Reporters Without Borders, whose World Press Freedom Index ranks Belarus 153rd out of 180 countries, where 1 is the freest, has called on the European Union to sanction Belarus over the crackdown.Some information is from AP, Reuters, and RFE/RL. 
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Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya sees herself as a symbol of change whose role is to help deliver new elections as President Alexander Lukashenko will have to quit sooner or later, she told Reuters Saturday.Speaking in Lithuania, to which she and her two children have fled for security reasons, Tsikhanouskaya said she felt duty-bound to do what she could to support protesters in her home country but would not run for president again.”During the campaign I didn’t see myself as a politician, but I pushed myself forward,” she said. “I don’t see myself in politics. I am not a politician.”Tens of thousands of Belarusians have taken to the streets for nearly two weeks to protest against what they believe was a rigged August 9 presidential election. They want veteran leader Lukashenko to quit so new elections can be held.Tsikhanouskaya, who ran in the election against Lukashenko after her husband, a well-known video blogger, was jailed, said fate had handed her a role that she had no right to forsake.”It is my fate and my mission, and I don’t have the right to step away. I understand that I’m in safety here, but all the people who voted for me in Belarus … need me as a symbol. They need the person they voted for. I couldn’t betray my people.”She has been making regular video appeals to try to keep up the protests’ momentum. She said she had also fielded phone calls from world leaders who had asked her how they could help.None gave concrete promises to support her, and none said they regarded her as the president-elect.”I understand that they have no right and possibility to interfere in internal affairs of our country. … I asked everybody to respect the independence of our country, the sovereignty of our country,” she said.FILE – A view shows a photo of Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, which was attached to a fence by participants of a protest against presidential election results, outside the embassy of Belarus in Moscow, Russia, Aug. 14, 2020.’Sooner or later’When asked which countries had called, she mentioned Canada, the United States, Britain, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and others.Tsikhanouskaya will meet U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun in Lithuania on Monday as part of the efforts to defuse the crisis over disputed elections, her aides told Reuters.The No. 2 U.S. diplomat will stop over in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, en route to Moscow as Washington seeks a peaceful resolution to the crisis that would avert Russian intervention.Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country has close ties with Belarus, had not been in touch, and Tsikhanouskaya said she would not attempt to reach him herself.”I don’t have anything to ask him about, just [to respect] sovereignty,” she said. “Any future relationship with Russia or other countries would be decided by people and by the new president.”Tsikhanouskaya said that Lukashenko’s authority was badly damaged and that things would be different in Belarus, even if he managed to cling to power for now.Lukashenko said Saturday that he would close factories that have seen worker protests, the Russian RIA news agency reported — his latest attempt to quell a wave of opposition rallies since the contested elections.”Belarusian people have changed during this year. The Belarusian people won’t be able to accept him as the new president….”I’m sure that sooner or later he will have to leave.” 
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“He’s in the next room — if he hears me, I’ll have to hang up.”That call to the FILE – An advocate works in a cubicle at the National Domestic Violence Hotline center’s facility in Austin, Texas, June 27, 2016.Hotline callsOverall, calls to domestic violence hotlines in Texas cities spiked in March as the state locked down, according to a roundup compiled by the magazine FILE – Women stay in a line to hold a banner during an action against domestic violence on the Patriarshy Bridge, with the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in the background, in Moscow, Russia, Dec. 14, 2019.RussiaRussia Psychologist Daniel Ramirez from the APIS Center Foundation for Equity attends to a patient who accuses her partner of domestic abuse, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, in Mexico City, Mexico, April 23, 2020.MexicoIn Mexico, the secretary of the interior and civil society organizations said that violence against women was increasing during lockdowns, although President FILE – A woman stands outside the health clinic in the village of Migowi, Malawi, Dec. 10, 2019.MalawiIn Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries, where 46% of girls are married before age 18 and 9% before age 15, the organization People Serving Girls at Risk (PSGR) discerned a spike in child marriages when lockdowns began in March.PSGR director Caleb Ng’ombo attributed the increase to parents thinking that marrying off their daughters would relieve them of a burden during the pandemic.“It is so horrifying,” Ng’ombo said. “It is so horrifying in the sense that the girls are being forced to get into marriage.”The loss of income also has put women and girls at a greater risk of commercial sexual exploitation and pregnancy from transactional sex.“People have to weigh their options,” Ng’ombo said. “[They think], ‘If I just stay at home and don’t go out to do anything, I’ll still be killed by hunger anyways … I still have to go and sell sex.’ ”“This is where unscrupulous people are coming in to recruit children, to steal children, to abduct children, but especially girls,” said Ng’ombo, a crusader against child trafficking.Despite “very cordial” help from government institutions and police in combating sexual exploitation during the pandemic, PSGR has laid off staffers because of a lack of funding.“And this is at a critical time when we are needed the most by the girls, by the women,” Ng’ombo said. “Because time and time again, we keep getting distressing calls from women … and they’re looking for help.”As of Saturday, Malawi had reported a COVID-19 toll of more than 5,300 confirmed cases and 166 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.
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London’s famous Tower Bridge, which crosses the River Thames in the heart of the British capital, was stuck open Saturday, leaving traffic in chaos and onlookers amazed at the sight.The historic bascule-and-suspension bridge failed to close after opening to allow ships to pass underneath on the Thames. London police tweeted shortly after 5 p.m. that the bridge was closed to pedestrians and traffic and that mechanics were working to fix the problem. An hour later, police tweeted that the bridge had reopened.Tower Bridge is 244 meters (800 feet) long and its towers are 65 meters (213 feet) high. It was built between 1886 and 1894.
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Belarus opposition figures are urging Western governments to collectively make it clear to the Kremlin that Russia must avoid a military intervention to save Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.
 
They want Western nations to announce their readiness to stand by the Budapest Memorandum, an international protocol signed in 1994 guaranteeing the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Belarus.
 
In a video interview with VOA and other news outlets, Valery Tsepkalo, a former diplomat, and one of Lukashenko’s main electoral rivals until forced into exile, says the West should immediately recognize Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya as the legitimate ruler of the country—in the same way it recognized last year Juan Guaido in Venezuela as the legitimate ruler after declaring Nicolas Maduro’s presidency illegitimate.
 
The 55-year-old Tsepkalo, who served for five years as ambassador to United States, says Tsikhanouskaya is “seen in the mind of every person in the Republic of Belarus” as the real winner of this month’s election. Tsepkalo fled Belarus before the poll, after being disqualified from standing. He feared he’d be imprisoned or that his children might be abducted.People hold a flag with a portrait of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, main opposition candidate in Belarus’ presidential elections, during a rally contesting official poll results, in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 17, 2020.Two other key contenders were imprisoned before voting took place, including Tsikhanouskaya’s husband, a well-known blogger. She and Tsepkalo’s wife, Veronika, joined forces, and along with Tsikhanouskaya’s campaign manager, presented a united female front against authoritarian leader Lukashenko in the run-up to the August 9 presidential election.
 
Lukashenko claims he won 80 percent of the vote, a tally disputed by his opponents and Western governments. European Union leaders midweek refused to recognize the results of the election. They say they intend to impose sanctions on officials involved in electoral fraud, and the violent repression of pre-election rallies and post-election protests, marking the biggest challenge to Lukashenko’s 26-year rule.
 
“The EU will impose shortly sanctions on a substantial number of individuals responsible for violence, repression and election fraud,” European Council President Charles Michel said at the end of an emergency summit of EU leaders. EU officials are calling for a peaceful dialogue between the government and the opposition to arrange a “transition of power in Belarus.”
 
Michel said the situation in Belarus is “increasingly concerning,” dubbing violence against peaceful protesters as “shocking and unacceptable.” About 7,000 people were detained, and hundreds, including reporters, were injured with rubber bullets, stun grenades and clubs in just the first four days of demonstrations following the poll.
 
At least two protesters have died.
 FILE – Valery Tsepkalo, a former Belarusian diplomat forced into exile, speaks during an interview near Red Square in Moscow, Russia, July 28, 2020.Valery Tsepkalo says, aside from now recognizing Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya as president-elect of Belarus, Western states should avoid doing anything that might be seen as legitimizing Lukashenko, including appointing any new ambassadors to Minsk. “Do not send any ambassadors, new ambassadors to Belarus at this time,” he advises.
 
For Tsepkalo, the international move to recognize Tsikhanouskaya as the legitimate winner of the August 9 election would help to erode any residual support that may remain for Lukashenko in the ranks of the country’s armed forces. It would allow generals and senior officers a justifiable reason for ignoring any instructions from Lukashenko.
 
“It would help the transition of power because many guys from the army and from law enforcement agencies, they do not want to resign,” he says. “They would like to continue to serve the country,” he says.
 
Tsepkalo said he doesn’t believe Lukashenko can now count on the loyalty of the army, and he is doubtful the country’s generals and top military commanders would obey an order to deploy to the streets to suppress continuing anti-government protests. He says there have been reports that defense chiefs have been demanding written orders from Lukashenko, something he has been fearful of doing “because he is very afraid of [the] consequences” for himself.Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko speaks during a meeting with security and law enforcement leaders in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 21, 2020.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended Belarusian protesters Thursday. “The United States has been inspired by the display of peaceful expression of the Belarusian people seeking to determine their own future,” America’s top diplomat said in a written statement. “We stand by our long-term commitment to support Belarus’ sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the aspirations of the Belarusian people to choose their leaders and to choose their own path, free from external intervention.”
 
Tsepkalo says a formal re-commitment by all Western states to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum would send a “strong message” to Russia. The protocol refers to three identical political agreements signed at a conference in Budapest overseen by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
 
The agreements provided security assurances to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any of the trio. In return, Belarus and the other two states gave up their stockpiles of Soviet-era nuclear weapons.
 
The protocol was cited by Ukraine’s leaders when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 — to little avail. Tsepkalo acknowledges the Budapest Memorandum “didn’t work” to stop Russia from absorbing the Ukrainian peninsula. He adds, though, the commitment could still be useful, saying it would demonstrate “very, very strong moral support for Belarus’ independence.”FILE – Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, presidential candidate (C), Veronika Tsepkalo, wife of opposition figure Valery Tsepkalo (L), and Maria Kolesnikova, campaign representative of another opposition candidate, gesture in Minsk, Belarus, July 30, 2020.Both Valery and Veronika Tsepkalo, who are together now in exile in Moscow, emphasize that the agitation against Lukashenko is neither anti-Russian nor pro-EU. He says he is hopeful Belarus and Russia will remain friends.
 
During the interview, Veronika Tsepkalo declined, when asked by a journalist, to draw any parallels with protests in Russia against President Vladimir Putin. “Our situation is unique,” she says. “We just want to change our country and have the right to be independent,” says Veronika Tsepkalo.
 
“We don’t want to be part of Russia. We don’t want to be, or are ready to be, part of the European Union. So, we just want to stay independent,” she says.
 
Western diplomats and analysts say Putin’s biggest fear is the emergence of a Western-oriented, EU-friendly Belarus, but there is mounting evidence the Kremlin is not wedded to Lukashenko remaining in power. Some Russian members of parliament have expressed disdain publicly for Lukashenko, criticism that’s unlikely to have been voiced without the prior go-ahead behind-the-scenes by the Kremlin, say analysts. 
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The U.N. Human Rights office is calling on Belarusian authorities to immediately release all people unlawfully arrested during anti-government protests, which broke out nearly two weeks ago in the wake of allegedly fraudulent presidential elections.
 
Most of the several thousand people detained reportedly have been released. However, U.N. human rights monitors report that more than 100 people remain in jail. They express particular concern about the cases of some 60 people accused of criminal acts, charges that could carry heavy prison sentences.
 
U.N. human rights spokeswoman, Liz Throssell, said her agency is particularly worried about the fate of at least eight people whose whereabouts are unknown. She said information has been hard to get because of the practice of mass detentions.  
 
Nevertheless, she said Belarus has a duty to make sure comprehensive, accurate records are kept. She said family members and legal counsel must be informed about where all individuals are being held.
 
“Allegations continue to emerge of large-scale torture and ill-treatment of people including of journalists, and particularly alarming of children, during the arrests and in detention.  We are, therefore, disturbed that reportedly no action has to date been taken to investigate these reports, with a view to bringing those responsible to justice,” Throssell said.
 
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of the capital Minsk Aug. 9, claiming the country’s long-serving president, Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed Europe’s last dictator, had stolen the election. Demonstrations calling for him to step down show no sign of abating despite the violent actions of riot police to suppress the protests.
 
Throssell said people have a right to freedom of expression and to freedom of peaceful assembly.  She said the government should take steps to facilitate and not to repress these rights.
 
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Mexico’s president on Friday called on authorities to investigate videos showing his brother receiving cash but said the money was part of fundraising and used for 2015 regional elections, not corruption.Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador made the comments to reporters after two videos were published online by a news outlet.”They’re contributions to strengthen the movement at a time when the people were the ones basically supporting it,” he said. “We have been fighting for many years and the people have financed us, just like what happened when revolutions have taken place.”The videos were published by Mexican news outlet Latinus while Mexico is conducting a high-profile corruption trial involving the former chief of Mexico’s state oil company, Pemex, who has also implicated former presidents and senior politicians.”The aim (of this video) is to damage the image of the government but they will not achieve it,” Lopez Obrador said. “There are birds that go through the swamp and never get dirty. That’s what my feathers are like. I’ve always come out of slander unscathed.”The videos show David Leon, a Lopez Obrador adviser before becoming the head of Mexico’s Civil Protection agency, giving cash to the president’s brother.Asked if the money was registered as a campaign contribution with authorities, Lopez Obrador said he did not know.
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A plane carrying Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma after a suspected poisoning, touched down Saturday morning in Berlin, where he will receive medical attention at Charité Clinic, the city’s main hospital.Russian doctors announced earlier they had acquiesced to demands to allow 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 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.”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 FILE – Police detain Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny during a rally in Moscow, Russia, June 12, 2019.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 announced 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.”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, Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, walks near a hospital where Alexei receives medical treatment in Omsk, Russia, Aug. 21, 2020.Early Saturday, Navalny was taken by ambulance to the Omsk airport. He is to be flown to Berlin’s Charité Hospital.DiagnosisIn 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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The U.S. National Weather Service is predicting that two storm systems in and around the Caribbean Sea will strengthen and could both be hurricanes next week in the Gulf of Mexico.The This satellite image released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Tropical Storm Laura in the North Atlantic Ocean, Aug. 21, 2020.The Washington Post reports Laura is the earliest forming “L” named storm on record, beating out Tropical Storm Luis, which formed on August 29, 1995. The season has already featured the earliest-forming C, E, F, G, H, I, J and K storms on record.Meanwhile, further to the west, in the southern Caribbean, forecasters are watching Tropical Depression 14, which they say will likely strengthen into Tropical Storm Marco.Forecasters say both storms will likely move into the Gulf of Mexico and could become hurricanes by early next week. If they do, it will be the first time two hurricanes are in the gulf at the same time in the satellite era.Some computer models say both hurricanes could hit the southern United States at roughly the same time, or could interact with each other in some way, depending on their size.Tropical storm warnings have been issued across the Caribbean, including in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Haiti, the northern Leeward Islands and the southeast Bahamas. Monroe County in the Florida Keys declared a state of emergency Friday and ordered mandatory evacuations for people living in boats and mobile homes.Tropical Depression 14 is expected reach the eastern Yucatan coast of Mexico by midday Saturday, where tropical storm warnings are in effect. It is forecast to move into the south-central Gulf of Mexico by Sunday afternoon.
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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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The U.S. National Weather Service is predicting that two storm systems in and around the Caribbean Sea will strengthen and could both be hurricanes next week in the Gulf of Mexico.The National Hurricane Center reports Tropical Storm Laura formed early Friday just northeast of the Lesser Antilles, and by last report, was 280 kilometers east of the northern Leeward Islands in the Caribbean.This satellite image released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Tropical Storm Laura in the North Atlantic Ocean, Aug. 21, 2020.The Washington Post reports Laura is the earliest forming “L” named storm on record, beating out Tropical Storm Luis, which formed Aug. 29, 1995. The season has already featured the earliest-forming C, E, F, G, H, I, J and K storms on record.Meanwhile, further to the west, in the southern Caribbean, forecasters are watching Tropical Depression 14, which they say will strengthen into Tropical Storm Marco later Friday.Forecasters say both storms are likely to move into the Gulf of Mexico and become hurricanes by early next week. If they do, it will be the first time two hurricanes are in the gulf at the same time in the satellite era.Some computer models say both hurricanes could hit the southern United States at roughly the same time, or could interact with each other in some way, depending on their size.Tropical storm warnings have been issued in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the northern Leeward Islands and the southeast Bahamas, where tropical storm conditions from Laura could arrive as early as Friday night.Tropical Depression 14 is expected reach the eastern Yucatan coast by midday Saturday, where tropical storm warnings are in effect. It is forecast to move into the south-central Gulf of Mexico by Sunday afternoon. 
 
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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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