Новости за 15.05.2024

Stephen Jones, the director of Georgian Studies at Harvard University's Davis Center, spoke to RFE/RL about the reasons behind Georgia's controversial "foreign agent" law.

Serbia has signed a contract with a company owned by the son-in-law of former U.S. President Donald Trump to redevelop a site in Belgrade formerly used by the Yugoslav Ministry of Defense that was bombed by NATO forces in 1999.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was rushed to a hospital after a shooting attack by a lone gunman in the town of Handlova on May 15. A government statement said he was in a "life-threatening" condition, but few details about his health have been made available. European leaders quickly condemned the violence, which Slovak President Zuzana Caputova called "an attack on democracy."

Yerevan's police have been trying to keep demonstrators away from the area where Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is attending an international event on May 15. Earlier, Bagrat Galstanian -- the archbishop for the Armenian Apostolic Church's Tavush Diocese who has encouraged a "civil disobedience" campaign to press for the premier's exit -- urged his supporters to show their opposition to Pashinian over a contentious border-demarcation deal with Azerbaijan.

Police barriers have been set up in areas of Yerevan leading to Freedom Square as activists calling for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian's resignation over a land deal with Azerbaijan pledged to form groups to march to the square, where Pashinian was expected to address an annual meeting of the EBRD.

Former Iranian President Hassan Rohani has issued a stern rebuke of the country’s Guardians Council following his disqualification from elections to the Assembly of Experts earlier this year, accusing the body of undermining the role and freedom of future presidents.

A day after an Azerbaijani pro-government media outlet criticized the U.S. Ambassador Mark Libby's reluctance to visit Nagorno-Karabakh, he was on his way to visit the region.

Dozens of supporters of Kazakh activist Zhanbolat Shaizada held Kazakh national flags and sang a patriotic song greeting him when he was leaving a jail in Almaty late on May 14 after serving five days for forcibly removing a Soviet flag from a private car.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot on May 15 as he walked among a crowd after a government meeting outside Bratislava in what the country's Interior Ministry called an "assassination attempt." A suspect was apparently arrested at the scene. (Video from HNonline.sk)

Following a shakeup in the Kremlin, the Russian president is focused on constituting a new war economy and will be looking for Chinese help when he meets with Xi Jinping, experts say.

Afghanistan’s northern province of Badakhshan has witnessed several bouts of deadly protests in recent weeks. The Taliban’s forceful enforcement of its drug ban triggered the rare demonstrations.

Three Georgians have told a Current Time correspondent how they were either fired or pressured to take voluntary redundancy after either criticizing the government online or joining protests against a controversial "foreign agent" bill. Protesters and the opposition say the bill could curtail civil liberties and jeopardize the country's bid for European Union membership.

Slovak media are reporting that Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot as he walked among a crowd after a government meeting just outside Bratislava.

The Financial Times, citing a person briefed on the discussions between Georgian and EU officials in recent days, says the bloc will freeze the country's membership bid if a controversial bill requiring organizationswith foreign funding to register as "foreign agents" is enacted.

Kazakhstan's Anti-Corruption Agency said an "associate" of fugitive former banker and outspoken Kazakh government critic Mukhtar Ablyazov returned on his own to the Central Asian country, where he faces embezzlement charges.

RFE/RL drone footage shows thousands of protesters marching late on May 14 to Tbilisi's Heroes' Square from the Georgian parliament after it adopted the contentious bill affecting groups receiving foreign funding. Critics say the legislation is similar to a Russian law and could help the government silence dissenting voices.

Police in Russia's northwestern Leningrad region on May 15 detained Belarusian physician Uladzimer Martau, who is wanted in Minsk on extremism charges.

Russian national Aleksei Pertsev, a co-developer of the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency tumbler, has received a sentence of five years and four months in prison in the Netherlands for laundering $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency from 2019 to 2022.

Authorities in the Russian region of Tatarstan on May 15 shut down two major airports -- one in the region's capital, Kazan, and another in the city of Nizhnekamsk -- for several hours "for security reasons" following a drone attack.

The Memorial human rights center on May 15 recognized four Russian journalists arrested in recent months on charges of taking part in an extremist group's activities as political prisoners.

President Salome Zurabishvili warned that Georgia's survival as a state is in danger after parliament approved a contentious "foreign agent" law despite weeks of popular protests and warnings from the West that the move endangers Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations.

Thousands of Georgians rallied near the parliament building in Tbilisi on the evening of May 14, hours after lawmakers gave final approval to a controversial bill affecting groups receiving foreign funding. There were reports of arrests and some protesters being beaten by police earlier in the day. Activists have been protesting against the bill for weeks, and some vowed to continue their movement after the bill's passage.