Month: July 2023

BAGHDAD – Demonstrators marched in the Iraqi and Iranian capitals Friday to denounce Sweden’s permission for protests that desecrate the Quran, as Stockholm withdrew staff from its Baghdad embassy. Hundreds of people gathered in Baghdad’s Sadr City after Friday prayers, chanting “Yes, yes to Islam, yes, yes to the Quran,” an AFP correspondent said. In Tehran, protesters waving Iranian flags and carrying copies of Islam’s holy book chanted “Down with the United States, Britain, Israel and Sweden” as some burned the Swedish flag. Iran said late Friday it will not allow a new Swedish ambassador into the country. The rallies …

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Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan warned Friday of the risk of a new war with Azerbaijan, accusing Baku of genocide in the breakaway Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh.  Baku and Yerevan have fought two wars over the mountainous enclave and a peace treaty remains a distant prospect.  Talks under the mediation of the European Union, United States, and separately Russia have brought about little progress.  “So long as a peace treaty has not been signed and such a treaty has not been ratified by the parliaments of the two countries, of course, a [new] war [with Azerbaijan] is very likely,” Pashinyan …

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Prominent Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, who had publicly accused President Vladimir Putin and the army top brass of not pursuing the war in Ukraine harshly or effectively enough, was remanded in custody on Friday on charges of inciting extremism.  His arrest earlier in the day by his ex-employer, the FSB state security service, suggests authorities have wearied of his criticism of what they call Russia’s “special military operation,” and perhaps of other loud nationalist voices who had appeared to have exceptional license to deride the war effort.  It follows an abortive mutiny last month led by another outspoken critic, Yevgeny …

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BAGHDAD — Muslim-majority nations expressed outrage Friday at the desecration of a copy of the Quran in Sweden. Some prepared for street demonstrations following midday prayers to show their anger. In Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, protesters planned demonstrations after Swedish police permitted a protest Thursday in which an Iraqi Christian living in Stockholm kicked and stood on a Quran, Islam’s holy book, outside of the Iraqi Embassy. Hours before that, demonstrators in Baghdad broke into the Swedish Embassy and lit a fire to show their anger at his threats to burn the book. Iraqi Prime Minister Shia al-Sudani has ordered …

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STOCKHOLM — A recent string of public desecrations of the Quran by a handful of anti-Islam activists in Sweden has sparked an angry reaction in Muslim countries and raised questions – including in Sweden – about why such acts are allowed. In the latest such incident, an Iraqi living in Sweden on Thursday stomped on and kicked Islam’s holy book in a two-man rally outside the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm. The protest was authorized by Swedish police, who kept a handful of agitated counterdemonstrators at a safe distance. The same Iraqi man burned a Quran outside a Stockholm mosque last …

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Latest developments: Belarus says its military is training with fighters from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group at a site near the Belarus-Poland border. European Union foreign ministers met Thursday to discuss a proposed four-year, $22.4 billion military aid plan for Ukraine.   The last of the Wagner Group’s convict-prisoner mercenaries are due to be released from their mandated service “in the coming days,” the British Defense Ministry said Friday. In the ministry’s daily intelligence report about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it said “a significant number” of the pardoned convicts will “likely” continue with Wagner as professional contractors.  Russia now controls Wagner’s …

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Media associations are warning that a rise in visa rejections for Turkish citizens is affecting the ability of the country’s journalists to work. The number of journalists whose applications for a Schengen visa have been turned down has “significantly risen,” according to the European Federation of Journalists, or EFJ. The visas permit free travel across the European Union. In a statement this week, the EFJ said that journalists who travel frequently for work are being given short-term visas only, which means they must make repeated applications. “This burdensome and financially unsustainable process must be addressed,” the federation said. A Turkish …

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After Russia withdrew from a deal allowing Ukraine to export grain through ports on the Black Sea, the Kremlin launched attacks on Ukrainian ports and grain hubs. Anna Kosstutschenko spoke with Ukrainian farmers about how this will impact them. VOA footage by Pavel Suhodolskiy …

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