Month: September 2024

washington — Russia, Iran and China are ramping up efforts to impact the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and down-ballot races, targeting American voters with an expanding array of sophisticated influence operations. The latest assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies, shared Friday, warns that Russia remains the preeminent threat, with Russian influence campaigns seeking to boost the chances of Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump over Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris. Russian actors, led by networks created by the Kremlin-backed media outlet RT, “are supporting Moscow’s efforts to influence voter preferences in favor of the former president …

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Warsaw — A Polish court on Friday ordered the arrest of three Belarusian officials accused of illegally diverting a Ryanair flight in 2021 in order to seize a dissident journalist on board.  Air traffic control officials forced the plane heading from Greece to Lithuania to land in Minsk after a false bomb alert and arrested journalist Roman Protasevich and his companion Sofia Sapega.  Following investigations, “the Warsaw regional court announced three arrest orders for three people” involved in the diverting of the Polish-registered plane, the tribunal’s spokeswoman, Anna Ptaszek.  Poland’s state prosecution service identified them as a former director of the …

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Ukraine has a new foreign minister, one of the latest moves as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy embarks on the largest overhaul of his administration since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports on the appointment of nine new ministers in the Cabinet shakeup. Videographer: Daniil Batushchak …

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Amy Kellogg — Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced Wednesday that he is pardoning another 30 political prisoners, the third such prisoner release in the past three months. The names of those released were not published, but the country’s most famous prisoner of conscience, prominent opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava, is not expected to be included. She was part of the troika of women including Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Veronika Tsepkalo who ran a united campaign for change against Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election. Even so, Kalesnikava’s sister Tanya Khomich is hoping the recent pardons are a signal to the world that Lukashenko …

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Paris — France’s far-right National Rally (RN) is exerting outsize power over President Emmanuel Macron and his new Prime Minister Michel Barnier, rivals said on Friday, a day after the veteran politician got the job with tacit support from the RN. Macron named former 73-year-old Barnier, a conservative and a former Brexit negotiator, as prime minister on Thursday, capping a two-months-long search following his ill-fated decision to call a legislative election that delivered an unruly hung parliament. France’s next prime minister faces the daunting task of trying to drive reforms and the 2025 budget through a hung parliament, as France is …

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KYIV, Ukraine — Russian attacks on Ukraine overnight caused fires and injured at least five people across the country, local authorities said on Friday. Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 27 out of 44 Russia-launched drones with eight more “likely downed by the electronic warfare tools” overnight. Russia also used two missiles in the attack, the air force said in the statement via the Telegram messaging app. The governor of the northeastern region of Kharkiv said a missile attack damaged residential buildings and injured three people in the town of Liubotyn on Friday morning. Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Serhiy Lysak said …

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london/paris — Europe’s air safety regulator said on Thursday it would call for inspections of at least part of the Airbus A350 long-haul fleet after an engine part failed during the flight of a Cathay Pacific A350-1000 jetliner on Monday. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said it was acting as a precaution to prevent similar events after consulting Hong Kong regulators and accident investigators, as well as Airbus and engine supplier Rolls-Royce. It also confirmed that the failure of part of the fuel system had caused a fire that was quickly tackled by the crew. “We will require a …

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London — The United States announced new sanctions Thursday on ships that transport Russian gas from Moscow’s Arctic LNG 2 terminal in Russia’s Murmansk region. The measures target the owners of two LNG tankers, the New Energy and the Mulan. The U.S. State Department said the New Energy had used “deceptive shipping practices, including shutting off its automatic identification system, to load cargo from the U.S.-sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project.” It comes as a new analysis shows Russia appears to be struggling to find buyers for its liquefied natural gas, or LNG, from its flagship Arctic LNG 2 project amid tightening …

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