Saber-fencing world champion Olha Kharlan won Ukraine's first medal at the Paris Olympics on July 29, giving her country something to celebrate as it battles invading Russian forces.

Kharlan overcame a six-point deficit to beat South Korea's Choi Sebin 15-14 for the bronze medal one year after her refusal to shake hands with a Russian opponent nearly cost her a trip to the Olympics.

Kharlan was disqualified by the International Fencing Federation at the World Fencing Championships last year for violating fencing's rules when she refused to shake the hand of Anna Smirnova, a Russian competing as a neutral athlete, after defeating her. Kharlan instead offered a touch of her saber's blade.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach later reinstated her so that she could continue competing at the world championships and to ensure her a place in the Paris Olympics.

The incident angered Smirnova and highlighted the tension over whether to allow Russian athletes to compete in international events following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The IOC decided earlier this year to allow only individual Russian and Belarusian athletes competing as neutrals. There are 15 Russian athletes and 17 Belarusian athletes taking part.

After the IOC stepped in to guarantee Kharlan a "unique exception" and a spot at the 2024 Olympics, fencing's governing body made handshakes after a match optional.

On her way to the individual Olympic bronze in Paris, Kharlan defeated Shihomi Fukushima from Japan; Anna Bashta, a former Russian fencer who now competes for Azerbaijan; and Anna Marton of Hungary.

The five-time Olympian and four-time world champion in the event said her latest medal was nothing like the others she won at the previous Olympics, including a team gold in 2008 in Beijing.

"I brought a medal to my country, and it's the first one, and it's going to be a good start for all our athletes who are here because it's really tough to compete when in your country is at war," she said.

Asked whether she had thought her Olympic dream was over because of her refusal to shake hands with Smirnova, Kharlan said what she went through "represents my country, what it goes through, and I wouldn't change anything. This is my story."

In Olympic swimming, Romanian teenager David Popovici powered to the gold medal in the men's 200-meter freestyle, edging Britain's Matthew Richards by a fingertip. It was the 19-year-old Popovici's first Olympic medal after missing out in Tokyo, where he was fourth.

Also on July 29, the organizers of the Paris Olympics confirmed that the accreditation of four journalists with TASS had been revoked. Organizing Committee spokeswoman Anne Descamps said that "competent authorities" made the decision.

Three of the affected journalists covered the opening ceremony on July 26 and other events without incident, according to TASS.

The decision to withdraw accreditation lies with the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, according to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin's office, which gave no further details. Over 100 journalists and professionals, including Russians, have been denied visas for the Olympics over espionage concerns.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian and Romanian services and AFP

The Paris 2024 Organizing Committee confirmed on July 29 that the accreditation of four journalists with the Russian state-run news agency TASS had been revoked. Organizing Committee spokeswoman Anne Descamps said that "competent authorities" made the decision and the committee was not involved. Three of the affected journalists covered the opening ceremony and other events without incident, according to TASS. The decision to withdraw accreditation lies with the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, according to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin's office, which gave no further details. Over 100 journalists and professionals, including Russians, have been denied visas for the Olympics over espionage concerns.

Thousands of Pakistanis have been protesting for nearly a week in the port city of Gwadar against a growing Chinese presence in Balochistan and what members of the Baluch community say is a pattern of "forced disappearances" that they blame on Pakistani authorities.

Pakistan's army said on July 29 that the protests recently turned violent, leaving one soldier dead and at least 16 injured.

According to Baloch United Committee head Mahrang Baloch, the protest, which began on July 24, revolves around the exploitation of resources and the oppression of the Baluch ethnic minority.

"Gwadar is a very sensitive city," Balochistan Interior Minister Mir Ziaullah Lango told RFE/RL, pointing out that there are a number of Chinese nationals living in there.

Gwadar is a port city in western Pakistan on the Iranian border. It is a key nexus for China's Belt and Road Initiative, an economic-development program criticized by the West for exploitive tendencies throughout the Global South. Beijing has invested about $65 billion in Belt and Road Initiative projects in Pakistan.

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Baluch Separatists Claim Attack On Pakistan's Gwadar Port

Gwadar has been the scene of protests and security concerns in the past. In 2021, Islamabad and Beijing announced plans to install barbed wire around Gwadar, but the move was postponed after mass protests.

Baloch said the gas, coal, and resources of Balochistan belong to the people living in the region, rather than international powers.

"Balochistan and Gwadar are ours," Baloch said. "We cannot live under oppression. We will not allow anyone to exploit us."

Lango said 25 protesters had been arrested for "interfering with the work of the government," but Nadia Baloch, a leader of the Baloch United Committee and Mahrang Baloch's sister, told RFE/RL more than 300 protesters had been arrested following raids throughout Balochistan.

Videos showing protesters being dragged into police cars have circulated online, and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan condemned the arrest of the protesters and called for the release of all those arrested.

Lango told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal that the published videos and images were edited.

The Pakistani Army said the casualties among the soldiers who guarded the protest resulted from "unprovoked assaults by the violent protesters."

Baluch leaders claim that several protesters were injured by the army but gave no details about the number injured or their condition.

Nadia Baloch also cited “forced disappearances” as a motivation for the protests. The Pakistani Army claims that the number of missing people is fewer than 1,000.

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Pakistani Protests: Baluch Women Seek Answers, Justice In Disappearance Of Loved Ones

Army spokesman Major General Ahmed Sharif said at a May 7 press conference that Baluch people had joined armed groups and were not actually missing.

A Pakistani government commission that investigates forced disappearances said it had registered 197 cases in the first six months of 2024.

With reporting by Reuters

Less than three weeks after the Moscow City Court upheld a 30-month sentence handed down to veteran rights activist Oleg Orlov, he was moved from a detention center in the city of Syzran, the Memorial human rights group said on July 29. The group said Orlov's lawyer was informed that his client had been transferred to an unspecified facility. Detention center officials refused to say why and when Orlov was transferred. The 71-year-old was sentenced in February on a charge of repeatedly discrediting Russia's military. The charge stems from Orlov's public condemnation of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on July 29 that his country would halt diesel supplies to Ukraine if Kyiv failed to restore oil flows from Russian group LUKoil through its territory. Kyiv put LUKoil on a sanctions list last month, stopping the company's oil from passing through Ukraine to Slovak and Hungarian refineries. Fico said if the transit of Russian crude through Ukraine is not renewed in a short time, Slovakian refiner Slovnaft will not continue to supply diesel to Ukraine. Fico said that he proposed a technical solution to restore the stopped oil flows on July 26 to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. He gave no details other that it would involve multiple countries. Slovakia and Hungary have opposed Western military aid to Ukraine as it fights Russia's invasion.

Prosecutors have asked a military court in Russia to sentence two alleged members of the late Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev's group to 24 years in prison each over their alleged participation in a terrorist attack in Chechnya in 2005. Nazhmudin Dudiyev and Ibragim Donashev are currently serving prison terms of 18 and 19 years respectively for taking part in a deadly attack in 2000 on Russian riot police in Chechnya. Basayev was blamed for many terrorist attacks in the North Caucasus between 1994 and 2006, when he died in an explosion in neighboring Ingushetia. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Caucasus.Realities, click here.

Two former leaders of the late Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny’s teams in Ufa and Tomsk, Lilia Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeyeva, have been transferred from the prisons where they were being held and their current whereabouts are not known.

Chanysheva was transferred from correctional colony No. 28 in the Perm region to an unknown facility without her relatives being informed.

Chanysheva's husband, Almaz Gatin, wrote on X on July 29 that when he arrived at the prison the day before to deliver a package for his wife, officials told him she had been transferred to another facility on July 27 but refused to say where and why Chanysheva was transferred.

"I ask all for help to find my spouse: Please let me know if you know anything about Chanysheva's whereabouts," Gatin wrote.

A lawyer for Fadeyeva is quoted by Mediazona as saying his client had been removed from correctional colony No. 9 in the Novosibirsk region and that prison officials refused to answer questions about where, why, and when she was transferred.

Fadeyeva was sentenced in December to nine years in prison by a court in Tomsk after being found guilty of organizing the activities of an extremist community. She was also stripped of her mandate as a deputy in the Tomsk City Duma.

Chanysheva was initially sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison in June 2023 after a court in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, also found her guilty of creating an extremist community, inciting extremism, and establishing an organization that violates citizens' rights.

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In April, the Supreme Court of Bashkortostan extended Chanysheva's prison sentence by two years after an appeal by prosecutors who said her initial sentence for extremism was too lenient.

Chanysheva headed the local unit of Navalny's network of regional campaign groups until his team disbanded after a Moscow prosecutor went to court to have them branded "extremist" in 2021.

The label effectively outlawed the group.

Chanysheva's defense team have said the charges appeared to be retroactive to the period of time before the organization she worked for had been legally classified as extremist.

Navalny died on February 16 in an Arctic prison while serving a 19-year term on extremism and other charges he and his supporters said were trumped up and politically motivated.

Several opposition leaders and associates of Navalny have since been charged with establishing an extremist group.

Since Russia launched its full-scale unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, several of Navalny's former associates have been charged with discrediting the Russian armed forces, distributing "false" news about the military, and extremism.

The former leader of Navalny’s team in the Altai region, Vadim Ostanin, was sentenced last year to nine years in prison on an extremism charge.

It became known in May that Chanysheva officially asked President Vladimir Putin for clemency.

Georgia's Constitutional Court on July 29 said it would consolidate cases against the controversial "foreign agent" law after 32 opposition lawmakers filed a lawsuit against the legislation. The court's chair, Merab Turava, said the lawsuit, along with two similar lawsuits filed against the law in question by President Salome Zurabishvili and nongovernmental and media organizations earlier, will be looked into jointly on an unspecified day. Zurabishvili vetoed the law in May, but parliament, which is dominated by the ruling Georgian Dream party, overrode her veto. Party officials argue the law is needed because they are the only force that can maintain national sovereignty in the face of foreign forces that don't have Georgia’s best interests in mind. Signed into law on June 4, it has jeopardized the country's aspirations to join the European Union. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Georgian Service, click here.

The United States on July 29 announced two assistance packages for Ukraine valued at $1.7 billion.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the presidential package, valued at up to $200 million, will include air-defense interceptors, munitions for HIMARS, artillery and mortar rounds, and Javelin and other anti-tank missiles.

The U.S. Defense Department also announced $1.5 billion through the security-assistance-initiative funds.

The resources will "augment Ukraine's air defense" through long-range firing capability and anti-tank weapons, as well as equipment to sustain previous donations by the United States, Kirby said.

According to a July 29 report by the Pew Research Center, over half of Americans are worried about the growing length of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the costs associated with providing aid.

Despite bipartisan support for Ukraine aid in Congress, the U.S. public is divided on the degree of support that Washington should provide, a survey by Pew Research Center found.

Pew Research Center said that while 48 percent of Americans believe the United States has a responsibility to help Ukraine, 49 percent disagree.

Despite recent campaigns to increase support for Ukraine among Republicans in Congress, Pew Research Center reported that nearly half of Republicans say Washington is providing too much aid to Ukraine, compared to 29 percent of Americans overall. Only 19 percent of Americans say the United States is not providing enough support.

While Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump has claimed that he would end Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 24 hours if he was elected, only 34 percent of Americans say the war poses a "major threat" to U.S. interests, the report said.

Likewise, Pew Research Center found that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say that they are worried that Russia will take over Ukraine and invade other countries in Europe.

Despite opposition to aid, there is "broad public support for keeping strict economic sanctions" on Russia, according to the Pew Research Center survey of nearly 9,500 people at the beginning of July.

Turkish and Armenian diplomats will meet on July 30 on the Armenia-Turkey border, the Foreign Ministries of the two countries said on July 29 amid efforts to normalize relations.

It will be the fifth meeting of special representatives of Yerevan and Baku since they were appointed in December 2021 to advance the normalization process.

The meeting will see the envoys discuss "confidence-building measures that could be developed between the two countries," Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Oncu Keceli said, according to AFP.

At their last meeting in Vienna, the parties agreed to open the land border for citizens of third countries, but there has been no progress on implementation.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on July 26 visited the Margara (Alican in Turkish) border crossing, which Yerevan recently renovated in hopes of a breakthrough.

Armenia has said Yerevan seeks full normalization of relations with Ankara, including the opening of their border and the establishment of diplomatic ties.

The border has been shut since diplomatic relations between the two neighbors were severed in 1993 over Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan that until September 2023 was populated predominantly by ethnic Armenians. Azerbaijan and Armenia fought wars in the 1990s and in 2023 over control of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Baku recaptured Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning offensive in September 2023 that led to the exodus of all Armenians from the territory.

Beyond Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia and Turkey disagree on whether the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire more than 100 years ago was a genocide.

Turkey has vehemently rejected that the killings and deaths that began on April 24, 1915, with mass arrests of Armenian intellectuals and activists in Constantinople, now Istanbul, constituted a genocide.

In recent years about three dozen countries, including Russia, France, Germany, and the United States, have recognized it as genocide.

Pashinian has urged Armenians to "overcome the trauma" of the massacre and stop yearning for their "lost homeland."

Speaking on April 24 at an event to mark the anniversary of the start of the 1915 events, Pashinian said the enduring trauma prevents many Armenians from objectively assessing international affairs and the challenges facing Armenia.

With reporting by AFP

NDTV television in India reported on July 29 that another Indian citizen has died while fighting alongside Russia's armed forces in Ukraine. The man was identified as Ravi Moun, 22, whose relatives said he was tricked into joining the Russian military. Earlier in July, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed, among other things, that that about 20 Indian nationals who are fighting with Russia's armed forces in Ukraine would return home soon. According to the BBC and AFP, Ravi Moun is the fifth Indian national to have been confirmed as killed in Ukraine while fighting for Russia. To read the original story by Current Time Service, click here.

Serbia and Russia have agreed to jointly mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade from Nazi occupation, President Aleksandar Vucic said on July 29 after talks with Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Bocan-Kharchenko. Vucic also said he and Bocan-Kharchenko "discussed the current situation in the country and the region." Yugoslav communist partisans, backed by the Red Army, liberated Belgrade on October 20, 1944, after 1,287 days of Nazi occupation. Vucic has maintained close relations with President Vladimir Putin, whose country has been a traditional ally of Serbia. Putin attended the 70th anniversary in 2014 in Belgrade. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Balkan Service, click here.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser says Berlin is in secret talks to deport “criminal” asylum seekers. In an interview with Bild am Sonntag, Faeser said, “We want to consistently deport Islamist violent criminals. We are negotiating confidentially with various states to make deportations to Afghanistan and Syria possible again.” The issue was raised following the stabbing death of a police officer in Mannheim in June. Investigators said an Afghan immigrant carried out the attack. Some 40,000 Syrians and 20,000 Afghans have applied for asylum this year, the newspaper reported. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock criticized the move, saying it was "not possible" to deport migrants to countries like Afghanistan. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, click here.

DUSHANBE -- Asliddin Sharipov, the brother of the director of an opposition online television station, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison on unspecified charges, a close associate told RFE/RL on July 29.

According to the associate, Sharipov was sentenced in March and is currently being held in a correctional colony in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe.

Sharipov is a brother of Shavkat Muhammadi, the director of the opposition Payom online TV channel, who currently resides in the European Union.

Police in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg arrested Sharipov in September 2022 and extradited him to Tajikistan on October 1, 2023.

A court in the Russian city of Nizhny Tagil said at the time that Sharipov is wanted by Tajikistan on charges of collaborating with a banned group and the propagation of said group’s activities online.

It remains unclear what exactly Sharipov is accused of as Tajik officials have not made any public statements regarding Sharipov's case.

Shavkat Muhammadi told the Norwegian Helsinki Committee he was convinced that Tajik authorities are persecuting his brother to put pressure on him in retaliation for criticism of the government aired on Payom.net, the independent media outlet he leads in exile.

Dozens of Tajik opposition figures and activists living abroad are wanted by the Tajik authorities on charges of terrorism and extremism.

President Emomali Rahmon, who has run the Central Asian nation for almost 30 years, has been criticized by international human rights groups over his administration's alleged disregard for independent media, religious freedoms, civil society, and political pluralism.

Armenian blogger Mika Badalian, who is close to fugitive pro-Russian Moldovan businessman Ilan Shor, was barred from entering Moldova last week, RFE/RL has learned. Badalian, who was not allowed to exit a plane from Yerevan, said he wanted to launch an event of the Russian-based Evrazia foundation meant to inform Moldovan citizens about the "disadvantages of joining the EU" and the benefits of Eurasian cooperation. Evrazia was registered in Moscow in April by Nelli Parutenko, a former accountant of the now-disbanded Shor party. Shor was implicated in a $1 billion bank fraud and other illicit schemes and has organized antigovernment protests in Chisinau. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Moldovan Service, click here.

QONAEV, Kazakhstan -- The prosecution asked a court in Kazakhstan's southern town of Qonaev to sentence journalist Duman Mukhammedkarim, who is on trial for what he says are politically motivated charges of financing an extremist group and participating in a banned group's activities, to seven years in prison.

Mukhammedkarim's lawyer, Murat Zholshiev, told RFE/RL on July 29 that prosecutors also requested the court to ban Mukhammedkarim from conducting public activities for three years.

Around 40 people gathered in front of the court building to support Mukhammedkarim as they were unable to attend the trial since it is being held behind closed doors.

On July 18, Mukhammedkarim was transferred to a hospital as his health has dramatically deteriorated after he undertook several hunger strikes to protest the secrecy of the trial.

Mukhammedkarim, whose Ne Deidi? (What Do They Say?) YouTube channel is extremely popular in Kazakhstan, was sent to pretrial detention in June 2023 over an online interview he did with fugitive banker and outspoken government critic Mukhtar Ablyazov.

Ablyazov's Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement was declared extremist and banned in the country in March 2018. As Mukhammedkarim's trial started on February 12, he complained of being beaten by jail guards, prompting prosecutors to launch an investigation into the matter.

Mukhammedkarim's trial was then postponed until an unspecified date to allow for the investigation, which was shut down later due to a purported lack of evidence.

The proceedings resumed after that.

Domestic and international right organizations have urged the Kazakh authorities to drop all charges against Mukhammedkarim and immediately release him. Kazakh rights defenders have recognized Mukhammedkarim as a political prisoner.

Rights watchdogs have criticized the authorities in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic for persecuting dissent, but Astana has shrugged off the criticism, saying there are no political prisoners in the country.

The oil-rich Central Asian nation was ruled by authoritarian President Nursultan Nazarbaev from before its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 until current President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev succeeded him in 2019.

Over the past three decades, several opposition figures have been killed and many jailed or forced to flee the country.

Toqaev, who broadened his powers after Nazarbaev and his family left the oil-rich country's political scene following the deadly, unprecedented antigovernment protests in January 2022, has promised political reforms and more freedoms for citizens.

However, many in Kazakhstan describe the reforms announced by Toqaev as cosmetic, and a crackdown on dissent has continued even after the president announced his "New Kazakhstan" program.

Officials in Russia's northwestern region of Karelia said on July 29 that one person died and several are missing after a temporary dam burst on the White Sea-Baltic Canal (Belomorkanal). Unconfirmed reports said the deluge of water washed away three houses in a nearby village. Constructed by forced labor of gulag inmates, Belomorkanal is one of Russia's major shipping canals and connects the Arctic Ocean's White Sea with the Onega Lake, which is further connected to the Baltic Sea. It began operation in August 1933. The dam that broke was temporarily built as the canal's gateways have been under repair since 2022. To read the original story by RFE/RL's North.Realities, click here.

A Moscow court on July 29 issued arrest warrants for two more members of the Vesna youth movement over their public condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Makar Dyakonov and Vladislav Sorvenkov were charged in absentia with organizing an extremist group. Sorvenkov was also charged with distributing false data about Russia's military, the rehabilitation of Nazism, and other alleged crimes. Last week, a Moscow court issued arrest warrants on similar charges for two other Vesna activists in exile, Lev Gyammer and Gleb Kondratyev. Vesna was declared extremist and banned in Russia in December 2022 after it organized rallies against mobilization for the Kremlin's war against Ukraine. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

Ukraine launched a wave of drone strikes deep inside Russian territory early on July 29, damaging energy facilities in two regions, Russia's Defense Ministry and regional officials said a day after a reported Ukrainian attack set a Russian oil refinery on fire.

In the western Russian region of Oryol, a power plant was damaged by falling debris from two downed Ukrainian drones over the Glazunovsky district, regional Governor Andrei Klychkov said on Telegram.

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"Emergency services are dealing with the consequences of the air attack, and law enforcement agencies are working at the scene," Klychkov wrote, without specifying the type of damage the power plant sustained.

In Voronezh, a utility infrastructure was damaged in the village of Gazoprovod, in the region's southern Ostrogozhsky district, also by falling drone debris. regional Governor Aleksandr Gusev said on Telegram.

Russia's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its air defenses destroyed 39 Ukrainian drones: 19 drones were intercepted over the Kursk region, nine were downed over Belgorod, three over Voronezh, five over Bryansk, and three over the Leningrad region.

The Russian claims could not be independently verified.

It was the second day in a row that reported Ukrainian attacks caused damage to Russian energy facilities.

On July 28, suspected Ukrainian military drones struck an oil storage depot in the Kursk region, with video posted online showing a huge blaze lighting up the sky. Regional Governor Aleksei Smirnov said three storage tanks caught fire as a result of the drone strike.

Since the early days of Russia's unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow's forces have systematically targeted Ukrainian energy and civilian infrastructure facilities, causing casualties and huge damage.

In turn Ukraine has started targeting oil-refining facilities and other energy infrastructure inside Russia that mainly work for the military.

On July 27, Ukrayinska Pravda reported on July 27 that Ukrainian drones had hit an oil refinery in Russia’s Ryazan region.

Meanwhile, Russian shelling of Ukraine's southern cities of Kherson and Nikopol early on July 29 wounded 20 people, including five children, regional and local officials reported.

In Nikopol, 13 apartment buildings as well as gas pipelines, power lines, and an administrative building were also damaged, according to Dnipropetrovsk regional Governor Oleksandr Sayuka.

Ukrainian air-defense systems shot down a Russian guided missile and all nine drones launched by Russia at its regions on July 29, the commander of Ukraine's air force, General Mykola Oleshchuk said.

On the battlefield, Russian forces over the past 24 hours have been pressing with an offensive in the eastern Donetsk region in the direction of the mining city of Pokrovsk and the town of Toretsk, Ukraine's military reported.

Constant shelling has prompted the evacuation of hundreds of civilians from the area, local officials told RFE/RL.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on July 28 that the front line in Pokrovsk was subject to the "most severe enemy attacks."

RFE/RL reported that Russia captured two villages near Pokrovsk -- Prohres and Vovche -- which was confirmed by the Ukrainian military.

Georgia’s largest opposition party, the United National Movement, will submit a lawsuit against the controversial “foreign agent” law to the Constitutional Court on July 29, the party has told RFE/RL’s Georgian Service. Thirty-two opposition lawmakers signed the lawsuit on July 22. Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili, a fierce critic of the law, filed a challenge against the legislation with the Constitutional Court on July 16. Zurabishvili vetoed the law in May, but the country's parliament, which is dominated by the ruling Georgian Dream party, overrode her veto. Signed into law on June 4, it has jeopardized the country's aspirations to join the European Union. To read the full story by RFE/RL’s Georgian Service, click here.

Dozens of people have been put to death in Iran over the past week, after a lull in executions during the recent presidential election period. According to reports by foreign-based Iranian rights groups, at least 30 prisoners convicted of murder or narcotics offenses were hanged in various prisons between July 20 and July 27. Rights groups had said that the number of executions had dropped in the first half of the year, attributing it to the presidential election. They warned, however, that executions would pick up after the vote. Reformist lawmaker Masud Pezeshkian won the July 5 run-off election and took office on July 28. To read the full story by RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, click here.

A tribal land feud that sparked days of sectarian fighting has killed 35 people in northwestern Pakistan, local authorities said on July 28. Clashes over a land dispute between Sunni and Shi’ite tribes broke out on July 24 in the Kurram district, during which more than 160 people have been injured. The fighting started in the Boshera region and has since spread to at least five towns and villages. The clashes have resulted in the closure of public offices, schools, roads, and the local market. The authorities have shut down mobile internet in the district. To read the full story by RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal, click here.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia would deploy new strike weapons if the United States deployed long-range missiles in Germany. The United States said on July 10 that it would start deploying long-range missiles in Germany from 2026 in preparation for a longer-term deployment, which will include SM-6, Tomahawk cruise missiles and developmental hypersonic weapons. Speaking at a naval parade in St. Petersburg on July 28, Putin vowed “mirror measures,” warning the United States that it risked triggering a Cold War-style missile crisis with the move. To read the original story by Current Time, click here.

NATO inviting Ukraine to join the military alliance would mark “a definitive step away from the politics of appeasement and back to the rule of international law and protection of human rights,” dozens of scholars said in an open letter published by The Guardian on July 27. “The focus on Russia’s alleged ‘Nato expansion anxiety,’ and attempts to appease it, ignore Russia’s genocidal propaganda and systematic war crimes in occupied territory of Ukraine, including massacres, mass rape and torture,” they said. At its recent summit in Washington, the 32 members of NATO stated that the alliance would continue to support Ukraine on its "irreversible path" to membership, but no timeline was set.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei formally endorsed Masud Pezeshkian as the new president on July 28 and instructed him to focus on cultivating relations with Iran’s neighbors rather than Western nations.

The endorsement, known in the vernacular as tanfeez, means Pezeshkian’s tenure as president has officially started, despite not being sworn in until July 30.

The televised ceremony was held in Tehran and attended by senior military and political figures as well as foreign diplomats.

In his decree, Khamenei described Pezeshkian as a “wise, honest, popular, and scholarly” individual.

A heart surgeon by training, reformist Pezeshkian is a former health minister and multiterm lawmaker who was elected president earlier this month in a snap election held after the death of hard-line president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in May.

The first round of voting on June 28 had voter participation of 39 percent -- a record-low turnout for a presidential election in the history of the Islamic republic. The runoff vote on July 5, which saw Pezeshkian face off against ultraconservative candidate Saeed Jalili, saw the turnout rise to around 49 percent.

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Iran's New Reformist President Unlikely To Bring Major Policy Shifts

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Khamenei, who is Iran’s highest religious and political authority and has final say on all state matters, said the foreign policy of Pezeshkian’s government should prioritize “states that have supported Iran throughout these years in the face of pressure both inside and outside the United Nations.”

These countries, he said, include Iran’s neighbors as well as African and Asian nations.

“I don't say European countries are a priority in our foreign policy because of their bad conduct concerning issues like the sanctions and oil,” the 85-year-old supreme leader said.

“They’ll become a priority if they set aside their bad conduct. Of course, we’ll never forget the hostile conduct of some countries.”

Iran has long accused European powers of failing to deliver on their commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal after the United States withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and reimposed sanctions targeting Iran’s economy and oil sectors. Iran has since scaled back its own commitments and expanded its nuclear program.

In his address after the endorsement, Pezeshkian spoke of the “need to reform” but added that he would strive to “implement the supreme leader’s general policies.”

France-based political commentator Mohammad Javad Akbarin told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda that the ceremony showed that the new president is “subservient” to the supreme leader.

“The leader of the Islamic republic will not have a problem controlling [Pezeshkian],” he said.

In his first two decrees after taking office, Pezeshkian named veteran reformist politician Mohammad Reza Aref as his first vice-president and Mohsen Haji-Mirzaei as his chief of staff.

A former lawmaker, Aref previously served as first vice-president in 2001-2005 under Iran’s last reformist president Mohammad Khatami.

Haji-Mirzaei was Iran’s education minister in 2019-2021 in the final two years of moderate former president Hassan Rohani’s tenure.