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MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Tuesday that the suicide of former Transport Minister Roman Starovoit just hours after his dismissal by President Vladimir Putin was shocking.
Starovoit was found dead in his car outside Moscow with a gunshot wound and the principal hypothesis is that he took his own life, state investigators said on Monday, hours after Putin fired him.
A presidential decree published on Monday gave no reason for the dismissal of Starovoit after barely a year in the job.
MANILA: The Philippines’ foreign ministry has summoned China’s ambassador to Manila over Beijing’s imposition of sanctions against former senator Francis Tolentino, the president’s office said on Tuesday.
Tolentino, who lost his bid for a second term in the Philippines’ midterm elections in May, was banned from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau over “egregious conduct” detrimental to relations between Manila and Beijing.
Tolentino helped in approving laws last year that defined the country’s sea lanes and maritime zones, which China opposed. He also accused the Chinese embassy of contracting a firm that maintains troll farms to sow disinformation.
“The imposition of punitive measures ... is inconsistent with the norms of mutual respect and dialogue that underpin relations between two equal sovereign states,” presidential press officer Claire Castro told a briefing.
Manila’s foreign ministry said it summoned Chinese ambassador Huang Xilian on Friday. China’s embassy in Manila said in a statement the ambassador notified the Philippines’ foreign ministry of China’s decision to impose sanctions on Tolentino.
“It should be noted that such sanctions fall purely within China’s legal prerogative, and there are consequences for hurting China’s interests,” the embassy said.
The Chinese foreign ministry has previously accused some Filipino politicians of making “malicious remarks and moves” that hurt ties between the two nations.
Relations between China and the Philippines have soured under President Ferdinand Marcos over a longstanding dispute in the South China Sea.
In 2016, an international tribunal ruled Beijing’s sweeping claims to the waterway had no basis in international law. China has rejected the decision. Several other countries in Southeast Asia also claim parts of the South China Sea.
MOSCOW: Russia’s main independent voting observer Golos, which monitored the country’s increasingly tightly-controlled elections for 25 years, announced its closure on Tuesday, two months after its co-chair was jailed.
Golos — which means “voice” in Russian — had for years meticulously recorded voting fraud across the huge country as elections under President Vladimir Putin’s long rule turned into a ritual with little real choice.
Putin faced no real competition at the last presidential election in 2024 and a domestic crackdown accompanying Moscow’s Ukraine offensive has made voicing different views dangerous.
“Justice, alas, does not always win — it must be fought for. And there is always the risk of losing. This is how it turned out this time,” Golos said in an online statement, adding: “Goodbye.”
The group’s co-chair Grigory Melkonyants, Russia’s most respected independent election observer, was sentenced to five years in prison in May as part of the Kremlin’s sweeping crackdown.
Golos said it had “no choice” but to end its activity after the sentencing as it put its participants “at risk.”
Melkonyants, 44, was found guilty of working with a European election monitoring association outlawed as an “undesirable organization” in Russia — which Golos has repeatedly denied.
Golos has described itself as an “all Russian social movement in defense of voters’ rights.”
It had observers across Russia’s regions and had for years published online reports and maps of violations during elections and had a hotline to report voting fraud.
It said Tuesday it had shut down its regional offices.
International observers have for years reported widespread voter intimidation, ballot stuffing and other election fraud in Russia.
BRATISLAVA: A man went on trial Tuesday over last year’s attempted assassination of Slovakia’s populist Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Juraj Cintula, appearing in court in the central city of Banská Bystrica, has been indicted on terror charges.
“Long live democracy, long live free culture,” Cintula shouted as he arrived at the Specialized Criminal Court.
The 72-year-old is accused of opening fire on Fico on May 15, 2024, as the prime minister greeted supporters following a government meeting in the town of Handlová, located 140 kilometers (85 miles) northeast of the capital.
Cintula was immediately arrested and was ordered by a court to remain behind bars. If convicted, he faces life imprisonment.
Fico was shot in the abdomen and was transported to a hospital in nearby Banská Bystrica. He underwent a five-hour surgery, followed by another two-hour surgery two days later. He has since recovered.
Cintula originally was charged with attempted murder. Prosecutors later dropped that charge and said they were instead pursuing the more serious charge of engaging in a terror attack, based on evidence the investigators obtained, but they gave no further details.
Government officials initially said that they believed it was a politically motivated attack committed by a “lone wolf,” but announced later that a third party might have been involved in “acting for the benefit of the perpetrator.”
Fico previously said he “had no reason to believe” that it was an attack by a lone deranged person and repeatedly blamed the liberal opposition and media for the assassination attempt.
Fico has long been a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond. He returned to power for the fourth time after his leftist Smer, or Direction, party won the 2023 parliamentary election after campaigning on a pro-Russia and anti-American message.
His critics have charged that Slovakia under Fico has abandoned its pro-Western course and is following the direction of Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Thousands have repeatedly rallied in the capital and across Slovakia to protest Fico’s pro-Russian stance and other policies.
