World
US denounces arrest of former consulate employee in Russia
![US denounces arrest of former consulate employee in Russia US denounces arrest of former consulate employee in Russia](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/AP23090337808986-1684270108.jpg?resize=1920,1440)
Robert Shonov is being held for allegedly cooperating ‘on a confidential basis’ with a foreign organisation.
The United States has “strongly” condemned the detention of a former consulate employee who has been arrested in Russia, according to a local media report.
In a statement on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the US Department of State dismissed the allegations against Robert Shonov, a Russian national who worked for more than 25 years in the now-shuttered US consulate in Vladivostok on Russia’s east coast.
“The allegations against Mr Shonov are wholly without merit,” said spokesperson Matthew Miller.
The Russian state media outlet TASS reported on Monday that Shonov had been arrested in Vladivostok and transferred to Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, the same detention centre where two US citizens have been held on charges of espionage.
Citing law enforcement sources, TASS explained that Shonov had been interrogated following his arrest. He was ultimately charged with cooperating “on a confidential basis with a foreign state, [or] international or foreign organisation”.
Miller blasted that charge in Tuesday’s statement.
The fact that Shonov was “being targeted under the ‘confidential cooperation’ statute highlights the Russian Federation’s blatant use of increasingly repressive laws against its own citizens,” Miller wrote.
He explained that Russia had issued an order in April 2021 restricting local residents from being employed by the US diplomatic corps. Since then, Shonov had worked for a company “contracted to provide services to US Embassy in Moscow in strict compliance with Russia’s laws and regulations”.
Miller sought to downplay any role Shonov might have had in embassy affairs. “Mr Shonov’s only role at the time of his arrest was to compile media summaries of press items from publicly available Russian media sources,” he said.
Still, members of the Russian government applauded Shonov’s arrest in state media reports.
“It’s clear that unacceptable activities by unfriendly states are not slowing down but rather are going up,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told TASS.
Tuesday’s statement is the latest indication of heightened tensions between Russia and the US, particularly in the wake of the former’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022.
Earlier this year, the US denounced the detention of US citizen and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, with the State Department declaring he had been “wrongfully detained” by Russian authorities on charges of espionage.
“Journalism is not a crime. We condemn the Kremlin’s continued repression of independent voices in Russia, and its ongoing war against the truth,” State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a statement on April 10.
Gershkovich himself has denied the charges, which include allegations that he was collecting state secrets about Russia’s military-industrial complex.
The US has also urged Russia to free another US citizen, former marine Paul Whelan, who was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years for espionage.
Whelan likewise has rejected the charges against him: In court, he appeared in the defendant’s box carrying a sign that read, “Sham trial!”
Both Whelan and Gershkovich have spent time in Lefortovo prison, a high-security detention facility with a history stretching back to tsarist times. Gershkovich is currently jailed there, and Whelan spent 20 months in the facility awaiting trial.
Last month, US envoy to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield called for the release of both men, saying they were being used as “political bargaining chips“.
“Using people as pawns is a strategy of weakness. These are not the actions of a responsible country. And while Russia plays political games, real people suffer,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
In December, Russia and the US negotiated a prisoner swap that saw the release of imprisoned basketball player Brittney Griner in exchange for Viktor Bout, a Russian former arms dealer serving a 25-year sentence in the US.
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World
A suicide bomber detonates in Afghan capital, killing at least 6 people and injuring 13
![A suicide bomber detonates in Afghan capital, killing at least 6 people and injuring 13 A suicide bomber detonates in Afghan capital, killing at least 6 people and injuring 13](https://dims.apnews.com/dims4/default/dcac1a4/2147483647/strip/true/crop/700x394+0+28/resize/1440x810!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F90%2F29%2F4e3c1cc7446089a9101a7bdff4c8%2Fdefaultshareimage-copy.png)
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Police in the Afghan capital say a suicide bomber carried out an attack Monday, killing at least six people and injuring 13 others.
The blast took place in the southwestern Qala Bakhtiar neighborhood in Kabul, said Khalid Zadran, spokesman for the Kabul police chief.
The dead included one woman, he said, while 13 people were wounded, all of them civilians who were taken to a hospital for treatment.
A police investigation is underway. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing.
The Islamic State group’s affiliate, a major rival of the ruling Taliban, has carried out previous attacks on schools, hospitals, mosques and Shiite areas throughout the country.
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 during the chaotic departure of U.S. and NATO troops after 20 years. Despite initial promises of a more moderate stance, the Taliban gradually reimposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law, or Shariah, as they did during their previous rule of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
World
Germany's right wing poised for major wins as centrist parties stumble
![Germany's right wing poised for major wins as centrist parties stumble Germany's right wing poised for major wins as centrist parties stumble](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/09/GettyImages-2169317905.jpg)
Germany’s right wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is expected to win its first election since the party was formed in 2013, as anti-mass immigration sentiment sends voters to the polls.
Exit polls on Sunday showed AfD securing a winning 33.5% share of the vote in Thuringia and 31.5% in Saxony. Meanwhile, the center-left Social Democratic Party – to which Chancellor Olaf Scholz belongs – brought in less than 8% of the vote in both states, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The election follows a wider trend of success for conservative groups across Europe in recent months. French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron’s government narrowly quashed a conservative takeover of the French parliament earlier this year.
Analysts say the ultimate impact that AfD and other party politicians can have will be determined by how willing centrists are to work with them.
GERMAN RIGHT WING CANDIDATE STABBED IN LATEST ATTACK AHEAD OF ELECTIONS
DRESDEN, GERMANY – AUGUST 29: A skinhead supporter of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party waves a German flag while taunting leftist, anti-fascist protesters following the final AfD Saxony election rally prior to state elections on August 29, 2024, in Dresden, Germany. The AfD is currently leading in polls in both Saxony and Thuringia ahead of state elections scheduled for Sunday in both states. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
“The center-right will decide to what extent an AfD win would be a turning point: So far, they have been relatively consistent in excluding cooperation — more so than in other Western European countries,” Manès Weisskircher, a political scientist at the Dresden University of Technology, told the Journal.
The German elections this weekend come just days after a Syrian immigrant killed three people in a stabbing spree in Solingen, Germany. ISIS claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack shortly after.
![Emergency services and police at a stabbing scene in Germany Friday](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/08/1200/675/Stabbing-scene-Germany.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Emergency services and police are deployed near the scene where three people were killed and injured in an attack at a festival in Solingen, western Germany, the German dpa news agency reported, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. (Gianni Gattus/dpa via AP)
Federal prosecutors in Germany identified the suspect as Issa Al H., omitting his family name because of German privacy laws.
GERMAN TERROR ATTACK SUSPECT IDENTIFIED AS A SYRIAN REFUGEE, CHANCELLOR VOWS TO IMPLEMENT STRICT IMMIGRATION
ISIS said the attacker targeted Christians “to avenge Muslims in Palestine and everywhere.”
Der Spiegel magazine, citing unidentified security sources, said that the suspect had moved to Germany late in 2022, and sought asylum.
![Scholz gives speech in Berlin](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/06/1200/675/GettyImages-2156486483-1.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing a surge in right-wing sentiment across Germany. (John MacDougall/AFP via Getty Images)
Similar attacks by Muslim migrants across Europe have spurred anti-immigration sentiment. Even the left-leaning Scholz called for strengthening immigration laws and ramping up deportations in the wake of the attack.
“We will have to do everything we can to ensure that those who cannot and are not allowed to stay in Germany are repatriated and deported,” Scholz said while visiting the sight where the stabbing happened.
“This was terrorism, terrorism against us all,” he said.
Fox News’ Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report
World
Seven EU members hadn’t received any post-Covid funding by end-2023
![Seven EU members hadn’t received any post-Covid funding by end-2023 Seven EU members hadn’t received any post-Covid funding by end-2023](https://static.euronews.com/articles/stories/08/69/58/16/1200x675_cmsv2_e50ff906-3ebe-5eb2-bccc-66f739cec99e-8695816.jpg)
Continued delays are jeopardising the EU’s €724bn post-Covid recovery fund, warns a new report by the European Court of Auditors (ECA).
Three years after creating a huge fund to stimulate post-pandemic recovery, EU member states have used under a third of the €724bn in grants and loans, EU auditors said in a report published today (2 September).
By the end of 2023, Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden had not received any post-Covid money at all, the EU Court of Auditors said.
Almost all member states have experienced delays in submitting payment requests, whether due to political turmoil, uncertainty over the rules, or national administrative capacity, the report said.
The Netherlands and Hungary did not sign operational agreements, the first step required to access EU funds, while Sweden did not submit a payment application, it added – while others such as the Netherlands were held back by protracted coalition negotiations.
“For the Recovery and Resilience Plan you really need political consensus and support and that the government stands behind the plan, and the Netherlands was waiting for that stability,” Ivana Maletić, senior auditor at the Luxembourg-based EU agency, told Euronews in an interview.
In the more complex case of Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s government has to meet 27 milestones intended to fight corruption and safeguard judicial independence, which he hasn’t yet done.
The other four countries — Belgium, Finland, Ireland and Poland — submitted payment requests later than others, so they were still being assessed by the European Commission, which directly manages and implements the fund, at the end of 2023.
One quarter not completed on time
Unlike cohesion funds, the normal vehicle for EU regional spending, post-pandemic financial support is tied to progress on meeting commitments, and member states are behind schedule in meeting these targets and absorbing funds.
“Timely absorption of the RRF is essential: it helps to avoid bottlenecks in carrying out the measures towards the end of the Facility’s lifespan, and reduces the risk of inefficient and erroneous spending,” said Maletić, who led the audit.
Halfway through the six-year implementation plan for the post-pandemic funds, 24% of the planned reforms and investments have not been completed on time — meaning that a significant number of the trickiest promises have yet to be fulfilled, the ECA found.
With the RRF due to expire in August 2026 and no extension expected, EU auditors are recommending the Commission provide further support to strengthen how similar funds are designed in future.
“It can happen that for some actions, member states receive substantial amounts of funds without finalising them at all because it will not be possible to finalise them within the given time,” a senior auditor told a press conference on Monday (2 September) — though Brussels then doesn’t have the power to claw back money.
The EU executive however rejected auditors’ recommendations to stop funding incomplete actions and recover transfers.
“The Commission does not consider that payments based on progress is a risk and has no legal basis to recover funds already disbursed in relation to milestones and targets already and still fulfilled,” said its response.
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