An Iranian appeals court has upheld the 16-year prison sentence of two elite Iranian students who were convicted of endangering national security, charges family and rights groups have decried as "ridiculous" and "fictional." The Telegram channel Emtadad on June 7 quoted Mustafa Nili, the lawyer of the two imprisoned students, confirming the court decision, which includes a sentence for each of at least 10 years in prison.

Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi were arrested in April 2020 and held in detention until April 2022, when a court convicted them of sabotaging public facilities, cooperating with opposition groups, and spreading propaganda against the system. They were handed sentences of 10 years, five years, and one year for the alleged offenses. The cases have prompted a wave of protests from students and professors at the Sharif University of Technology where they were enrolled.

Last November, Amnesty International said the two detained students had been tortured by Iranian intelligence agents and held "in prolonged solitary confinement in harsh conditions to extract forced confessions.” Younesi won the gold medal at the International Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad in 2018 in China, while Moradi took a silver medal at Iran’s National Astronomy Olympiad in 2017.

An Iranian parliament member says the shortage of drugs in the country has reached a critical stage and that Iran's pharmaceutical industry is on the verge of collapse.

Abdul Hossein Rohalmini said on July 6 that the 13 Aban Pharmacy, the biggest drug distributor in Iran, currently has a shortage of 356 pharmaceutical drugs. He said that if this trend continues the country will face a "severe shortage" of medicines.

WATCH: It's been estimated that 95 percent of the medicine in Afghanistan enters the country illegally. According to an investigation by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, a significant portion of the pharmaceuticals come from Iran and are smuggled into Afghanistan on trucks and buses.

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In March, the parliament voted in favor of cutting subsidies for drugs. State media reported the cash-strapped Iranian government would save some $9 billion annually by reducing drug subsidies.

Although domestic manufacturers supply most of Iran's drugs, much of the raw materials needed for the medicines is imported. Iran also is dependent on imports for most of the drugs needed to treat life-threatening ailments such as cancer and coronary disease.

In late June, Iran's Syndicate of Pharmaceutical Industries warned President Ebrahim Raisi of a critical situation in which pharmaceutical drug production lines could break down starting in July.

Rohalmini also criticized the current health minister, Iraj Harirchi, and previous ones, saying that they should be tried for crimes for failing to "implement general health policies."

The Iranian economy has been devastated by years of harsh economic sanctions imposed by the United States after Washington withdrew from an accord Iran signed with five world powers aimed at curbing Tehran's controversial nuclear program.

The poor economic situation has led hundreds of thousands of people to protest in recent months. Many of the demonstrations have been met by crackdowns from security forces.

The United States says it will send more long-range multiple-launch rocket systems to Ukraine as Kyiv's forces prepared for a slow Russian advance to grab more territory in the eastern Donbas region. The U.S. weapons package announced on July 8 will include four High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS, bringing to 12 the total number of these systems sent to Ukraine since last month.

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, Western military aid, worldwide reaction, and the plight of civilians and refugees. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

The announcement came after Russia’s top diplomat clashed with his Western counterparts at a G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia, and after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that continued sanctions against Russia could lead to catastrophic energy price increases for European households. Russia’s ambassador to Britain, meanwhile, painted a bleak prospect for the war ending soon, saying Russian troops would capture the rest of Donbas in eastern Ukraine and were unlikely to withdraw from land across the southern coast. Ukraine would eventually have to strike a peace deal or "continue slipping down this hill" to ruin, Ambassador Andrei Kelin told Reuters in London. Russia is likely concentrating its equipment in the direction of Siversk, about 8 kilometers west of the current front line, Britain's Defense Ministry said.

Russian forces are likely pausing now to replenish before undertaking new offensive operations in the Donetsk region, while Ukrainian troops were preparing to push back another assault, the ministry said. On the Donbas frontlines, the Ukrainian military reported Russian shelling of towns and villages ahead of an anticipated push for more territory. Civilian and military infrastructure was hit in towns near Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region, while shelling continued along the contact line in eastern Ukraine, a report from the Ukrainian military's General Staff said on July 8.

Russia is conducting defensive operations in the Kharkiv direction and is trying to improve the tactical position in certain areas, the report said. The shelling of Kharkiv and its surroundings, as well as other populated areas of the region, continued.

The aid announced by the U.S. on July 8 is the 15th package of military weapons and equipment transferred to Ukraine from U.S. Defense Department stocks since last August.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff on July 8 urged the West to send more heavy weapons to counter what he called Russia's "scorched earth tactics."

"With a sufficient number of howitzers, SPG, and HIMARS, our soldiers are able to stop and drive the invaders from our land," Andriy Yermak tweeted.

Russia has accused the West of waging a proxy war against it by stepping up the supply of advanced weapons to Ukraine and by imposing economic sanctions.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, in comments that contrasted with those of the Russian ambassador to Britain, said he believes the war will end through one of three scenarios -- a negotiated settlement, a long drawn out war of attrition, or the collapse of the Russian Federation. Speaking at a conference on July 8, Reznikov said in the case of the first scenario, before negotiations could take place the two sides would withdraw to the positions they held on February 24, the day Russia started its invasion. The talks would cover the status of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and Crimea.

“And we will conduct these negotiations at the table with our powerful partners. There will definitely be no Minsk 3,” he said, a reference to unsuccessful German-French efforts to find a peaceful solution with Russia after Russia-back separatists first seized parts of the Donbas and Crimea in 2014. “There will be no capitulation agreements, and no one will negotiate with a gun held at their temple," he said. The second option, according to him, is the gradual destruction of the enemy -- "a war of resources against resources." This option would mean an end would not come quickly. “Not until the end of this year, but maybe the beginning of the next,” he said. Reznikov also said more than 1 million people are currently defending Ukraine. The majority -- about 700,000 people -- are mobilized in the armed forces. The remainder are national guard troops, border guards, and federal police. The announcement of the U.S. arms delivery comes amid reports that Ukraine has used HIMARS delivered thus far to successfully strike Russian locations deeper behind the frontlines and disrupt Russia's ability to conduct artillery operations, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the additional HIMARS would Ukraine's forces have used them to attack targets such as ammunition dumps, hitting them with guided missiles launched from farther away out of range of Russian artillery. They have not used them to strike outside of Ukraine, the official added. The official acknowledged that Russian forces recently made progress in eastern Ukraine, seizing more territory, but called it “very incremental, limited, hard-fought, highly costly progress” and said it was in “certain, select small spaces in the Donbas.”

Bulgaria's centrist Continue the Change party (PP) has announced that it failed to secure the support of a majority in parliament to put forward a new coalition government.

On July 8, Asen Vassilev, who was expected to be nominated to become Bulgaria’s next prime minister, informed President Rumen Radev that the party had failed to get the backing from at least 121 lawmakers in the 240-seat parliament.

"Unfortunately, we failed to gather enough support to implement the politics that our...government would have wanted to push through," Vassilev said.

“We could not get the support needed to rid Bulgaria of corruption and make the state work for the people, instead of channeling taxpayers’ money into a few select companies that can use it to corrupt the political class,” the prime minister- designate said.

Vassilev, who served as finance minister in the previous pro-Western government, told a news conference that the party had the support of 117 deputies ready to support the party's program.

“We hope that in the next elections, the additional four deputies will be elected by the people," he said.

The party received the mandate to form a government a week ago after a coalition government that it led fell in a parliamentary no-confidence vote last month.

In a bid to cling to power, the PP had put forward Vassilev as their prime minister-designate instead of outgoing Prime Minister Kiril Petkov and proposed to form a government for a six-month term to see through judicial reforms and other measures.

Petkov’s coalition began to fray after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February. The government, which only took office in December on pledges to tackle high-level corruption, was toppled in the no-confidence vote over disagreements on the economy and whether Sofia should drop opposition to North Macedonia's European Union accession.

Radev will now hand out two more mandates to form a government. He said the first will go next week to the center-right Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party of former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov. A third mandate will be handed out if GERB is unsuccessful.

If the two other attempts fail, the president will dissolve parliament and call new elections to be held within two months. It would be Bulgaria's fourth parliamentary elections since April last year.

Fresh elections could return a similarly fragmented legislature as did the other three general elections last year after frustrations over corruption led to mass protests against Borisov's rule.

A recent poll by the Alpha Research institute in the country of 6.5 million showed as many as seven parties passing the 4 percent entry threshold. Borisov's GERB led the poll with 21.5 percent, followed by PP with 20.2 percent.

Uzbekistan's president dismissed his chief of staff in what appeared to be fallout from last week’s spasm of violence in northwestern Karakalpakstan, the worst in the Central Asian nation in 17 years.

Zainilobiddin Nizomiddinov's dismissal was officially due to health reasons, according to a government statement. The office of President Shavkat Mirziyoev did not comment further on his departure.

Nizomiddiinov, 49, has worked closely with Mirziyoev since 2016. As chief of staff in the presidential administration, he was considered a powerful political figure.

Officials have told RFE/RL he was also instrumental in pushing proposed changes to the national constitution. Those changes were seen as sharply limiting the autonomy -- or even potential independence -- of Karakalpakstan, a sprawling desert region in northwestern Uzbekistan.

The current constitution states that Karakalpakstan is a sovereign republic within the country and has the right to secede by holding a referendum.

The region is largely inhabited by Turkic-speaking Karakalpaks who had special autonomy even under Soviet rule.

Sizable protests broke out in the regional capital, Nukus, and other towns after the changes were announced on June 27. In the ensuing turmoil, at least 18 people were killed -- including four police officers -- and 243 wounded in clashes with security forces, according to Uzbek prosecutors.

Rights activists and exiled opposition politicians say they believe the real toll is higher.

Mirziyoev on July 2 backed down on the proposed amendments.

He later blamed the violence on what he called foreign forces, and the Foreign Ministry described the disorder as "mass pogroms and atrocities.”

The United States and the United Nations human rights chief called for a full and transparent investigation into the bloodshed, which is the worst since 2005 when the country was rocked by protests and a brutal security crackdown in the Andijan region.

A Russian court has sentenced a Moscow city lawmaker to seven years in prison after finding him guilty of “knowingly distributing false information” about Russia’s military.

Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court handed down the sentence against Aleksei Gorinov on July 8, the TASS news agency said.

The watchdog organization OVD-Info said several spectators applauded Gorinov during proceedings and were arrested by bailiffs.

Gorinov is the first elected official in Russia to be convicted under the “distributing false information” law that was passed in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. He could have gotten up to 15 years in prison.

At a meeting of the Moscow city legislature in March, Gorinov criticized the Russian invasion, suggesting it was inappropriate to be holding a local children’s art competition while in Ukraine “every day children are dying.”

During a court hearing last month, Gorinov, who was detained in April, held up a sign that read “I am against the war.”

Prosecutors have launched dozens of investigations across the country into people who have criticized the Russian war or have merely called for peace. The Kremlin insists on calling the invasion a “special military operation.”

"Seven years in prison for words. Seven years in prison because of a denunciation,” said Andrei Pivovarov, a prominent opposition activist who faces a five-year prison sentence for heading an “undesirable organization.”

“A new dark page of repression in Russia has officially opened,” he wrote in a post on Facebook, following Gorinov’s sentencing.

The U.S. space agency, NASA, issued a rare rebuke of its Russian counterpart after three cosmonauts on the International Space Station posed with the flags of separatist forces in eastern Ukraine.

NASA issued the statement on July 7, three days after the Russian space agency Roskosmos released photographs showing the three Russians and the flags of Russia-backed fighters in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

Russia last week claimed its forces completely controlled Luhansk, and its troops were advancing slowly in what appeared to an effort to take all of Donetsk, as well. Ukraine has denied that Russia controls Luhansk entirely, though Ukrainian forces have been forced to withdraw from the last major cities there. The photographs were released to coincide with Russian officials' proclamations.

NASA “strongly rebukes Russia using the International Space Station for political purposes to support its war against Ukraine, which is fundamentally inconsistent with the station’s primary function among the 15 international participating countries to advance science and develop technology for peaceful purposes,” the agency said.

Roskosmos had no immediate public response to the U.S. statement.

Large parts of Luhansk and Donetsk have been largely controlled by Russia-backed separatists since 2014.

As relations between Washington and Moscow have deteriorated over the years, space exploration has been one of the rare places where the two countries have continued to cooperate.

Both nations have personnel on the orbiting station. The United States has relied heavily on Russian spacecraft to get its astronauts to and from the station, though the advent of private space travel is changing that.

Russia is negotiating to have its cosmonauts fly aboard a private U.S. space craft to the station under a barter-swap deal.

Even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February drew sweeping economic sanctions from the West, NASA has continued operations with Roskosmos. In late March, a U.S. astronaut returned to Earth from the station along with two Russian astronauts aboard a Russian space craft.

NASA’s administrator Bill Nelson last year scolded Russia after it conducted a test of an anti-satellite weapon, a test that sent a cloud of debris hurtling around the earth and threatening the space station.

"Their actions are reckless and dangerous,” Nelson said at the time.

While NASA has been reticent to make political statements or air its criticism publicly, the director of Roskosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, has built a reputation for his sharp tongue and punchy rhetoric.

In April, two months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Rogozin warned that the station’s future was at risk if the United States and the West did not lift punitive sanctions.

Diplomats from the world’s major industrialized nations failed on July 8 to find common ground over Russia’s war in Ukraine and how to deal with its impact on grain shipments and energy markets. Russia’s foreign minister walked out of two sessions held by diplomats from the Group of 20 (G20) amid criticism of the war on Ukraine and amid calls for Russia to allow Kyiv to ship grain out to the world. The July 8 meeting in Bali, Indonesia, was intended to lay the groundwork for summit of G20 leaders later this year. The war and soaring global food and energy prices that have resulted from it topped the agenda.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov walked out of the morning meeting after German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock criticized Moscow for the war. The vast majority of representatives at the meeting had condemned "Russia's brutal war of aggression," Baerbock said. "The appeal of all 19 states was very clear to Russia: this war must end," she said. Lavrov left the afternoon session before Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba’s scheduled virtual speech. Kuleba told ministers to "remember about 344 families who have lost their children when listening to Russian lies."

Lavrov told reporters the discussions "strayed almost immediately, as soon as they took the floor, to the frenzied criticism of the Russian Federation in connection with the situation in Ukraine." Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Lavrov was in the room when the meeting began and "about two hours later he began to hold bilateral talks with colleagues in the same forum in the next room." U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also condemned the Russian invasion. "What we've heard today already is a strong chorus from around the world...about the need for the aggression to end," Blinken said. During a closed-door session of officials, Blinken, who refused to hold one-on-one meetings with Lavrov, demanded Moscow allow grain shipments out of Ukraine. "To our Russian colleagues: Ukraine is not your country. Its grain is not your grain. Why are you blocking the ports? You should let the grain out," Blinken said, according to a Western official present. Zakharova said Lavrov was not present to hear Blinken's comments.

Members of the G20, whose countries account for about 80 percent of the world's economic output and about two-thirds of the world's population, had much to address as prices for meat, cereals, vegetable oils, dairy products, and sugar have soared in recent months, due largely to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine is not a member of the G20 but is one of the world’s largest exporters of corn and sunflower oil, but Russia’s invasion halted most of that flow. Millions of tons of Ukrainian grain are stuck in silos, unable to be exported due to Russia’s naval presence in the Black Sea. Those disruptions threaten food supplies for many developing countries, especially in Africa. But the meeting ended with no group photo taken nor a final communique issued as has been done in previous years. It also exposed further evidence of an East-West split driven by China and Russia on one side and the United States and Europe on the other. In closing remarks, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said "participants expressed deep concern about the humanitarian impacts of the war" in Ukraine, and "some members expressed condemnation" of the invasion. The meeting's agenda was also rocked by the resignation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, which prompted his foreign secretary, Liz Truss, to depart Bali, and the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. While in Bali, Blinken will also seek to reopen dialogue with Beijing in talks on July 9 with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Lavrov met Wang on July 7 to discuss Russia's invasion. The United States has condemned Beijing's support for Russia, and Blinken is expected to reiterate those warnings in talks with Wang.

Russian forces used more air strikes to push ahead with their effort to take control of the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine amid a warning from Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia has not yet started its campaign in earnest.

Three people were killed and five wounded in the Kharkiv region in one of the air strikes, authorities in the region said on July 7.

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, Western military aid, worldwide reaction, and the plight of civilians and refugees. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

"We ask the residents of Kharkiv to be as careful as possible. Do not stay on the streets of the city without an urgent need. After all, the enemy is insidiously striking residential areas and civilian infrastructure," regional commander Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk military administration, said Russian attacks hit civilian targets in the industrial city of Kramatorsk and in Avdyivka, killing two people and injuring eight.

Kyrylenko announced before the strike on Kramatorsk that Russian bombardments had killed at least seven people over the past 24 hours.

Russia-backed separatists in Donetsk said one person had died and 11 were injured by Ukrainian shelling. It was not possible to independently verify the claims.

Moscow has shifted its attacks to Donetsk, having largely seized control of the Luhansk region, and is focusing on Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy noted the attacks on Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, and other cities of the Donbas in his nightly video address on July 7 and said Ukraine’s partners have accurate information about its defense needs.

“The greater the defense aid to Ukraine now, the sooner the war will end with our victory and the less the losses of all countries of the world, the losses of the United States from Russian pressure on democratic societies," Zelenskiy said.

Earlier on July 7 Putin told lawmakers that Moscow had not yet begun anything serious in Ukraine and dared the alliance of countries that have coalesced around Ukraine to try to defeat Russia on the battlefield.

He accused "the collective West" of unleashing a war in Ukraine and said Russia's intervention marked the beginning of a shift to a "multipolar world."

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak responded by saying there is no plan by the "collective West."

The only plan is that of the Russian Army, "which entered sovereign Ukraine, shelling cities, and killing civilians. Everything else is primitive propaganda," he said on Twitter.

The fatalities in the Donetsk region came after Ukrainian officials reissued urgent pleas for civilians in to flee.

Slovyansk Mayor Vadym Lyakh said around 23,000 people remained from a prewar population of 110,000.

"Evacuation is ongoing. We take people out every day," he said.

"The city is well fortified," he added, claiming Russian forces had been unable to surround the city.

Slovyansk became Russia's target after they captured the nearby sister cities of Syevyerodonetsk and Lysychansk.

Ukraine said earlier it had regained control of Snake Island in the Black Sea. Senior military official Oleksiy Gromov said Ukrainian forces had "effectively reestablished” control over the island but did not specify whether there was a lasting military presence there.

A video of three soldiers raising a large Ukrainian flag on the island was posted on July 7 to several official Telegram channels. It was unclear when the video was filmed.

Russia said it pulled back from the symbolic island last week in a gesture of "good will," but has since continued targeting positions on the island.

The Russian Defense Ministry said early on July 7 that Russia attacked Snake Island after Ukrainian troops claimed to have raised their flag on the strategic Black Sea outpost.

Тhe attack destroyed part of the Ukrainian detachment on the island, said Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, a Defense Ministry spokesman.

Serhiy Bratchuk, head of the Odesa regional administration, confirmed that the island had been attacked but did not provide details of damage or casualties.

The tiny island has strategic importance because of its proximity to the sea lanes to Ukraine's port of Odesa.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia has barely started its military action in Ukraine and challenged Western countries supporting Kyiv to try to defeat Russia on the battlefield.

Speaking on July 7 at a meeting with leaders of the parliament, Putin accused Western allies of fueling the hostilities, charging that "the West wants to fight us until the last Ukrainian.”

He called it a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but added, “It looks like it's heading in that direction,” and warned that everyone should understand that Russia "by and large hasn't started anything seriously yet."

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, Western military aid, worldwide reaction, and the plight of civilians and refugees. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

In one of his strongest speeches since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Putin also directly challenged the Western allies backing Ukraine.

"Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. Well, what can you say here? Let them try," Putin said.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak responded to Putin's comments by saying there is no plan by the "collective West." The only plan is that of the Russian army, "which entered sovereign Ukraine, shelling cities, and killing civilians. Everything else is primitive propaganda," he said on Twitter. "That's why Mr. Putin's mantra about 'war to the last Ukrainian' is another proof of a well-thought-out Russian genocide."

Western countries have described the Russian invasion of Ukraine as unprovoked, and the Group of Seven (G7) at its recent summit emphasized that the war in Ukraine is "illegal and unjustified."

Moscow says what it calls its "special military operation" is the result of unsuccessful attempts to agree on security guarantees and on the expansion of NATO.

It accuses the West of waging a proxy war against it by imposing economic sanctions and stepping up the supply of advanced weapons to Ukraine.

The sanctions have steadily expanded, affecting Russia's leading banks, defense-industry enterprises, large companies, and individuals, including Putin. Many multinational corporations have withdrawn from the Russian market, laying off thousands of Russian workers as they departed.

In his defiance July 7 speech, Putin charged that Western sanctions against Russia have failed to achieve their goal of “sowing division and strife in our society and demoralizing our people.”

He added that "attempts by the collective West to enforce its version of the global order are doomed to fail."

But Putin also referred to the possibility of negotiations, saying, “We don't reject peace talks. But those who reject them should know that the further it goes, the harder it will be for them to negotiate with us."

It was the first reference to diplomacy in many weeks after repeated statements from Moscow that negotiations with Kyiv had totally broken down.

Russian forces recently captured the eastern region of Luhansk and on July 7 continued to try to push deeper into the eastern Donbas region.

A court in Turkey has handed a life sentence to a man accused in the killing of a former Iranian intelligence operative who exposed alleged corruption in Iran's judiciary and security forces.

Turkish media reported on July 7 that Abdul Wahab Kocak was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Masoud Molavi Vardanjani, who was shot dead in November 2019 in Istanbul.

Vardanjani had repeatedly accused Iran's judiciary and security forces of financial corruption and assassination of opposition figures by publishing documents on his Telegram channel.

Kocak was among 14 defendants who were sentenced in the case on July 6. Three others were sentenced to 15 years, 12 years, and six months, respectively.

A Turkish police report published in March 2020 said Vardanjani had an “unusual profile” and had worked in cybersecurity at Iran’s Defense Ministry before becoming a vocal critic of the Iranian regime.

A senior U.S. administration official said in April 2020 that Washington had grounds to believe that Iran's Intelligence and Security Ministry was directly involved in Vardanjani’s killing.

Iran has denied that any consulate staff had been involved in Vardanjani's shooting death.

Sabah newspaper of Turkey earlier reported that Mohammadreza Naserzadeh, an Iranian diplomat, is accused of handing over fake identification documents to Ali Esfanjani, who is accused of being the mastermind behind the plot to kill Vardanjani.

According to the decision of the Istanbul Court of First Instance, the criminal case of Naserzadeh, an employee of the Iranian consulate in Turkey, along with Ali Esfanjani and Naji Sharifi Zindashti, among the other defendants in this case, will be heard separately.

A member of the Iranian parliament says that about 80 percent of Iranians use tools on their mobile phones to bypass Internet filtering and censorship.

In an interview with ILNA news agency on July 6, Gholamreza Nouri Qazaljeh said that many popular websites in Iran are filtered to the extent that even children and teenagers "have to have tools to pass the filter for their normal work."

"Statistics show that nearly 80 percent of Iranians have installed anti-filter and VPN (virtual private network) on their phones, while the statistics of its use in Europe are below 10 percent," he added in the interview, which was about the so-called Cyberspace Protection Bill.

People use VPNs to circumvent government restrictions on websites and bypass any filters to allow free access to the Internet, including websites that are not allowed for people under the age of 18. VPNs are used in free countries mostly to keep the user's identity hidden.

The Cyberspace Protection Bill would hand control of Iran's Internet gateways to the armed forces and criminalize the use of VPNs. It has been sent for review to a parliamentary committee despite fierce public criticism.

A draft of the bill released in July last year raised concerns about strengthening the government's legal authority to block websites and platforms run by foreign technology companies that do not have a local representative in Iran.

It would also require people to register with identification to access the Internet and would criminalize the production, sale, and distribution of VPNs.

Iranian authorities already block tens of thousands of websites and regularly throttle or cut Internet connectivity during crucial periods, including a near-total shutdown for nearly a week amid anti-establishment protests following a disputed election in 2019.

International social-media platforms are already subject to blocking in Iran, and journalists and others rely on VPNs to access services like Telegram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

An order by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to enforce the country's hijab and chastity law has resulted in a new list of restrictions on how women can dress.

As part of a crackdown on what the government calls "improper hijab," Iran's Bank Mellat, which has more than 1,400 branches in Iran, has issued a directive prohibiting female employees from wearing high-heel shoes and stockings. It also forbids its male managers from having women as administrative assistants.

The July 5 directive also forces veiled women to use a head scarf that, in addition to covering hair, must cover the neck and shoulders.

Also on July 5, a letter was published by the Mashhad city prosecutor's office that asked the mayor to prevent women who wear "improper hijab" from using the subway. The mayor said that despite the "lack of any legal support" for the directive, a judicial order should be made so it can be implemented.

In response to the government's increasing pressure, several social-network activists have promoted a campaign for women to come to the streets in Iranian cities without a hijab on July 12.

The hijab became compulsory in public for Iranian women and girls over the age of 9 after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Many Iranian women have flouted the rule over the years and pushed the boundaries of what officials say is acceptable clothing.

Karakalpakstan remains in an "information vacuum," residents say, as the situation has begun to stabilize following deadly protests last week over the Uzbek government’s plan to hold a vote on the region's autonomous status.

"We are left with no access to information," a 33-year-old man told RFE/RL, speaking by phone from the remote region’s capital, Nukus.

"People are afraid -- neighborhood committee heads are going to door to door and warning people: 'Don't take to take to the streets or we won’t be responsible if you're detained,'" the man said on condition of anonymity.

Authorities said on July 6 that the Internet had been "temporarily" restricted in Karakalpakstan to prevent the spread of fake news "aimed at inciting separatism" and "destabilizing" the country.

The government says 18 people were killed and more than 200 were wounded in clashes between protesters and security forces on July 1-2. But a local health official and several residents told RFE/RL they believe the death toll is much higher.

The protests mark the worst violence in the authoritarian Central Asian country since anti-government protests in the eastern city of Andijon in 2005, when hundreds of people were killed.

The government said normalcy has returned to Karakalpakstan, where "grocery stores, bazaars, bakeries, banks, hospitals, and other social facilities" have reopened.

The Interior Ministry said mobile-phone connections "are fully operational," but it didn’t say when Internet access will be restored.

Uzbek media reported earlier in the week that ATMs didn't work, and many government services were also unavailable in Karakalpakstan, a massive region that makes up western Uzbekistan.

A senior official at Karakalpakstan's Interior Ministry said it's possible that a month-long state of emergency imposed on July 2 could be lifted earlier than planned.

"Now the situation in Nukus is calm. It's been said in a [government] meeting that if the situation stays this way, authorities will end the curfew ahead of schedule," the official told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity.

WATCH: Calls For International Inquiry After Deadly Crackdown In Uzbekistan

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Several residents who spoke to RFE/RL confirmed that the situation has calmed down in the region. But they said there are still numerous security checkpoints in Nukus and other cities, including the town of Shymbai, where the protests began.

Soldiers and police still patrol the streets, while armored personnel carriers can be seen in cities, they said.

One Nukus resident said there were "checkpoints installed everywhere on the border" between Karakalpakstan and neighboring provinces.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said trade has been suspended between Karakalpakstan and neighboring Khorezm Province, cutting many people off from a key supply route.

"People in the remote districts of Amudarya and Ellikqala depend on the products and goods delivered from Khorezm Province, but it’s been shut down," he said.

Unrest in Karakalpakstan broke out after Tashkent unveiled a package of constitutional amendments that included a proposal to effectively scrap the region's right to seek independence should citizens choose to do so in a referendum.

But the government later scrapped the plan in an attempt to appease demonstrators in Karakalpakstan, a mainly desert region of nearly 2 million people.

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev blamed unspecified foreign forces of instigating the violence to stir interethnic conflict in the country.

Authorities said on July 4 that 516 people were detained following the protests but many had been released, while others were sentenced to 15 days in detention.

But there have been alarming claims that some of the detainees -- alleged organizers of the protests -- were taken to detention centers in the Khorezm and Bukhara provinces.

Prosecutors said they were launching criminal probes on several charges, including attempts to seize power.

Some activists also said members of the Karakalpak diaspora in neighboring Kazakhstan have been interrogated by representatives of the Uzbek police.

Hamidjon Dadabaev, deputy commander of the National Guard, told reporters on July 6 that there were foreign citizens among those arrested. But he didn’t provide further details, saying "it will be revealed later."

The families of the victims have been burying their dead while dozens of the wounded remain in hospitals, some in serious condition.

A health official in Nukus told RFE/RL that "there were many women" among the wounded. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the exact number of dead has yet to be determined. "But it's definitely more than 18," he said.

The United Nations and the United States have called for a transparent and independent investigation into the violence.

Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan has become the first player from the country to reach the women's singles final at Wimbledon.

Rybakina overpowered former champion Simona Halep in straight sets in their semifinal match on July 7.

The 17th seed in the London tournament broke Halep, the 2019 champion, four times in the match in a dominant display.

The Russian-born Rybakina, who switched her allegiance from Russia to Kazakhstan four years ago, will play Ons Jabeur of Tunisia in the final on July 9.

Jabeur earlier on July 7 became the first Arab to reach a grand slam final by defeating Tatjana Maria of Germany in three sets in the earlier semifinal.

The news of the resignation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was met "with sadness" in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office said in a statement that also said Kyiv expects the support Johnson showed for Ukraine to continue.

"We have no doubt that Great Britain's support will be preserved, but your personal leadership and charisma made it special," said the statement issued on July 7 after the two leaders spoke by phone.

The statement thanked Johnson for defending Ukraine's interests after Russia's invasion and said the news of his resignation had been sad not only for Zelenskiy "but also the entire Ukrainian society, which is very sympathetic to you."

Johnson described Zelenskiy as a "hero" and said there is “unwavering cross-party” support in Britain for Ukraine, a Downing Street spokeswoman said, adding that he also pledged that defensive aid would continue for as long as needed.

“He thanked President Zelenskiy for everything he’s doing to stick up for freedom, for his friendship, and for the kindness of the Ukrainian people," the spokeswoman said.

“The prime minister finished the call by praising President Zelenskiy, saying, ‘You’re a hero, everybody loves you.'”

U.S. President Joe Biden said the United States will continue its "close cooperation" with Britain, including their joint support for Ukraine against Russian aggression.

"The United Kingdom and the United States are the closest of friends and allies, and the special relationship between our people remains strong and enduring," Biden said in a statement.

Russia's ambassador to Britain said that Johnson's fall was a consequence of a "belligerent" anti-Russian policy of support for Ukraine while ignoring the economic needs of the British people and the economy.

"He concentrated too much on the geopolitical situation, on Ukraine," Ambassador Andrei Kelin told Reuters in an interview in London.

Johnson said earlier he was resigning as British prime minister amid a wave of scandals and defections by his Cabinet ministers.

Johnson appeared outside Downing Street, saying he had appointed a new Cabinet and would remain in his post until a new leader of his Conservative Party is chosen.

"It is clearly the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore a new prime minister," he said.

According to the BBC, an election for the Conservative Party leadership will take place over the summer, with a formal announcement of a new prime minister by early October.

The 58-year-old Johnson swept to power in December 2019 on a promise to sort out Britain's exit from the European Union after years of wrangling.

His resignation followed a flood of departures by Cabinet officials, many who have excoriated Johnson for a series of scandals including one involving a Conservative Party lawmaker who quit his post over accusations that he groped men in a private member's club.

Johnson was forced to apologize after it emerged that he was aware that the lawmaker had been the subject of previous sexual misconduct complaints before Johnson appointed him.

He earlier survived a no-confidence vote over a damning report into parties that were held at his official government residence and office that broke strict COVID-19 lockdown rules. He was fined by police.

SKOPJE -- Parliamentary talks in North Macedonia over a French proposal to unstick Skopje's EU negotiations have been delayed amid finger-pointing and calls for calm after a fifth straight night of clashes over possible concessions on sensitive cultural and historical issues.

Bulgaria, which has previously blocked North Macedonia's EU bid, has endorsed the French proposal, which could lead to mentioning the Bulgarian minority in the preamble to the Macedonian Constitution, among other things.

Macedonian critics, including the leading opposition party, have attacked the proposal as a national betrayal that threatens to "Bulgarianize" their country, which declared its independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and has been an EU candidate for 16 years.

Dozens of police have been reported injured, including two seriously, since thousands of critics of the initiative launched nightly rallies in the streets of Skopje on July 2, with some hurling stones and bottles and at least one report of gunfire.

President Stevo Pendarovski on July 7 condemned the use of "violence and inciting violence for political purposes" as "unacceptable" as his Balkan nation confronts another perceived challenge to its national identity following a name change to mollify Greece that was aimed at reopening a path to EU membership three years ago.

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"I appeal to all the organizers of the protests that are taking place in North Macedonia these days to take responsibility and continue to exercise their democratic right to protest with dignity and without violence," Pendarovski said in a statement.

Pendarovski praised the police for "timely action that prevented major clashes" on July 6 and called for those responsible to be detained and punished.

He said the events of the previous evening "must not be repeated" and discouraged the carrying of firearms except by security authorities.

Opposition leader Hristijan Mickoski -- whose Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) organized the first street protest on July 2 -- shared a photo overnight on July 6-7 of a protester brandishing a gun, alleging that "this is the man who was going to kill me tonight" and demanding his arrest.

Some of the comments underneath Mickoski's post made references to staged provocations or threatened to "take justice into our own hands."

Bulgaria has used its veto power on new EU members to raise decades-old grievances over Macedonians' national and linguistic roots, but parliamentarians in Sofia last month endorsed the initiative from France.

The proposal would reportedly require a Macedonian commitment to some of the half-dozen or so demands that Sofia has been pushing, including better implementation of a 2017 Friendship Treaty.

Bulgarian officials, including President Rumen Radev, have reportedly narrowed Sofia's demands to a mention of the Bulgarian minority in the preamble to the Macedonian Constitution, a vague concession on language, and a commitment to fighting hate speech.

Critics say incorporating Bulgarian demands in North Macedonia's framework for negotiations with the European Union is a huge risk that hands Sofia perpetual veto power over accession.

But Pendarovski has publicly expressed his support, and Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski called the French document a "solid base for building a responsible and statesmanlike stance on the possibility that opens up to our country."

Visiting European Council President Charles Michel said on July 5 that "together we are on the verge of a possible breakthrough in your country's EU accession process" and urged Kovachevski to seize on a "historic opportunity."

Analysts have warned of the risk the Bulgarian-Macedonian impasse poses to the European aspirations of Macedonians and to the much-needed reforms in the country but also the risks for Serbians, Montenegrins, and others who have campaigned for decades to join the bloc.

The European Union is ideally intended to help put aside such historical disputes, according to Oxford School of Global and Area Studies lecturer Dimitar Bechev. He tweeted on July 7 that at least Bulgarian and Macedonian leaders "should agree to disagree on the past and focus on what really matters to citizens on both sides of the border."

Lawmakers and other Macedonians appeared bitterly divided along partisan lines.

The ruling Social Democratic Party (SDSM) and the opposition have traded accusations of responsibility for the violence, including a suggestion by a VMRO-DPMNE lawmaker and protest organizer that "police provocateurs" were to blame.

The VMRO-DPMNE legislator, Dragan Kovacki, alluded to backing for the French compromise as a "betrayal."

A stumbling block emerged quickly after Macedonian lawmakers convened in parliamentary groups on July 6 over whether parliament's stance would only apply to the framework for EU negotiations or also to other documents, including a proposed bilateral protocol with Sofia.

Warnings by Kovachevski and Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski of alleged plots of violence and a repeat of protesters' clashes with police then put those parliamentary proceedings on hold.

More street protests were planned for late on July 7.

Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi suggested a compromise in which the government would forward the French proposal to parliament alongside the proposed bilateral protocol with Bulgaria and other documents.

Grubi, a member of the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration party, the country's third-largest, also likened the current unrest in Skopje to the roiling in Montenegro ahead of its accession to NATO.

He suggested, without providing evidence, that foreign elements like Russia might be behind the political violence of the past week in North Macedonia.

Grubi said the majority of Macedonians are protesting legitimately and are merely concerned about the future of the common state and don't oppose EU-integration efforts.

U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner pleaded guilty to drug possession and smuggling charges in a Russian court in the latest hearing in her prosecution, a case that has sparked back-and-forth sniping by American and Russian officials.

Griner, 31, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the charges.

She was arrested earlier this year after Russian authorities said they found cannabis oil in vape cartridges in her luggage when she passed through Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. She was returning to play for a Russian team in the off-season of the U.S. Women's National Basketball Association.

Griner was escorted into the Khimki City Court courtroom on July 7 dressed in a red T-shirt and matching sweatpants and handcuffed.

"I'd like to plead guilty, your honor. But there was no intent. I didn't want to break the law," Griner said, speaking English, which was then translated into Russian. "I was in a rush packing. And the cartridges accidentally ended up in my bag." She added that she would like to give her full testimony later.

The next court hearing was scheduled for 14 July.

Her lawyer, Alexander Boykov, called for "as soft a sentence as possible."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that U.S. Embassy officials attended Griner's trial and delivered to her a letter from President Joe Biden.

"We will not relent until Brittney, Paul Whelan, and all other wrongfully detained Americans are reunited with their loved ones," Blinken tweeted.

The players union said in a statement on July 7 that it stood with Griner.

“With a 99% conviction rate, Russia’s process is its own. You can’t navigate it or even understand it like our own legal system,” said Terri Jackson, the union's executive director. “What we do know is that the U.S. State Department determined that Brittney Griner was wrongfully detained for a reason and we’ll leave it at that.”

Griner's case has drawn increasing public attention and involvement by top U.S. officials, who say she has been wrongfully detained.

A day earlier, the White House released a statement saying President Joe Biden had called Griner's wife, Cherelle, promising he was working to free her and one other American.

Whelan, the other U.S. citizen whose detention has drawn vocal U.S. protests, is a former U.S. marine and private-security consultant who was detained in December 2018, accused of espionage.

He was sentenced to 16 years in prison in June 2020.

Russia has repeatedly signaled its interest in exchanging detained U.S. citizens for Russians held in U.S. prisons.

In late April, Moscow released another former U.S. marine, Trevor Reed, in exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot who had been jailed on drug-trafficking charges in the United States.

Earlier on July 7, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov complained that the "hype" around Griner's case does not help.

"Attempts by the American side to make noise in public...don’t help in the practical settlement of issues," he was quoted as saying.

Finland moved toward fortifying its border with Russia, as lawmakers authorized barriers and allowed the closure of the entire 1,300-kilometer border under exceptional circumstances.

The July 7 vote by the Finnish parliament comes as the country moves rapidly to join the NATO alliance, abandoning decades of neutrality in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The legislation, which passed by a supermajority, gives the government authorization to build fences or other barriers near Finnish borders. It also restricts all asylum applications to be processed at designated border crossings, such as an airport.

Finland, along with Sweden, last month gained formal approval from the alliance to join. Now each of the 30 members must ratify the accession protocol, something that is already under way in several countries.

Public opinion in both Sweden and Finland shifted drastically in favor of NATO membership after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.

Russia has angrily condemned the moves by Stockholm and Helsinki and threatened unspecified retaliation.

For that reason, some alliance members have pushed for quick accession, saying the two Nordic nations would be in danger in the interim period leading to their protection under NATO's Article Five -- the clause that stipulates that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all members.

Russia's military said a Russian jet attacked Snake Island overnight, after Ukrainian troops claimed to have raised their flag on the strategic Black Sea outpost.

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Тhe attack occurred early on July 7, “destroying” part of the Ukrainian detachment on the island, said Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, a Defense Ministry spokesman.

"At about 5 a.m., several Ukrainian servicemen landed on the island from a motorboat and took pictures with the flag. An aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces immediately launched a strike with high-precision missiles on Snake Island, as a result of which part of the Ukrainian military personnel was destroyed," Konashenkov said in a video.

Serhiy Bratchuk, the head of the Odesa regional administration, confirmed that the island had been attacked, though did not provide details of damage or casualties.

The tiny island has strategic importance because of its proximity to the sea lanes to Ukraine's port of Odesa. But it also has symbolic importance in the nearly five months since Russia invaded Ukraine. Russian forces withdrew from it on June 30 after coming under heavy bombardment from Ukrainian artillery.

On July 7, video of three soldiers raising a large Ukrainian flag on the island was posted to several official Telegram channels, including that of Andriy Yermak, chief of staff for President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

It was unclear when the video was filmed.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, authorities again called on people in the eastern Donetsk region to flee, as Russian forces continued their slow, grinding advance that has taken more territory and taken a heavy toll on Ukrainian troops.

Ukrainian military commanders said on July 6 that they had repelled Russian advances in several locations in and around the administrative border between Luhansk and Donetsk, the two regions located in the Donbas region.

Russia earlier this week claimed control over the entire Luhansk region, after pushing Ukrainian forces out of the cities of Lysychansk and Syevyerodonetsk. Russian commanders have then pushed further west and south, advancing toward the city of Slovyansk.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also declared the complete seizure of Luhansk.

However, Luhansk’s administration chief, Serhiy Hayday, denied that the Russians had completely captured the province, and he said there was heavy fighting in villages around Lysychansk.

“The Russians have paid a high price, but the Luhansk region is not fully captured by the Russian Army," Hayday said in a televised interview. “Some settlements have been overrun by each side several times.”

Ukrainian commanders claimed to have repelled Russian attacks on a town and village north of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, not far from the Russian border.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk military administration, urged the province's more than 350,000 remaining residents to flee earlier this week

In his nightly video address on July 6, Zelenskiy said that of all the battles in his country, “the most brutal confrontation” is raging in the Donbas. He also said that Western artillery and rocket systems were having a “very powerful” effect on the battlefield.

Russia's Defense Ministry also claimed that Russian rockets had destroyed two HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems that the United States had supplied to Ukraine.

The Ukrainian military denied Moscow’s claims.

Russian forces made no claimed or assessed territorial gains “for the first time in 133 days of war,” according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

“Russian forces will likely confine themselves to relatively small-scale offensive actions as they attempt to set conditions for more significant offensive operations and rebuild the combat power needed to attempt those more ambitious undertakings,” the institute said in its daily assessment on July 6.

A Polish professor has been detained by Iran since September, a spokesman with the university confirmed to RFE/RL on July 7 after Iran claimed that it had arrested a group of foreigners on spying charges.

Maciej Walczak, a professor at Copernicus University in Poland, was detained along with two colleagues, who were later released, university spokesman Marcin Czyzniewski told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.

The confirmation came after Britain's ambassador to Iran said a British diplomat whom Tehran claimed was among the foreigners it had detained on spying charges had in fact left the country late last year.

The ambassador’s comments followed contradictory reports about the status and whereabouts of Giles Whitaker, Britain's deputy chief of mission in Tehran, and several other foreigners.

Czyniewski said Walczak was put on trial and sentenced to three years in prison on unknown charges. The spokesman added that Polish diplomats managed to visit him twice in prison and the university has been in contact with the Polish Foreign Ministry to push for his release.

Earlier, a statement from the Polish Foreign Ministry confirmed the arrest of a Polish "recognized scientist" without giving details about his identity.

The statement said Polish diplomats had been contact "with our citizen and his family," adding that "the detainee" had also received legal aid.

The statement was issued a day after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) accused the British diplomat and other foreigners of “espionage” and taking soil samples from prohibited military zones.

The state-controlled television aired footage purportedly showing Walczak and three others collecting earth samples from a restricted area in the central desert of Iran. It said their sample collection coincided with a missile test in Iran's southern Kerman Province.

The IRGC said the group was arrested but did not say when or whether they were currently in custody.

The semiofficial Fars news agency also published a photo showing four people in a desert setting, identifying them as the group that had been detained. Fars also said Whitaker had been expelled from Iran after apologizing.

Britain's Foreign Office on July 6 rejected the report that a diplomat had been arrested, calling it "completely false."

"These reports that our Deputy Ambassador is currently detained are very interesting," Ambassador Simon Shercliff wrote on Twitter on July 7. "He actually left Iran last December, at the end of his posting."

Neither Shercliff nor the Foreign Office indicated whether Whitaker had been detained prior to his departure.

Iran has in the past arrested dual nationals and those with Western ties, often on espionage charges, and leveraged them as bargaining chips in talks over other issues such as nuclear negotiations.

Talks to revive the nuclear deal between Iran and several world powers have been stalled for months.

A recent effort to break the deadlock between U.S. and Iranian negotiators ended last week without a breakthrough.

Also on July 7, the British Defense Ministry announced that British naval ships had raided Iranian vessels earlier this year and seized weapons in waters south of Iran.

The seizures occurred on two separate occasions -- January 28 and February 25 -- and involved Royal Marines who "approached the vessels on two Rigid Hulled Inflatable Boats before securing and searching the vessels." On one occasion, a U.S. naval helicopter was indirectly involved as well.

Weapons seized included multiple rocket engines for an Iranian cruise missile and 358 surface-to-air missiles, the ministry said.

No further details were given, and it was unclear why the ministry made the announcement on July 7, months after the two incidents, though the timing suggested a coordinated effort by London to send a warning to Tehran.

Kazakhstan’s president called for diversifying the country’s oil supply routes, a day after a Russian court suspended operations on a major export pipeline.

The comments by Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev on July 7 highlighted Kazakh worries about getting its oil--which is a major source of government revenue--out to world markets. It also underscored potential tensions between Kazakhstan and Russia, whose relationship has turned prickly amid the Russian war against Ukraine.

Around 80 percent of Kazakhstan's oil exports flow via the Caspian Pipeline to the terminal in the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk.

On July 6, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, whose members include U.S. oil giants Chevron and ExxonMobil, and other international companies, said Russian regulators had been ordered to inspect the facilities of the Russian part of the consortium.

Authorities originally gave the consortium until November 30 to correct the violations in how it deals with oil spillage. But regional regulators unexpectedly demanded the closure of a Russian terminal on July 6, which a local court then approved, Russian news agencies reported.

In his comments to Kazakh officials on July 7, Toqaev ordered a study on the possibility of building a pipeline under the Caspian Sea, a previously proposed project that would allow Kazakh oil to be exported to Western markets while bypassing Russia.

The pipeline disruption comes with global energy prices soaring, due in large part to Russia’s war on Ukraine and the Western sanctions that were imposed in punishment.

The United States has imposed sanctions on Russian oil but has said flows from Kazakhstan through Russia should run uninterrupted.

Any lengthy suspension to the Caspian pipeline, which carries around 1 percent of all global oil supplies, would further strain the global oil market.

Kazakhstan and Russia are major trading partners and share a lengthy border. Longtime leader Nursultan Nazarbaev cultivated close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but Toqaev, who succeeded Nazarbaev in 2019, has shown signs of cooler ties, particularly since the Ukraine invasion.

The most recent sign of tensions came last month at an economic forum in St. Petersburg when Toqaev reiterated Kazakhstan’s refusal to recognize what he called "quasi-state" entities in eastern Ukraine -- comments he made while seated alongside Putin.

At the forum, Toqaev also criticized Russian politicians and commentators, whom he accused of sowing "discord" between the two countries by launching public attacks on Kazakhstan.

Soaring food and energy prices have pushed more than 71 million people worldwide into poverty since late February when Russia launched its war on Ukraine, a United Nations agency said.

The report by the UN Development Program, released on July 7, also warned of the danger of social unrest in some places due to the economic turmoil

Achim Steiner, the administrator of the agency, said an analysis of 159 developing countries showed that spiking commodity prices this year was slamming parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Balkans, Asia, and elsewhere.

"This cost-of-living crisis is tipping millions of people into poverty and even starvation at breathtaking speed," he said in a statement accompanying the report. "With that, the threat of increased social unrest grows by the day."

Ukraine is a major grain producer and exporter, and its food shipments are critical to many countries in the Middle East and Africa. But its Black Sea ports have been blockaded by Russian forces, driving up food prices, and pushing tens of millions into poverty.

Russia and Ukraine combined accounted for almost one-quarter of global wheat exports and more than half of sunflower oil exports.

Energy prices have also shot up amid uncertainty over the war, but also as Russia has cut back on some oil and gas exports. Before the war, Russia was the world’s largest exporter of natural gas and the second-biggest exporter of crude oil.

Western sanctions on Russia, to punish Moscow for the Ukraine invasion, have also exacerbated inflationary pressures.

Some of the countries hardest hit by inflation, according to the UN agency, include Haiti, Argentina, Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, the Philippines, Rwanda, Sudan, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Uzbekistan.

In countries like Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria and Yemen, the impacts of inflation are even harder for those already at the lowest poverty line.

The total number of people living in poverty, or who are vulnerable to poverty, stands at over 5 billion, or just under 70 percent of the world’s population, according to the UNDP.

Britain's Foreign Office said on July 6 that reports of the arrest of a British diplomat in Iran "are completely false."

Iranian media reported earlier that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) detained several foreign nationals, including Britain's second-ranking diplomat, over accusations of spying.

The IRGC identified and arrested the foreigners, saying they were observed by drones taking soil samples in a prohibited area in the central desert of Iran, the IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency said. The country's state-run IRNA news agency reported that the foreigners had been arrested but did not say when or whether they were currently in custody.

Britain's deputy ambassador is among the people who went to the Shahdad desert with his family as a tourist, Fars reported.

A photo accompanying the Fars report showed four people in a desert setting. Another photo showed two people who appear to be looking for soil samples after parking their bicycles.

"These spies were taking earth samples in Iran's central desert where the Revolutionary Guards' aerospace missile exercises were conducted," state TV said.

Fars claimed the British diplomat, Giles Whitaker, was expelled from the country after apologizing.

A spokesperson for Britain's Foreign Office said: "Reports of the arrest of a British diplomat in Iran are completely false."

State TV also identified Maciej Walczak, a Polish scientist at Kopernik University in Poland, as one of the accused foreigners. The report said another of the detained individuals is the husband of Austria's cultural attache in Iran. It said their sample collection coincided with a missile test in Iran's southern Kerman Province.

The United States earlier on July 6 designated 15 individuals and entities for alleged engagement in illegally selling and shipping Iranian oil and oil products.

The U.S. State Department said in a statement that the entities -- located in Iran, Vietnam, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Hong Kong -- "have supported Iranian energy trade generating millions of dollars' worth of illicit revenue."

The U.S. Treasury Department said the entities and individuals used a web of Persian Gulf-based front companies to facilitate the delivery and sale of the Iranian oil and oil products from Iranian companies to East Asia.

"While the United States is committed to achieving an agreement with Iran that seeks a mutual return to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, we will continue to use all our authorities to enforce sanctions on the sale of Iranian petroleum and petrochemicals," Brian Nelson, undersecretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said.

Talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal have been stalled for months. Iran has said it is ready for new indirect talks to overcome the last hurdles to revive the 2015 nuclear deal amid a growing crisis over the country’s nuclear program.

A member of Iran's parliament has confirmed that explosions that occurred last week at an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) base in Tehran were sabotage.

A video published on social media showed at least two explosions inside the Malik Ashtar base compound in the southeast of Tehran.

At the same time, the official website of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) published the news of the explosions at 9:15 p.m. on July 1. Esmail Kosari, a member of parliament and former IRGC commander, confirmed on July 5 that the explosions occurred in the IRGC base. Kosari did not mention any casualties from the two explosions and played down the incident. "First of all, it was not an explosion, but two very weak, improvised explosive devices detonated," the Khabar Online website quoted him as saying. The MKO "use internal agents with promises. It was Friday and a day off. They came at 9 p.m., using the darkness, they did such a move and took a video," Kosari added. There have been several assassinations and deaths in recent months in Iran under unclear circumstances. Officials have blamed some of them on Israel. The MKO has also increased its activities inside Iran in recent months and carried out cyberattacks on the country's infrastructure. In the latest incident, the MKO-affiliated group Rise to Overthrow on July 3 claimed that it hacked and disabled the website of the Islamic Culture and Communication Organization.

Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) has filed a lawsuit against the Islamic republic over the 2020 shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger jet by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

The lawsuit, seen by Radio Farda, filed in a court in Ontario, is dated January 2022. It lists the Islamic Republic of Iran and the IRGC as the two defendants and demands compensation from Iran.

UIA flight PS752 crashed on January 8, 2020, while en route to Kyiv, killing all 176 people on board. After days of official denials, Iran admitted that an IRGC unit had inadvertently shot down the plane amid heightened tensions with the United States over the U.S. drone assassination of a top IRGC commander, Qasem Soleimani, near Baghdad.

Most of the victims were Iranians and Canadians but 11 were citizens of Ukraine. The families have demanded transparency and accountability.

The Iranian government has allocated $150,000 to compensate the family of each passenger, but some families have refused the money. Canada said last year that it found no evidence of premeditation in the downing of the airliner. A Canadian court awarded $84 million and interest to the families of six of the victims.

On June 28, the Group of Seven industrialized economies, at the end of their three-day summit in southern Germany, said in a joint statement that Iran should be held accountable for the shooting down of flight PS752. "We continue to support international efforts to hold Iran accountable for the illegal downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752", the statement said.

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