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Britain Sanctions Russian Scientists Behind Chemical Attacks

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died from poisoning in a Siberian prison camp in 2024 © KAREN MINASYAN / AFP
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died from poisoning in a Siberian prison camp in 2024 © KAREN MINASYAN / AFP
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Britain Sanctions Russian Scientists Behind Chemical Attacks

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died from poisoning in a Siberian prison camp in 2024 © KAREN MINASYAN / AFP
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died from poisoning in a Siberian prison camp in 2024 © KAREN MINASYAN / AFP

Britain on Monday unveiled sanctions against seven Russian scientists and two research labs said to have helped develop chemical weapons used in two attacks.

The sanctions target those involved in developing the Novichok nerve agent used in a 2018 attack on a former Russian spy hiding in England and a chemical believed to have fatally poisoned Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny in Siberia in 2024.

"These new measures directly hit two leading scientific research centres and key individuals involved in the development and production of toxic chemicals," the UK foreign ministry said in a statement.

Russian agents have been accused of poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the southern city of Salisbury in March 2018 using the Soviet-developed nerve agent Novichok, AFP reported.

The Salisbury attack, the first offensive use of chemical weapons in Europe since World War II, caused an international outcry and prompted a mass expulsion of Russian diplomats by Western nations.

The Skripals survived, but a British woman died later after her partner picked up a discarded perfume bottle believed to have been used to carry the Novichok.

Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner who rallied hundreds of thousands to the streets in protest at the Russian leadership, was President Vladimir Putin's fiercest domestic opponent for years.

He died in an Arctic prison colony in February 2024 while serving a 19-year sentence.

"Russia's repeated use of chemical weapons is a sickening violation of international law and a direct threat to global security," British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said.

The institutions hit were SC Signal, a Russian state scientific research institute and GNIII VM, the country's Scientific Research and Testing Institute for Military Medicine.

The individuals who were sanctioned included directors and technical specialists at the two research institutes, according to the foreign ministry.

The announcement came ahead of this week's NATO summit in Ankara, which opens on Tuesday and is set to focus on the Ukraine war.

The Foreign Office said Britain has now sanctioned over 3,400 individuals and organisations amid Moscow's war in Ukraine.

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World

US Supreme Court Lifts Limits on Third-country Deportations

The United States has deported thousands of migrants to so-called third-countries, including Liberia, as part of US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Matthew Jacobs / AFP
The United States has deported thousands of migrants to so-called third-countries, including Liberia, as part of US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Matthew Jacobs / AFP
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US Supreme Court Lifts Limits on Third-country Deportations

The United States has deported thousands of migrants to so-called third-countries, including Liberia, as part of US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Matthew Jacobs / AFP
The United States has deported thousands of migrants to so-called third-countries, including Liberia, as part of US President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Matthew Jacobs / AFP

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted restrictions on the deportations of immigrants to countries that are not their own, while agreeing to hear the issue on its merits in December.

The conservative-dominated high court granted an emergency request by the Trump administration to suspend a lower court ruling that restricted, but did not outright ban, so-called "third-country removals."

The lower court had said people targeted with deportation must be given effective notice ahead of time about where they are being sent to allow them to raise concerns about potential persecution, said AFP.

The three liberal justices on the nine-member bench said they would not have granted the administration's request.

President Donald Trump campaigned on promises to expel millions of undocumented migrants from the United States and has taken several actions aimed at speeding up deportations since returning to the White House in 2025.

The Trump administration has defended third-country deportations as necessary since the home nations of some of those who are targeted for removal sometimes refuse to accept them.

In a brief to the Supreme Court, opponents of lifting the restrictions argued that the lower court ruling did not fully block all third-country deportations, "it simply requires them to do so lawfully."

Trump's solicitor general, John Sauer, meanwhile told the court that the rapid deportation to third countries was "an essential tool to remove certain aliens, including some of the worst criminal aliens."

The lower court ruling "created substantial logistical problems" with removals, he said.

- 'Indefensible' -

An AFP investigation found that the US has offered multimillion-dollar deals and threatened visa restrictions in a bid to get "third countries," especially in Africa, to take such deportees.

Once in these countries -- and outside US jurisdiction -- deportees have been subject to abuse by local guards, indefinite detention, or quickly re-deported to their home countries.

According to an investigation published last week, the United States has deported more than 25,000 people under secretive agreements with 35 countries to take migrants with no ties to those nations.

The investigation by Forbidden Stories found the administration has earmarked $410 million to be paid directly to the receiving countries, or to United Nations agencies to facilitate the returns.

The vast majority of the deportees -- around 20,000 -- were sent to Mexico, but the rest were dispersed to 27 other countries across Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific, and agreements have been finalized with seven more.

Congress has made it US policy not to deport people to countries where their lives would be in danger or they could be subject to torture.

After the high court's ruling, some Democratic lawmakers were calling for more formalized steps to prevent such deportations and uphold due process.

"Congress must step in. No one should be shipped off to a country that is not their own without basic due process and a meaningful opportunity to raise legitimate fears for their safety," House Democrat Lois Frankel said on X.

Rob Menendez, another congressional Democrat, called the Supreme Court's decision "indefensible."

"Taxpayers shouldn't fund tearing people from the only home they've ever known, nor should our legal system fast-track these unilateral deportations."

World

US Withdraws from European Anti-Corruption Panel

FILE PHOTO: A general view of a US State Department sign outside the US State Department building in Washington, DC, US, July 11, 2025. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A general view of a US State Department sign outside the US State Department building in Washington, DC, US, July 11, 2025. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon/File Photo
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US Withdraws from European Anti-Corruption Panel

FILE PHOTO: A general view of a US State Department sign outside the US State Department building in Washington, DC, US, July 11, 2025. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A general view of a US State Department sign outside the US State Department building in Washington, DC, US, July 11, 2025. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon/File Photo

The Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from a top European anti-corruption watchdog as it forges ahead with plans to disengage from international and multilateral organizations that it accuses of exceeding their mandates, being inefficient or not adapting to US policies.

The Council of Europe said Tuesday that the US formally notified it a day earlier that it would leave the Group of States against Corruption, or GRECO. Only two other countries have left GRECO before — Russia and Belarus.

The State Department confirmed the move, saying that US participation, which requires an annual monetary contribution, “does not provide tangible benefits to US national security.”

“The era of writing blank checks to international bureaucracies is over,” it said. “The department is instead prioritizing higher-impact tools to combat corruption, such as visa restrictions, sanctions, and targeted foreign assistance to strengthen foreign criminal investigations into corruption directly threatening US security and prosperity.”

The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe said the US had been “a valuable contributor” to GRECO "and to the exchange of experience and good practice in preventing and combating corruption.”

“GRECO remains open to resuming cooperation with the United States in the future in support of shared efforts to prevent corruption, strengthen integrity and uphold the rule of law,” it said in a statement.

The decision was announced a week after the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the US had declined to invite its members to observe November’s congressional midterm elections, a sharp break from past practice.

The US has already withdrawn from a number of European-based UN and multilateral agencies, including the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council, and is weighing further such steps.

The US withdrew in January from another Council of Europe panel — the Venice Commission, which is an advisory body on constitutional law.

GRECO was created in 1999 by the Council of Europe to monitor compliance with the organization’s anti-corruption standards. Membership is not limited to European Union members, and the United States joined a year after its founding.

World

Iran Hangs Two Anti-government Protesters

The Iranian flag waves in front of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Vienna, Austria May 23, 2021. (Reuters)
The Iranian flag waves in front of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Vienna, Austria May 23, 2021. (Reuters)
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Iran Hangs Two Anti-government Protesters

The Iranian flag waves in front of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Vienna, Austria May 23, 2021. (Reuters)
The Iranian flag waves in front of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Vienna, Austria May 23, 2021. (Reuters)

Iran's judiciary announced that two men were hanged on Wednesday over charges relating to anti-government protests that peaked in January, having begun a month earlier over economic grievances.

The two, Ali Hemmati and Majid Nik-Andish, were found guilty of involvement "in the riots of January that resulted in the martyrdom of four security personnel" in the northeastern city of Mashhad, said the judiciary's Mizan Online website.

It added that they also "inflicted extensive damage on public property by setting fire to shops, banks, buses, etc, and even torching trees".

They "were executed by hanging early Wednesday, following the Supreme Court's confirmation of their sentences".

In late December, a protest movement initially sparked by the high cost of living rapidly evolved into widespread anti-government demonstrations that peaked on January 8 and 9.

Iranian authorities reported more than 3,000 deaths, attributing the violence to "terrorist acts" orchestrated by the United States and Israel, while foreign-based NGOs maintain that security forces fired on protesters, said AFP.

US President Donald Trump had threatened at the time to intervene militarily in Iran, before the United States and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran on February 28, triggering the Middle East war.

Since then, arrests and executions have multiplied in the country, linked both to the conflict and to the protests that took place earlier in the year.

In 2025, Iran executed at least 1,639 people, the largest number for any year since 1989, according to the NGOs Iran Human Rights and Together Against the Death Penalty.

According to Amnesty International, Iran is responsible for the second most executions of any country, after China.