rferl--2020-03-22--Afghan Officials Hold First Prisoner-Swap Talks With Taliban, U.S. Envoy Says

The Afghan government has held its first talks with the Taliban about a prisoner swap , the U.S. envoy to the war-torn country has said .
`` Prisoner releases by both sides is an important step in the peace process , '' Zalmay Khalilzad said in a March 22 statement on Twitter .
The talks -- held via Skype amid the coronavirus pandemic -- lasted more than two hours and were facilitated by the United States and Qatar , Khalilzad said .
The spread of the novel coronavirus has made the release of prisoners `` that much more urgent , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same day the first death in the country due to COVID-19 , the new strain of the coronavirus .
Afghanistan had 34 confirmed cases of the virus as of March 22 .
The United States last month signed a historic agreement with the Taliban that could lead to the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and an end to the country 's 18-year conflict .
According to a joint declaration published by the U.S. and Afghan governments on February 29 , the United States and NATO would withdraw all troops in Afghanistan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the commitments made in the agreement .
`` All sides conveyed their strong commitment to a reduction of violence , intra-Afghan negotiations , and a comprehensive and permanent cease-fire , '' Khalilzad said .
The envoy said a follow-up meeting between the Afghan government and Taliban will be held in the next two days .

The education of girls and women is universally accepted in more than 200 countries and territories, including nearly 50 Muslim-majority nations.
But Afghanistan’s hard-line Islamist Taliban rulers have banned teenage girls from attending school after the sixth grade since they returned to power two years ago. The ban was extended in December to women in universities.
Countless protests by Afghans inside the country, pressure from the international community, and lobbying by Muslim scholars and clerics have failed to convince the fundamentalist Taliban leaders to reopen schools.
Experts are divided over whether the ban is rooted in how the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam is shaped by conservative Pashtun tribal customs and cultural practices or if it is prompted by how senior Taliban ideologues interpret Islamic teachings.
Most Taliban leaders are ethnic Pashtun, Sunni Muslim clerics. Many were educated in Deobandi madrasahs in neighboring Pakistan. Deobandism emerged as a puritanical Islamic revivalist movement in 19-century British Colonial India. Based on the Sunni Hanafi school of jurisprudence, it is a prominent strain among Islamists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Tribal Influences
Sami Yousafzai, a veteran Afghan journalist and commentator, argues that the Taliban restrictions against women are linked to social customs and cultural practices in eastern and southern Afghanistan.
Most Taliban leaders come from various Pashtun rural tribal communities in these regions bordering Pakistan.
"They believe that a woman's place is either inside a house or in a grave," Yousafzai said of the basic Taliban belief influenced by the status of women in the families of clerics and religious leaders in these Pashtun regions.
“Women living in the households of the current Taliban policymakers were never educated and never left their homes,” said Yousafzai, who has tracked the Islamist group since it emerged as a ragtag militia in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar in late 1994. “These women never performed any government or nongovernmental jobs.”
Yousafzai says the Taliban backs policies shaped by this worldview by leaning on Islamic teachings supporting such ideas. He says Taliban leaders rely on sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad that discourage women from leaving their homes.
“Their primary belief is that pubescent girls should not leave home under any circumstance,” he said. “This is why they view women leaving home for education or work as engaging in moral corruption.”
In Afghanistan, a Muslim nation of some 40 million people, activists and rights advocates accuse the Taliban of implementing "gender apartheid" by denying women education, work, freedom of movement, and deciding how they can appear in public.
Most Muslims agree that Islam allows women to get an education. Yet the Taliban publicly says that it will allow girls access to education only after ensuring complete gender segregation and other unspecified conditions.
Almost all Afghan secondary schools were gender segregated and universities imposed a strict separation between men and women after the Taliban takeover.
Yousafzai says in conservative and traditional Muslim societies around the world, some clerics also favor restrictions on women's education, work, and their role in public life. But the governments in those countries usually oppose or limit such ideas.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia -- one of the most conservative Sunni Muslim nations -- has allowed women to drive and granted them freedom of movement without a male guardian. These steps are part of a reform and modernity drive by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman.
The Taliban ban on education has invited universal condemnation from Muslims globally.
“The Taliban's ban on women's education is not rooted in [the Islamic] Shari’a law but rather reflects cultural biases that contradict the teachings of Islam,” said Salam al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in the United States.
He said that contrary to Taliban practices, “Islam emphasizes the importance of seeking knowledge and encourages all individuals, regardless of gender, to acquire an education.”
Historical Conflict
But Islamic scholars and those who have attempted to convince the Taliban about reopening girls schools offer a different explanation.
John Mohammad Butt, an Islamic scholar and former BBC broadcaster who is the only Westerner to graduate from India’s Darul Uloom Deoband, argues that the Taliban's policy on girls' education is not tribal but shaped by the century-old conflict over modern education.
“The problem is that girls' education in Afghanistan -- indeed, contemporary education in general -- has generally been introduced in Afghanistan in line with a secular agenda,” he said.
In the 1920s, a coalition of conservative clerics and tribal and community leaders deposed reformist King Amanullah Khan. He wanted to modernize Afghanistan along Turkish leader Kamal Ataturk's secular lines and championed modern education and rights for women.
This opposition to modernity and secularism continued, and conservative clerics opposed women's education and work. It became a key part of the Islamist opposition to the pro-Soviet Afghan communist governments after the April 1978 military coup that ended the Afghan monarchy. The mujahedin accused the communists of spreading immorality by promoting women’s education and empowerment.
“This has led to particular wariness on the part of conservative circles in Afghanistan with regard to girls' education,” Butt said.
'Deep Ideological Conviction'
Obaidullah Baheer, a political science lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan, became part of an effort to rescind the ban by talking to the Taliban last year.
But he says the effort failed because “the ban is a matter of deep ideological conviction” for the current supreme leader of the Taliban, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada.
Baheer says that the most prominent Taliban leaders have studied in Pakistani madrasahs and were thus disconnected from village and tribal life.
“They have been indoctrinated by the Deobandi school of thought so that they now enforce the strictest version of Islam on the Afghan population,” he said.
He argues that the ban on girls’ schools is a deliberate policy championed by Akhundzada, who he says has endorsed Taliban Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani's Arabic language book The Islamic Emirate And Its System. In this book, Haqqani supports a fringe Islamic opinion of preferring the choice of one of the Prophet Muhammad's wives, Sawdah Bint Zam'ah, who chose to stay at home until her death.
Baheer says Haqqani ignores his other wives and other female companions that played an active role in many sectors of society and how they served as students and teachers for men.
“This fringe opinion is not held by all Taliban leaders but is one that the current absolute sovereign, the Taliban emir, seems to be convinced of,” he said.
Butt says that even Haqqani has acknowledged the principle that if there is something that women need to act upon, then that is also something that women need to learn about.
“I hope the Taliban authorities will come to realize in the not-too-distant future that education for women will make Afghan women into better Muslims,” he says. “It will enable them to make a stronger contribution to the well-being of their country.”
Two years after grappling with the issue, Western diplomats appear to be encouraging Afghan conservative and clerical circles to find ways to end the ban.
Tom West, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan, recently tweeted that Afghan women must be educated and contribute to the economy to help their country stand on its own two feet.
“If change to policies is made, it will be because Afghans have asked for it, not a result of foreign requests,” he wrote.


rferl--2020-03-22--Russian Shops Test Facial-Payment Technology, Possible Rollout In 2020

Russia is testing facial-payment technology at supermarkets and could roll it out on a large scale by the middle of the year .
VTB , Russia 's second-largest lender , is testing the technology in the Lenta supermarket chain , the head of the bank 's digital division told Izvestia .
Promsvyazbank , another Russian lender , is holding talks to launch the technology in other supermarket chains next year , the paper said , citing a top manager at the bank .
The technology will enable shoppers who have linked an image of their face to a bank account @ @ @ @ @ @ @ front of point-of-sale machines equipped with cameras .
China , which has one of the most advanced mobile-payment systems , has already rolled out facial-recognition technology in many stores .
SnapPay , a Canadian company , announced in October it would offer the payment method in North America .
The popularity of the technology could receive a boost from the novel coronavirus , amid concerns that the virus can be transmitted through cash and cards , Finam analyst Aleksei Kornenev told Izvestia .
Advocates say it 's more convenient and speeds up the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of facial-recognition technology has raised concerns over privacy , especially in countries with authoritarian governments .

Russia is testing facial-payment technology at supermarkets and could roll it out on a large scale by the middle of the year.
VTB, Russia's second-largest lender, is testing the technology in the Lenta supermarket chain, the head of the bank's digital division told Izvestia.
Promsvyazbank, another Russian lender, is holding talks to launch the technology in other supermarket chains next year, the paper said, citing a top manager at the bank.
The technology will enable shoppers who have linked an image of their face to a bank account to pay for goods by posing in front of point-of-sale machines equipped with cameras.
China, which has one of the most advanced mobile-payment systems, has already rolled out facial-recognition technology in many stores.
SnapPay, a Canadian company, announced in October it would offer the payment method in North America.
The popularity of the technology could receive a boost from the novel coronavirus, amid concerns that the virus can be transmitted through cash and cards, Finam analyst Aleksei Kornenev told Izvestia.
Advocates say it's more convenient and speeds up the checkout process.
However, the use of facial-recognition technology has raised concerns over privacy, especially in countries with authoritarian governments.
With reporting by Izvestia


rferl--2020-03-22--COVID-19: First Deaths In Afghanistan, Kosovo, Romania, North Macedonia

The global coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 300,000 people and killed nearly 14,000 worldwide , causing mass disruptions as governments continue to try to slow the spread of the new respiratory illness .
Afghanistan 's Health Ministry says a 40-year old man has died from coronavirus , becoming the country 's first fatality from the disease .
Afghanistan has 34 confirmed cases of the virus .
Health officials say Iran 's death toll from coronavirus has reached 1,685 , as the country continues to struggle with mounting cases and an overloaded health-care system .
The Health Ministry said on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ died over the past 24 hours .
The ministry also said the country 's overall tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 was 21,638 .
Iran has been one of the worst-hit countries outside of China and Italy .
With the country reeling from the outbreak , officials have recommended Iranians stay home during the Norouz holiday , which began on March 20 and is one of the biggest holidays of the year for Iranians .
Officials have worried that efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 will be hampered as people travel for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The government has closed schools at all levels , banned sports and cultural events , and curtailed religious activities .
Many Iranians have also been angered by the temporary closure of Shi'ite sites , prompting some crowds to storm into the courtyards of two major shrines .
In a televised speech to mark Norouz , Iran 's supreme leader rejected an offer from the United States for assistance in fighting coronavirus .
`` We have many enemies , but the worst is the U.S ... .and now they want to help us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United States would be better off helping its own people , with hundreds of American deaths being linked to the virus after a spike in cases over the last week .
Khamenei also cited an unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus could be man-made by the United States .
`` Possibly your [ offered ] medicine is a way to spread the virus more , '' he said .
Local authorities say an 82-year-old man has died from coronavirus , Kosovo 's first death from the disease .
The Public Health Institute @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the man , who died in a hospital , had underlying health issues , including chronic cardiac and pulmonary problems .
Officials said the tally of confirmed infections in the country stood at 31 , as of March 22 .
The death comes as Kosovars grow increasingly impatient with the government , which has struggled to mount a coherent response to the outbreak .
Prime Minister Albin Kurti 's shaky coalition government , which took four months to assemble after October elections , is on the verge of collapse because of disagreements @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the capital , Pristina , banged pots and pans from their balconies on March 19 to protest the government 's actions .
Most of those infected in Kosovo have come from Italy or are related to someone who returned from a European Union member state .
Authorities have closed all schools , borders , flights , bars , and restaurants to curb the spread of the virus .
Only supermarkets and pharmacies remain open .
Romanian authorities report that two people have died from coronavirus , the first such deaths for the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said on March 22 that the number of confirmed cases in the country had risen sharply , and now stood at 433 , up from 322 just a day earlier .
Officials said the first victim was a 67-year-old man who had been suffering from terminal cancer and who died after having been infected on March 18 .
The man had returned to Romania 12 days earlier , on March 6 , from France , before restrictions on international travel had been imposed .
The government did not say when he died , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saying only that he was being treated at a hospital in the southern city of Craiova .
A total of 23 medical workers who were in contact with the man have been tested for coronavirus ; of the 18 tests that have been returned so far , all were negative , officials said .
The second victim was a 74-year-old who had been diagnosed just the day before , and was already being treated for kidney problems .
Officials said that person died in a medical facility in the capital , Bucharest .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ on March 16 and on March 21 announced a nighttime curfew .
The curfew will restrict the movement of people from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and go into effect on March 23 .
It is expected to last through the 30-day state of emergency declared on March 16 .
Those exempted include people going to work and those requiring medical assistance .
Interior Minister Marcel Vela and other officials said the measures will also prohibit gatherings of more than three persons outside the home and will mandate the closing of shopping malls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gathering places were ordered closed earlier in the week .
During the night curfew hours , the only people allowed to move about are medical professionals , those engaging in work activities , shopping for necessary items , and caring for children or the elderly or people walking their pets .
`` Everything we have decided to implement is meant to limit the risks to the population , '' Vela said .
He also warned those who are price-gouging or taking other actions to profit from the crisis .
`` We have taken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to speculate on the situation in order to get rich .
It 's not just illegal -- it 's also cynical , '' he said .
Russia has widened its ban on international flights as the number of registered coronavirus cases in the country reached 367 .
As of March 23 , Russian airlines will only service foreign capitals or large cities like New York and only from Moscow airports , state agency Rosavia said .
Russia will continue to permit charter flights exclusively for the evacuation of citizens stuck overseas , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been evacuated from countries suffering from a high number of coronavirus cases .
The flight-ban announcement comes as Russia registered another 61 cases of the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 , bringing the country 's total to 367 .
However , Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the Russian capital will not close its subway system , a step Ukranian capital of Kyiv took last week .
The Moscow subway transports several million people a day to work and its closure would have severe consequences for the city 's economy .
Russia , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ registered relatively few cases of COVID-19 on a per capita basis compared to its European neighbors , raising questions about the accuracy of the tally .
Italy has more than 47,000 while Spain has more than 25,000 .
Moscow , Europe 's largest city with about 12 million inhabitants , has registered just 137 cases of COVID-19 .
New York City , which has just over 8 million people , has registered more than 8,000 cases .
Russia also shares one of the world 's longest borders with China , where the new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than 81,000 cases .
Russian news agency RBK reported last week that the country had experienced a spike in the number of pneumonia cases this year .
While the majority of people who contract COVID-19 suffer only mild symptoms resembling the common cold , severe cases can develop into pneumonia .
Bulgaria 's president has vetoed new nationwide restrictions passed by parliament as part of the state of emergency imposed to fight the spread of coronavirus .
Rumen Radev said on March 22 that he opposed the new proposals , calling them `` @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civil liberties in the country .
`` Hunger will prevail over fear , '' he said in a statement that was released announcing his veto .
Parliament passed the proposed measures on March 20 after an initial proposal from the cabinet a week before .
Among the proposed measures that Radev said he opposed were allowing authorities to track mobile-phone users , to ensure people infected with the coronavirus are properly observing quarantine .
The measures also call for giving increased public-safety duties to military units , and for freezing prices for some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an effort to prevent price gouging .
As of March 22 , Bulgaria has confirmed 171 cases of people infected with the virus .
Three people have died since March 8 , when the first death was announced .
Three people have also recovered .
In neighboring North Macedonia , a 57-year-old woman has become the country 's first coronavirus fatality .
The woman had caught the infection during a trip to Italy , which has the most cases in Europe .
Her son has been infected too and is hospitalized in stable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 22 .
North Macedonia had 114 registered cases of the novel coronavirus as of March 22 , officials said .
On March 21 , the government said it had decided to impose a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. beginning on March 22 , the first time such a step has been taken since the country 's independence in 1991 .
In an emergency address , North Macedonia ’ s prime minister , Oliver Spasovski , said that `` we have decided to introduce the most radical measures in order to protect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ on March 22 ] , we will restrict the movement of all citizens .
It is forbidden for the population to move outside between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. every day .
There is no compromise when it comes to the health of citizens , '' Spasovski warned .
The prohibitions exclude persons who need medical assistance or whose lives are endangered .
Those who need dialysis are allowed to arrive for treatment with up to two other people .
Employees in health-care facilities are also excluded from the curfew , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the army , fire crews , and workers in municipal hygiene .
President Aleksandar Vucic said the government will extend a curfew that is already in effect by three hours as Serbia attempts to curtail the spread of the coronavirus , making it a 12-hour ban from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m .
He said the steps were necessary `` for our survival , '' and he threatened a 24-hour curfew if residents continued to ignore orders to remain indoors .
Serbia has registered 171 cases of the coronavirus and one death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina , the governments of the two entities on March 21 imposed nighttime restrictions on people outside their homes , with the Muslim-Croat federation ordering a 6-p.m.-to-5-a.m. curfew , and Republika Srpska restricting people to their homes from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. Uzbek officials have ordered all companies in the capital , Tashkent , to switch to remote working .
They also made protective masks mandatory in all major cities in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus .
Officials on March 22 said citizens not wearing masks in public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 22 for the first offense and $ 67 for repeat offenses .
Uzbekistan , which has a population of 34 million , has just 43 confirmed cases , nearly all in Tashkent .
Sindh , the hardest-hit province in Pakistan , has announced a 15-day lockdown starting March 23 .
Sindh has nearly half of the country 's 687 registered cases .
With reporting by RFE/RL 's Balkan , Bulgarian , Romanian services and Radio Mashaal , Reuters , AP , RIA Novosti , and TASS

The global coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 339,000 people and killed nearly 15,000 worldwide, causing mass disruptions as governments continue to try to slow the spread of the new respiratory illness.
Here's a roundup of developments in RFE/RL's broadcast countries.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan's Health Ministry says a 40-year old man has died from coronavirus, becoming the country's first fatality from the disease.
Afghanistan has 34 confirmed cases of the virus.
Iran
Health officials say Iran's death toll from coronavirus has reached 1,685, as the country continues to struggle with mounting cases and an overloaded health-care system.
The Health Ministry said on March 22 that another 129 people had died over the past 24 hours. The ministry also said the country's overall tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 was 21,638.
Iran has been one of the worst-hit countries outside of China and Italy.
With the country reeling from the outbreak, officials have recommended Iranians stay home during the Norouz holiday, which began on March 20 and is one of the biggest holidays of the year for Iranians.
Officials have worried that efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 will be hampered as people travel for the holiday to see friends and relatives.
The government has closed schools at all levels, banned sports and cultural events, and curtailed religious activities.
Many Iranians have also been angered by the temporary closure of Shi'ite sites, prompting some crowds to storm into the courtyards of two major shrines.
In a televised speech to mark Norouz, Iran's supreme leader rejected an offer from the United States for assistance in fighting coronavirus.
"We have many enemies, but the worst is the U.S.... and now they want to help us," Khamenei said.
He said the United States would be better off helping its own people, with hundreds of American deaths being linked to the virus after a spike in cases over the last week.
Khamenei also cited an unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus could be manmade by the United States.
"Possibly your [offered] medicine is a way to spread the virus more," he said.
Georgia
Two southern Georgian regions will lock down on March 23 as part of an effort to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the country’s prime minister said the previous day.
Giorgi Gakharia said at an emergency news briefing that the Marneuli and Bolnisi regions, both of which border Azerbaijan, would be closed off for entry and exit.
The regions would be supplied with food and medicine, and only grocery stores and pharmacies are to remain open as well.
Critical infrastructure and services would be available as well.
The decision was made after a woman who had contact with at least 90 people after attending a relative’s death anniversary dinner was diagnosed with the COVID-19 respiratory illness.
At this point, doctors were able to identify at least 85 people with whom the infected woman had contact.
The South Caucasus country of 3.7 million had 54 cases of coronavirus as of March 22, with no deaths.
Georgia's parliament over the weekend approved a presidential decree that imposes a one-month nationwide state of emergency in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
President Salome Zurabishvili on March 21 sent the decree to parliament as the number of cases in the former Soviet republic rose to 49. The parliament passed it later that evening.
The president called on citizens to follow the recommendations of the World Health Organization and the Georgian Health Ministry in order to slow the spread of the virus and avoid a "new level" of restrictions.
Kosovo
Local authorities say an 82-year-old man has died from coronavirus, Kosovo's first death from the disease.
The Public Health Institute said in a statement on March 22 that the man, who died in a hospital, had underlying health issues, including chronic cardiac and pulmonary problems.
Officials said the tally of confirmed infections in the country stood at 31 as of March 22.
The death comes as Kosovars grow increasingly impatient with the government, which has struggled to mount a coherent response to the outbreak.
Prime Minister Albin Kurti's shaky coalition government, which took four months to assemble after October elections, is on the verge of collapse because of disagreements over coronavirus measures.
Angry residents of the capital, Pristina, banged pots and pans from their balconies on March 19 to protest the government's actions.
Most of those infected in Kosovo have come from Italy or are related to someone who returned from a European Union member state.
Authorities have closed all schools, borders, bars, and restaurants to curb the spread of the virus. Only supermarkets and pharmacies remain open.
Romania
Romanian authorities report that two people have died from the coronavirus, the first such deaths for the country.
The government's Strategic Communications Group said on March 22 that the number of confirmed cases in the country had risen sharply and now stands at 433, up from 322 just a day earlier.
Officials said the first victim was a 67-year-old man who had been suffering from terminal cancer and who died after having been infected on March 18.
The man had returned to Romania 12 days earlier, on March 6, from France, before restrictions on international travel had been imposed. The government did not say when he died or how he had become infected, saying only that he was being treated at a hospital in the southern city of Craiova.
A total of 23 medical workers who were in contact with the man have been tested for the coronavirus. Of the 18 tests that have been returned so far, all were negative, officials said.
The second victim was a 74-year-old who had been diagnosed just the day before and was already being treated for kidney problems. Officials said that person died in a medical facility in the capital, Bucharest.
The government declared a state of emergency on March 16 and on March 21 announced a nighttime curfew.
The curfew will restrict the movement of people from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and go into effect on March 23. It is expected to last through the 30-day state of emergency declared on March 16.
Those exempted include people going to work and those requiring medical assistance.
Interior Minister Marcel Vela and other officials said the measures will also prohibit gatherings of more than three persons outside the home and will mandate the closing of shopping malls and dental clinics. Restaurants and other gathering places were ordered closed earlier in the week.
During the night curfew hours, the only people allowed to move about are medical professionals, those engaging in work activities, shopping for necessary items, and caring for children or the elderly or people walking their pets.
"Everything we have decided to implement is meant to limit the risks to the population," Vela said.
He also warned those who are price-gouging or taking other actions to profit from the crisis.
"We have taken strong actions against those who have tried to speculate on the situation in order to get rich. It's not just illegal -- it's also cynical," he said.
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan has 60 confirmed coronavirus cases as of the morning of March 23, following another confirmed infection the previous evening.
The Health Ministry says there are 31 registered cases in the capital, Nur-Sultan, 25 in the largest city, Almaty, and two in the Karaganda and one each in the Almaty and Aktobe regions.
Almaty and Nur-Sultan have been on lockdown since March 19 and a state of emergency was announced earlier this month.
Kazakhstan had already announced the cancelation of Norouz holiday celebrations and a military parade devoted to the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany.
The oil-rich Central Asian country recorded its first cases of COVID-19 on March 13 after three patients tested positive upon returning from separate trips to Germany and Italy.
Kazakhstan shares a 1,800-kilometer border with China where the respiratory illness emerged late last year.
The outbreak has since grown to become a global pandemic, infecting more than 300,000 worldwide and leading to over 14,000 deaths.
Russia
Russia has widened its ban on international flights as the number of registered coronavirus cases in the country reached 367.
As of March 23, Russian airlines will only service foreign capitals or large cities like New York and only from Moscow airports, state agency Rosavia said.
Russia will continue to permit charter flights exclusively for the evacuation of citizens stuck overseas, it said.
Nearly 20,000 Russian citizens have been evacuated from countries suffering from a high number of coronavirus cases.
The flight-ban announcement comes as Russia registered another 61 cases of the coronavirus, bringing the country's total to 367.
However, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the Russian capital will not close its metro, a step three Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, took where subways operate. The Moscow metro transports several million people a day to work and its closure would have severe consequences for the city's economy.
The Culture Ministry has recommended that as of March 23 all movie theaters be closed. Earlier in the month, the ministry closed all theaters, philharmonics, circuses, and movie theaters that belong to it.
Russia, the world's ninth-most populous country, has registered relatively few cases of COVID-19 on a per capita basis compared to its European neighbors, raising questions about the accuracy of the tally. Italy has more than 47,000 while Spain has more than 25,000.
Moscow, Europe's largest city with about 12 million inhabitants, has registered just 137 cases of COVID-19. New York City, which has just over 8 million people, has registered more than 8,000 cases.
Russia also shares one of the world's longest borders with China, where the new coronavirus originated. China has registered more than 81,000 cases.
Russian news agency RBK reported last week that the country had experienced a spike in the number of pneumonia cases this year.
While the majority of people who contract COVID-19 suffer only mild symptoms resembling the common cold, severe cases can develop into pneumonia.
Ukraine
Ukraine saw the number confirmed coronavirus cases rise to 73 as the capital, Kyiv, on March 23 is closing all public transportation for noncritical personnel.
The Health Ministry’s Center for Public Health said that as of 10:50 p.m. local time on March 22, there were 26 new cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19 in nine regions and the city of Kyiv.
The ministry says it is further monitoring more than 360 suspected cases, including over 239 patients in hospitals.
Health Minister Illya Yemets said on March 22 that he supports declaring a nationwide state of emergency.
“I have been talking about this since the first day of my work in the government. It had to be done from the beginning. If it were to succeed, there would be no such [virus] spread, which is now developing geometrically,” Yemets told 112 TV in an interview.
Meanwhile, one of several planned medical supply flights from China has arrived in Kyiv, the Ukrainian presidential office said on March 23.
It brought an unspecified number of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests as well as 250,000 express tests including different kind of protective medical masks, disinfectants, and “artificial ventilation apparatus and other means necessary to combat the spread of COVID-19,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office said.
Each regional laboratory on March 23 will receive the PCR tests.
The procurement was made with the assistance of large Ukrainian business owners.
“This is only the first batch of medicinal cargo from China. Several more flights are planned for this week,” the presidential office said.
There are three deaths related to the virus as schools have remained closed nationwide. Eateries, bars, gyms, theaters, and shopping malls, as well as subways operating in three cities, have been also been kept closed.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov the previous day called for a nationwide quarantine to slow the spread of coronavirus as Ukraine's capital and largest city, Kyiv, said it would shut all public transportation for noncritical personnel.
Avakov, one of the most powerful officials in Ukraine, said the measures already put in place to fight the spread will be “significantly toughened” in the coming days. He said only “critical” industries should remain open and everyone else sent home.
“A total, full quarantine is my position, which I want to ask of each of you. And I will insist on it, according to the power of my position,” Avakov said in a Facebook post on March 21.
Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said in a March 21 video post that only people whose work is vital to the city will be allowed to use public transport. The new measure goes into effect on March 23, he said.
Bulgaria
Bulgaria's president has vetoed new nationwide restrictions passed by parliament as part of the state of emergency imposed to fight the spread of coronavirus.
Rumen Radev said on March 22 that he opposed the new proposals, calling them "extremely restrictive" and a threat to civil liberties in the country.
"“The lack of adequate measures will bring about a situation where hunger will prevail over fear and the consequences will be destructive,” he said in a statement that was released announcing his veto.
Parliament passed the proposed measures on March 20 after an initial proposal from the cabinet a week before.
Among the proposed measures that Radev said he opposed were allowing authorities to track mobile-phone users, to ensure people infected with the coronavirus are properly observing quarantine.
The measures also call for giving increased public-safety duties to military units, and for freezing prices for some goods at a three-month average, in an effort to prevent price gouging.
As of March 22, Bulgaria has confirmed 171 cases of people infected with the virus. Three people have died since March 8, when the first death was announced.
Three people have also recovered.
North Macedonia
In neighboring North Macedonia, a 57-year-old woman has become the country's first coronavirus fatality.
The woman had caught the infection during a trip to Italy, which has the most cases in Europe. Her son has been infected, too, and is hospitalized in stable condition, health officials said on March 22.
North Macedonia had 114 registered cases of the novel coronavirus as of March 22, officials said.
On March 21, the government said it had decided to impose a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. beginning on March 22, the first time such a step has been taken since the country's independence in 1991.
In an emergency address, North Macedonia’s prime minister, Oliver Spasovski, said that "we have decided to introduce the most radical measures in order to protect the health of citizens.”
"Starting [on March 22], we will restrict the movement of all citizens. It is forbidden for the population to move outside between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. every day. There is no compromise when it comes to the health of citizens," Spasovski warned.
The prohibitions exclude persons who need medical assistance or whose lives are endangered. Those who need dialysis are allowed to arrive for treatment with up to two other people.
Employees in health-care facilities are also excluded from the curfew, as are members of the Ministry of Interior, the army, fire crews, and workers in municipal hygiene.
Serbia
President Aleksandar Vucic said the government will extend a curfew that is already in effect by three hours as Serbia attempts to curtail the spread of the coronavirus, making it a 12-hour ban from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m.
He said the steps were necessary "for our survival," and he threatened a 24-hour curfew if residents continued to ignore orders to remain indoors.
Serbia has registered 171 cases of the coronavirus and one death as of late on March 21.
In neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina, the governments of the two entities on March 21 imposed nighttime restrictions on people outside their homes, with the Muslim-Croat federation ordering a 6-p.m.-to-5-a.m. curfew, and Republika Srpska restricting people to their homes from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.
Uzbekistan
Uzbek officials have ordered all companies in the capital, Tashkent, to switch to remote working.
They also made protective masks mandatory in all major cities in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Officials on March 22 said citizens not wearing masks in public in major cities would be fined $22 for the first offense and $67 for repeat offenses.
Uzbekistan, which has a population of 34 million, has just 43 confirmed cases, nearly all in Tashkent.
Pakistan
Sindh, the hardest-hit province in Pakistan, has announced a 15-day lockdown starting March 23.
Sindh has nearly half of the country's 687 registered cases.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, meanwhile, issued orders banning intercity transport starting from March 24.
With reporting by RFE/RL's Balkan, Bulgarian, Romanian, and Ukrainian services and Radio Mashaal, Reuters, AP, RIA Novosti, and TASS


rferl--2020-03-23--Report: EU To Move Toward Starting Membership Talks With North Macedonia, Albania

A draft decision by the 27 members of the European Union says the bloc should start membership negotiations with Albania @ @ @ @ @ to Reuters .
Reuters said on March 23 that it has seen a draft unanimous @ @ @ @ @ which is expected to be finalized this week .
Diplomatic sources have been saying that @ @ @ @ @ Netherlands to starting talks over democratic reforms and corruption in the two Balkan nations have @ @ @ @ @ door to starting talks .
EU officials may announce the decision as early as a @ @ @ @ @ March 24 .

A draft decision by the 27 members of the European Union says the bloc should start membership negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia, according to Reuters.
Reuters said on March 23 that it has seen a draft unanimous decision on the move, which is expected to be finalized this week.
Diplomatic sources have been saying that objections by France and the Netherlands to starting talks over democratic reforms and corruption in the two Balkan nations have eased, thus opening the door to starting talks.
EU officials may announce the decision as early as a General Affairs Council scheduled for March 24.
Based on reporting by Reuters


rferl--2020-03-23--Russian Demand For Consumer Credit, Mortgages Jumps As Ruble Weakens, COVID-19 Spreads

Russians have been applying for consumer credit and mortgages in greater numbers due to fears that prices and rates will soon increase , the business daily RBC reported .
Russians have historically rushed to purchase foreign consumer goods , such as electronics and cars , as well as apartments during periods of economic volatility and ruble depreciation .
The Russian ruble has fallen nearly 20 percent over the past month after oil prices collapsed March 9 following a disagreement between Moscow and Riyadh on production cuts .
A weaker ruble will make popular imported products like iPhones more expensive .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ not to delay the purchase of goods they need ” and buy them up now before prices rise , Irina Nosova , director of Moscow-based rating agency ACRA , told RBC .
Russians scooped up household appliances and cars at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 when oil prices last nosedived , causing a sharp currency devaluation , and citizens probably “ fear missing the moment ” now , she said .
Fear over the impact the coronavirus could have on the economy and supply chain has also played @ @ @ @ @ @ @ -- just like their European and American counterparts -- stock up on food and other goods .
Otkritie Bank told RBC that demand for cash credit rose 15 percent last week compared with the year-earlier period while Sberbank , the nation ’ s largest bank , said it has witnessed an increase in the cash size of the requests by about 10 percent over the past month .
VTB , the nation ’ s second-largest bank , told RBC that the number of applications for cash credit rose by one-third in March after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent .
VTB said mortgage applications rose 15 percent last week while auto credit rose at a similar pace .

Russians have been applying for consumer credit and mortgages in greater numbers due to fears that prices and rates will soon increase, the business daily RBC reported.
Russians have historically rushed to purchase foreign consumer goods, such as electronics and cars, as well as apartments during periods of economic volatility and ruble depreciation.
The Russian ruble has fallen nearly 20 percent over the past month after oil prices collapsed March 9 following a disagreement between Moscow and Riyadh on production cuts. A weaker ruble will make popular imported products like iPhones more expensive.
The recent ruble fall has encouraged citizens “not to delay the purchase of goods they need” and buy them up now before prices rise, Irina Nosova, director of Moscow-based rating agency ACRA, told RBC.
Russians scooped up household appliances and cars at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 when oil prices last nosedived, causing a sharp currency devaluation, and citizens probably “fear missing the moment” now, she said.
Fear over the impact the coronavirus could have on the economy and supply chain has also played a role in credit demand as Russians -- just like their European and American counterparts -- stock up on food and other goods.
Otkritie Bank told RBC that demand for cash credit rose 15 percent last week compared with the year-earlier period while Sberbank, the nation’s largest bank, said it has witnessed an increase in the cash size of the requests by about 10 percent over the past month.
VTB, the nation’s second-largest bank, told RBC that the number of applications for cash credit rose by one-third in March after it had cut its rates to 7.5 percent. VTB said mortgage applications rose 15 percent last week while auto credit rose at a similar pace.
Based on reporting by RBC


rferl--2020-03-23--Pompeo Arrives In Kabul Amid Ongoing Political Crisis

KABUL -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in Afghanistan on a mission to try to jump-start a U.S. peace deal signed last month with the Taliban , a trip that comes amid a coronavirus pandemic .
Pompeo on March 23 met separately with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Ghani 's archrival , former Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah , before meeting together with both Afghan leaders .
His schedule also has Ghani and Abdullah coming together for a one-on-one meeting , presumably to discuss a possible compromise .
Since the signing of the deal with the Taliban , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ halt amid political turmoil , with the country 's leaders squabbling over who was elected president .
Ghani and Abdullah both declared themselves the country 's president in dueling inauguration ceremonies earlier this month following contested elections in September .
Pompeo is expected to try to help end the political stalemate , which has put on hold the start of intra-Afghan peace talks that would include the Taliban .
Pompeo 's visit comes a day after the Afghan government held its first talks with the Taliban about a prisoner swap .
The talks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Khalilzad .
“ Prisoner releases by both sides is an important step in the peace process , ” Pompeo said in a March 22 statement on Twitter .
The talks -- held via Skype amid the coronavirus pandemic -- lasted more than two hours and were facilitated by the United States and Qatar , Khalilzad said .
The spread of the coronavirus has made the release of prisoners “ that much more urgent , ” he said .
Afghanistan announced the same day the first death in the country due to COVID-19 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Afghanistan had 34 confirmed cases of the virus as of March 22 .
The United States on February 29 signed a historic agreement with the Taliban that could lead to the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and an end to the country ’ s 18-year conflict .
According to a joint declaration published by the U.S. and Afghan governments on February 29 , the United States and NATO would withdraw all troops in Afghanistan within 14 months if the Taliban upholds the commitments made in the agreement .
“ All sides @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of violence , intra-Afghan negotiations , and a comprehensive and permanent cease-fire , ” Khalilzad said .
The envoy said a follow-up meeting between the Afghan government and Taliban will be held in the next two days .
With reporting by AP and AFP


rferl--2020-03-23--COVID-19: Russian Cases Jump To 438; Montenegro Records Its First Death

The global coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 339,000 people and killed nearly 15,000 worldwide , causing mass disruptions as governments continue to try to slow the spread of the new respiratory illness .
Russia confirmed 71 new coronavirus infections on March 23 , bringing the country ’ s official number of cases up to 438 , as the country widened its ban on international flights .
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on March 23 that the government is monitoring data coming from the ministries , agencies , and regions and is taking measures to prevent the coronavirus spread @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Russia ’ s health watchdog ) jointly with regions to provide the government with up-to-date information starting from March 24 on local medical facilities ’ readiness to treat coronavirus patients , '' Mishustin said .
As of March 23 , Russian airlines will only service foreign capitals or large cities like New York and only from Moscow airports , state agency Rosavia said .
Russia will continue to permit charter flights exclusively for the evacuation of citizens stuck overseas , it said .
Nearly 20,000 Russian citizens have been evacuated from countries suffering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
However , Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the Russian capital will not close its metro , a step three Ukrainian cities , including Kyiv , took where subways operate .
The Moscow metro transports several million people a day to work and its closure would have severe consequences for the city 's economy .
The Culture Ministry has recommended that all movie theaters be closed as of March 23 .
Earlier in the month , the ministry closed all theaters , philharmonics , circuses , and movie theaters that belong to it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ninth-most populous nation , has registered relatively few cases of COVID-19 on a per capita basis compared to its European neighbors , raising questions about the accuracy of the tally .
Moscow , Europe 's second-largest city with about 12 million inhabitants , has registered just 137 cases of COVID-19 .
New York City , which has just over 8 million people , has registered more than 8,000 cases .
Russia also shares one of the world ’ s largest borders with China , where the new coronavirus originated .
China has registered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confirmed its first coronavirus-related death after a 65-year-old man died in a hospital in the capital , Podgorica .
Jevto Erakovic , director of the Clinical Center of Montenegro , said on March 22 that the man , who suffered from chronic lung disease , had been brought to the facility a day earlier .
Montenegro , a former Yugoslav republic on the Adriatic coast with around 620,000 people , was the last European country to report a confirmed case of the coronavirus when it did so on March 17 .
It now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government had sealed its borders , halted public transport , and closed schools and restaurants in an effort to stem the spread of the outbreak .
Iran has again rejected the United States ' offer of humanitarian assistance , with President Hassan Rohani saying that Washington should lift sanctions if it wants to help Tehran fight the coronavirus outbreak .
`` American leaders are lying ... .
If they want to help Iran , all they need to do is to lift sanctions ... .
Then we can deal with the coronavirus outbreak @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speech on March 23 .
Iran is the Middle Eastern nation worst hit by the coronavirus .
The Health Ministry announced on March 23 that another 127 Iranians had died from the virus , bring the death toll to 1,812 , with more than 23,000 confirmed cases , an increase of over 1,400 cases from the previous day .
Washington has offered humanitarian assistance to its longtime foe .
But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected the offer on March 22 .
Tensions between Iran and the United States have been running high @ @ @ @ @ @ @ abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal Tehran reached with six world powers in 2015 and reimposed sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy .
Iranian authorities have blamed U.S. sanctions for hampering its efforts to curb the outbreak .
`` You have blocked Iran 's oil exports , you have stopped Iran 's banking transactions ... .
Your offer of help is the biggest lie in history , '' Rohani said .
The United States has said the spread of the coronavirus will not save Iran from U.S. sanctions that are curbing its oil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economy .
Uzbekistan closed its borders on March 23 and announced it will effectively lock down its capital , Tashkent , from March 24 to slow the spread of the coronavirus .
Uzbekistan has at least 46 confirmed coronavirus cases , all but one in Tashkent , a city of more than 2.5 million .
The government has already shut down public transit in the capital and ordered most businesses to switch to remote working .
It also closed borders as of midnight , allowing only foreign nationals to leave .
In neighboring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ companies on March 23 to start selling part of their foreign currency revenue on the domestic market .
The measure is meant to support the local tenge currency , which has continued to weaken sharply amid the coronavirus outbreak and the drastic global drop in the price of oil , the country 's main export .
In a meeting with his cabinet , Toqaev also ordered state-owned companies to start converting their foreign-currency deposits into tenge and pay out up to 100 percent of last year 's profits in dividends .
Toqaev also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by individuals and small- and medium-sized businesses for the duration of the state of emergency caused by the coronavirus outbreak , which is set to last until at least mid-April but may be extended .
Another Central Asian country , Kyrgyzstan , declared a state of emergency on March 22 over the outbreak .
There have been 14 officially confirmed cases in Kyrgyzstan .
Foreigners have been banned from entering the country , while air and railway service has been suspended with an exception of weekly flights from Moscow to the capital , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ universities , and kindergartens will stay closed until at least April 8 .
Ukraine saw the number confirmed coronavirus cases rise to 73 as the capital , Kyiv , on March 23 is closing all public transportation for noncritical personnel .
The Health Ministry ’ s Center for Public Health said that as of 10:50 p.m. local time on March 22 , there were 26 new cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19 in nine regions and the city of Kyiv .
The ministry says it is further monitoring more than 360 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in hospitals .
Health Minister Illya Yemets said on March 22 that he supports declaring a nationwide state of emergency .
“ I have been talking about this since the first day of my work in the government .
It had to be done from the beginning .
If it were to succeed , there would be no such [ virus ] spread , which is now developing geometrically , ” Yemets told 112 TV in an interview .
Meanwhile , one of several planned medical supply flights from China has arrived in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on March 23 .
It brought an unspecified number of polymerase chain reaction ( PCR ) tests as well as 250,000 express tests including different kind of protective medical masks , disinfectants , and “ artificial ventilation apparatus and other means necessary to combat the spread of COVID-19 , ” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy ’ s office said .
Each regional laboratory on March 23 will receive the PCR tests .
The procurement was made with the assistance of large Ukrainian business owners .
“ This is only the first batch of medical cargo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ planned for this week , ” the presidential office said .
There are three deaths related to the virus in Ukraine as schools have remained closed nationwide .
Eateries , bars , gyms , theaters , shopping malls , as well as subways operating in three cities , have been also been kept closed .
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov the previous day called for a nationwide quarantine to slow the spread of the coronavirus as Ukraine 's capital and largest city , Kyiv , said it would shut all public transportation for noncritical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most powerful officials in Ukraine , said the measures already put in place to fight the spread will be “ significantly toughened ” in the coming days .
He said only “ critical ” industries should remain open and everyone else sent home .
“ A total , full quarantine is my position , which I want to ask of each of you .
And I will insist on it , according to the power of my position , ” Avakov said in a Facebook post on March 21 .
Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ post that only people whose work is vital to the city will be allowed to use public transport .
The new measure goes into effect on March 23 , he said .
With reporting by RFE/RL 's Ukrainian , Balkan , Uzbek , Kazah , and Kyrgys services , RIA Novosti , RBK news agency , TASS , Reuters , Interfax , and AFP

The global death toll from the coronavirus has topped 16,000 with more than 370,000 infections confirmed, causing mass disruptions as governments continue to try to slow the spread of the new respiratory illness.
Here's a roundup of developments in RFE/RL's broadcast countries.
Georgia
Georgia has banned passenger traffic on its domestic railway in an additional move to try to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Government spokesman Irakli Chikovani said the ban would be in force until a state of emergency ends on April 21.
Georgia declared the state of emergency on March 21, banning gatherings of more than 10 people.
The South Caucasus country of 3.7 million people has also closed its borders, imposed a ban on all foreign citizens entering the country, and halted air traffic with other countries.
All educational institutions, restaurants, nightclubs and gyms have also been closed, although grocery stores, pharmacies, and gas stations remain open.
The move to ban passenger railway traffic came as a lockdown took effect in the two southern regions of Marneuli and Bolnisi.
Georgia has reported 61 cases of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, with no deaths.
Kosovo
Authorities in Kosovo confirmed 26 new coronavirus infections late on March 23, bringing the country’s official number of cases up to 61.
Kosovar authorities reported the country's first death from COVID-19 on March 22. The victim, an 82-year-old man, had underlying health issues.
The country has closed its borders along with all schools, shops, and restaurants. Grocery stores and pharmacies remain open.
Romania
Romania on March 23 reported a steep increase in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths during the previous 24 hours, as President Klaus Iohannis implored the public to observe self-isolation to slow the spread of the outbreak.
Romania's Strategic Communication Group, the crisis body that deals with the outbreak, said 143 new cases have been confirmed, bringing the total to 576 -- a 45 percent single-day increase -- with three new deaths inside the country, bringing the total to five.
All those who died were elderly people who had previous health conditions.
Seven Romanians have so far been killed by the infection abroad -- six in Italy and one in Spain.
In a live televised address on March 23, Iohannis appealed to Romanians to avoid leaving their homes unless absolutely necessary.
Romania has been under a state of emergency due to the outbreak since March 16.
However, on March 22, hundreds of Romanians in Bucharest and other cities largely ignored the authorities' guidelines and took advantage of the warm weather to stroll in parks and have barbecues in forests.
"It's a cruel irony, but today and in the coming weeks, helping others means staying away from them," Iohannis said, adding that "social distancing is the way out of this incredibly difficult situation."
Tens of thousands of Romanians have been returning over the past week from Italy and Spain, the European countries worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic, putting huge pressure on Romania's already overstretched social and health systems.
Russia
Russia’s Far East region of Primorye has registered its first two cases of coronavirus as the nation’s chief medical officer said containing its spread is possible without imposing a total lockdown.
"The effectiveness of lockdown as a potential solution is now being discussed worldwide because some countries introduced it and some did not. There was no lockdown in Japan or Singapore, but their quarantine measures produced a result, too," Anna Popova, head of the country’s consumer-protection agency Rospotrebnadzor, told Channel One on March 24.
She added that strict quarantine measures in Russia’s capital, Moscow, aren’t being discussed.
As Europe’s second most populous city with 12 million inhabitants, Moscow had 137 registered cases of COVID-19 as of March 23 and the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin has said he won’t close the metro, a step three cities took in neighboring Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the local administration in the Primorye region confirmed its first two cases on March 24, bringing the nationwide total to 440.
Both patients had recently returned from overseas and were placed under medical supervision at an infectious disease hospital.
Russia the previous day widened its ban on international flights.
Russian airlines are only servicing foreign capitals or large cities like New York and only from Moscow airports, state agency Rosavia said. Russia will continue to permit charter flights exclusively for the evacuation of citizens stuck overseas, it said.
Nearly 20,000 Russian citizens have been evacuated from countries suffering from a high number of coronavirus cases.
Moldova
Moldovan Prime Minister Ion Chicu has further imposed freedom-of-movement restrictions, banning people from visiting parks and other recreation sites in an effort to stem the spread of a new form of coronavirus.
“Starting from March 24, city residents are prohibited from visiting parks and other public zones where people gather. This measure is tough, but is necessary for containing the coronavirus. The Interior Ministry and the Defense Ministry will be responsible for enforcing those measures," Chicu told a session of the emergency situations commission late on March 23.
Additional measures include shutting down public transportation, outdoor food markets, mail delivery, and the closing of all commercial shops except for grocery stores and pharmacies.
Residents were instructed to stay at home and can only leave only for work or to shop for food.
Moldova reported 15 new cases of COVID-19 on March 23, bringing the total number of infections to 109.
A national emergency is in place until May 15.
Montenegro
Montenegro has confirmed its first coronavirus-related death after a 65-year-old man died in a hospital in the capital, Podgorica.
Jevto Erakovic, director of the Clinical Center of Montenegro, said on March 22 that the man, who suffered from chronic lung disease, had been brought to the facility a day earlier.
Montenegro, a former Yugoslav republic on the Adriatic coast with around 620,000 people, was the last European country to report a confirmed case of the coronavirus when it did so on March 17.
It now has 22 reported cases even though the government had sealed its borders, halted public transport, and closed schools and restaurants in an effort to stem the spread of the outbreak.
Iran
Iran has again rejected the United States' offer of humanitarian assistance, with President Hassan Rohani saying that Washington should lift sanctions if it wants to help Tehran fight the coronavirus outbreak.
"American leaders are lying.... If they want to help Iran, all they need to do is to lift sanctions.... Then we can deal with the coronavirus outbreak," Rohani said in a televised speech on March 23.
Iran is the Middle Eastern nation worst hit by the coronavirus.
The Health Ministry announced on March 23 that another 127 Iranians had died from the virus, bring the death toll to 1,812, with more than 23,000 confirmed cases, an increase of over 1,400 cases from the previous day.
Infographic: How COVID-19 Compares To Other Infectious Diseases
Washington has offered humanitarian assistance to its longtime foe. But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected the offer on March 22.
Tensions between Iran and the United States have been running high since 2018, when President Donald Trump abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal Tehran reached with six world powers in 2015 and reimposed sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy.
Iranian authorities have blamed U.S. sanctions for hampering their efforts to curb the outbreak.
"You have blocked Iran's oil exports, you have stopped Iran's banking transactions.... Your offer of help is the biggest lie in history," Rohani said.
On March 22, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan called for the lifting of sanctions on neighboring Iran so that Tehran can better deal with the coronavirus crisis.
“Humanity must unite to fight this pandemic,” Khan tweeted.
Similar calls have been made in the past days by China and Russia, both signatories of the 2015 nuclear accord, as well as more than two dozen organizations and aid groups in the United States.
In a joint statement on March 20, Oxfam America, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), and other groups called on the United States to lift the sanctions for 120 days.
“Sanctions have harmed the public health sector in Iran by slowing or entirely blocking the sale of medicine, respirators, and hygienic supplies needed to mitigate the epidemic, and broad sectoral sanctions continue to negatively impact ordinary Iranians by shuttering civilian-owned businesses and decimating the value of the rial, making it harder to procure food, medicine, and other basic needs,” they said.
U.S. officials have said that the coronavirus outbreak will not save Iran from sanctions that have curbed the country’s oil revenues and put huge pressure on its economy.
"Our policy of maximum pressure on the regime continues," Brian Hook, the U.S. special representative for Iran, told reporters last week, adding that U.S. sanctions were "not preventing aid from getting to Iran."
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan closed its borders on March 23 and announced that it will effectively lock down its capital, Tashkent, from March 24 to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Uzbekistan has at least 46 confirmed coronavirus cases, all but one in Tashkent, a city of more than 2.5 million.
The government has already shut down public transit in the capital and ordered most businesses to switch to remote working. It has also closed its borders, allowing only foreign nationals to leave.
Kazakhstan
In neighboring Kazakhstan, President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev ordered state-owned companies on March 23 to start selling part of their foreign-currency revenue on the domestic market.
The measure is meant to support the local tenge currency, which has continued to weaken sharply amid the coronavirus outbreak and the drastic global drop in the price of oil, the country's main export.
In a meeting with his cabinet, Toqaev also ordered state-owned companies to start converting their foreign-currency deposits into tenge and pay out up to 100 percent of last year's profits in dividends.
Toqaev also ordered a freeze on bank loan repayments by individuals and small- and medium-sized businesses for the duration of the state of emergency caused by the coronavirus outbreak, which is set to last until at least mid-April but may be extended.
Kazakhstan currently has 62 confirmed coronavirus cases.
Kyrgyzstan
The International Monetary Fund will consider a request from Kyrgyzstan for emergency financing to help its economy cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Central Asian republic is likely to be the first country to receive funds from the Washington-based lender since the coronavirus outbreak began, the IMF said in a blog post.
The blog did not specify the amount of the request.
A dozen Central Asian and Middle Eastern countries have approached the IMF for financial support, and work is ongoing to expedite approval of the requests.
The IMF Executive Board will consider the request from Kyrgyzstan later this week. A few other requests will be considered in the coming days.
The IMF has several tools at its disposal to help member countries overcome the crisis and limit its human and economic cost, the IMF said. The financial institution is considered the world's lender of last resort.
Earlier this week, the IMF said it "stands ready" to loan up to $1 trillion to help countries that are struggling with the economic impact of the coronavirus.
"Nearly 80 countries are requesting our help," IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement on March 23.
Kyrgyzstan has now declared a state of emergency in the capital, Bishkek, and several other regions and districts in response to the spread of the coronavirus.
In addition to Bishkek, the state of emergency applies to Osh and Jalal-Abad, the southern districts of Nookat and Kara-Suu in the Osh region, and the Suzak district of the Jalal-Abad region, the presidential press service said, according to TASS.
The move will clear the way for authorities to lock the cities down by imposing curfews and other measures.
Foreigners have been banned from entering the country, while air and railway services have been suspended with the exception of weekly flights from Moscow to the capital, Bishkek, and Osh.
Schools, universities, and kindergartens will stay closed until at least April 8.
Kyrgyzstan’s security council recommended on March 21 that Prime Minister Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev declare a nationwide state of emergency due to the pandemic.
Local officials in Kyrgyzstan already had declared a state of emergency in the Nookat and Suzak districts.
Kyrgyzstan has 16 confirmed cases and no deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Ukraine
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has said there is no need yet to declare a national emergency as a leading health official announced 10 more cases of coronavirus.
"At the moment, there is no need to introduce a state of emergency in Ukraine. A state of emergency is introduced when there are extreme events. Today, the development of the coronavirus in Ukraine is quite moderate compared to many European countries," Shmyhal told local television late on March 23.
He added that measures the government is currently taking are ample for the time being.
Shmyhal noted also that in the next few weeks the situation may change due to the spread of the coronavirus.
The same evening on television, Chief Medical Officer Viktor Lyashko said 10 more people on a preliminary basis have been infected with COVID-19.
Confirmation of their tests is expected on March 24 and could raise the number of sickened people to 83. Three deaths have been recorded linked to the virus.
According to the Interior Ministry, more than 72,000 Ukrainians have returned from abroad, including from some of the hardest hit European countries, since a nationwide quarantine was imposed from March 12 to April 3.
Among those diagnosed with coronavirus are several members of parliament, including Ruslan Horbenko, a member of the ruling pro-presidential party.
Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged the heads of church confessions to conduct prayer services online and without the presence of people at places of worship.
“Thank you to all leaders of churches who the understand danger [at hand] and are conducting prayer services without people and online [instead],” the presidential office said in a statement. “I believe that other heads of churches will join in the necessary practice.”
Since March 17, all aviation, railway, and bus services with foreign countries and within the country have been shut down. Shopping centers, cafes, restaurants, gyms and other nonessential facilities have been shuttered. Only grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, and banks are still open.
The previous day, Kyiv further closed public transportation, allowing only critical personnel to take buses, trolleybuses, and trams. Metro systems were closed in Kyiv, Odesa, and Dnipro on March 17.
Several cities, including Kyiv, have declared states of emergency.
Armenia
Armenia’s parliament has backed a government proposal to introduce prison sentences for people found guilty of defying quarantine or self-isolation orders issued by health authorities in a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus infections.
The bill passed in its second and final reading on March 23, three days after it was initially approved by the National Assembly.
The government moved to impose penalties last week following the declaration of a one-month state of emergency in Armenia, which has so far reported 194 coronavirus cases but no deaths.
About 600 people in the country are being kept in quarantine and hundreds of others are in self-isolation, according to the authorities.
The legislation calls for prison sentences ranging from one year to five years and fines of up to 1 million drams ($2,026) for violating confinement orders.
It also envisages financial penalties for TV, radio, print, and online media outlets disseminating unauthorized information about the deadly virus.
The bill initially stipulated that all media reports and social-media posts regarding the coronavirus must reflect information provided by government sources.
Opposition politicians, civic activists, and journalists have decried this provision, saying that it would legalize censorship and puts unnecessary curbs on press freedom.
At least two Armenian media outlets have been ordered to delete coronavirus-related stories from their websites in recent days.
The authorities have also forced several Facebook users to delete posts critical of the government’s handling of the outbreak.
Azerbaijan
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix has been postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak, another sporting blow to the Caucasus nation.
The Formula One motor race was to be held at the Baku City Circuit on June 7.
"The postponement was agreed upon after extensive discussions with Formula 1 as well as the FIA [the international racing-events governing body] and the government of the Azerbaijan Republic,” organizers of the Baku race said in a statement.
"This comes as a direct result of the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic and has been based entirely on the expert guidance provided to us by the relevant authorities," they added.
With the move, Formula One racing has now postponed or canceled eight races this season, meaning the earliest the circuit can restart is in mid-June.
The postponement comes on the heels of another disappointing sporting decision for Azerbaijanis caused by the global coronavirus outbreak.
Baku was to host four soccer games including one of the quarterfinals of the Euro 2020 championship over the summer.
UEFA, European football’s governing body, has postponed the tournament until 2021.
Azerbaijan has reported 65 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, with one death, according to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian, Balkan, Uzbek, Kazakh, Romanian, and Kyrgyz services, RIA Novosti, RBK news agency, TASS, Reuters, Interfax, AFP, g4media.ro, and digi24.ro


rferl--2020-03-23--Murder Trial Of Former Kyrgyz President Atambaev Postponed For One Week

BISHKEK – A court has postponed for one week the trial of former Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev and 13 co-defendants over deadly clashes with security forces last year at Atambaev 's compound in a Bishkek suburb .
The Birinchi Mai district court in the Kyrgyz capital , Bishkek , began the high-profile trial behind closed doors on March 23 , but almost immediately adjourned the hearing after Atambaev experienced a drop in blood pressure .
The court abruptly stopped the hearing and said it would adjourn until March 30 .
Before announcing the delay , the judge added that he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself from the trial because he had ruled it would be held behind closed doors .
Defense attorneys claimed Atambaev had “ no confidence ” in the procedure because of this move .
Last August , security officials were sent to Atambaev 's compound in Koi-Tash near Bishkek after he refused to obey three subpoenas calling him to the Interior Ministry for questioning in an investigation into his alleged involvement in the illegal release of a jailed organized-crime boss in 2013 .
Atambaev was arrested on August 8 after he surrendered to police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ standoff by the former president and his supporters resulted in the death of a 47-year-old security officer , Usenbek Niyazbekov , and injuries to more than 170 others , including 79 law enforcement officers .
Atambaev and the 13 co-defendants were charged with murder , attempted murder , threatening or assaulting representatives of authorities , hostage taking , and forced power seizure .
All 14 defendants pleaded not guilty and called the case against them politically motivated .
Five more defendants in the case made plea deals with investigators and will be tried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ faces a separate trial for charges linked to the release of the crime boss .
Aziz Batukaev was convicted of several high-profile crimes , including the murders of a Kyrgyz lawmaker and an Interior Ministry official , before his release in 2013 .
Kyrgyzstan saw a smooth and peaceful transfer of power from Atambaev to his ally , Sooronbai Jeenbekov , a move welcomed by the international community after presidential transitions -- in 2005 and 2010 -- came after violent rioting .
However , the deadly clashes in August at Atambaev 's compound @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jeenbekov and raised fears of instability in the Central Asian country .

BISHKEK – A court has postponed for one week the trial of former Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev and 13 co-defendants over deadly clashes with security forces last year at Atambaev's compound in a Bishkek suburb.
The Birinchi Mai district court in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, began the high-profile trial behind closed doors on March 23, but almost immediately adjourned the hearing after Atambaev experienced a drop in blood pressure.
The court abruptly stopped the hearing and said it would adjourn until March 30.
Before announcing the delay, the judge added that he was rejecting a defense motion to remove himself from the trial because he had ruled it would be held behind closed doors.
Defense attorneys claimed Atambaev had “no confidence” in the procedure because of this move.
Last August, security officials were sent to Atambaev's compound in Koi-Tash near Bishkek after he refused to obey three subpoenas calling him to the Interior Ministry for questioning in an investigation into his alleged involvement in the illegal release of a jailed organized-crime boss in 2013.
Atambaev was arrested on August 8 after he surrendered to police following a violent two-day standoff.
The standoff by the former president and his supporters resulted in the death of a 47-year-old security officer, Usenbek Niyazbekov, and injuries to more than 170 others, including 79 law enforcement officers.
Atambaev and the 13 co-defendants were charged with murder, attempted murder, threatening or assaulting representatives of authorities, hostage taking, and forced power seizure.
All 14 defendants pleaded not guilty and called the case against them politically motivated.
Five more defendants in the case made plea deals with investigators and will be tried separately.
The 63-year-old former president currently faces a separate trial for charges linked to the release of the crime boss. Aziz Batukaev was convicted of several high-profile crimes, including the murders of a Kyrgyz lawmaker and an Interior Ministry official, before his release in 2013.
Kyrgyzstan saw a smooth and peaceful transfer of power from Atambaev to his ally, Sooronbai Jeenbekov, a move welcomed by the international community after presidential transitions -- in 2005 and 2010 -- came after violent rioting.
However, the deadly clashes in August at Atambaev's compound underscored a power struggle between him and Jeenbekov and raised fears of instability in the Central Asian country.


rferl--2020-03-22--Zelenskiy, IMF Director Hold Talks On Greater Financial Support Amid COVID-19 Crisis

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke with International Monetary Fund ( IMF ) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva about greater financial support as the eastern European country faces a possible crisis due to the coronavirus .
`` We discussed increasing the amount of support for Ukraine from the fund during a time of significant challenges for the economy associated with the global pandemic , '' Zelenskiy said in a statement on March 22 .
Ukraine has been in talks with the IMF for months about a three-year , $ 5.5 billion loan tied to reforms to help the country meet a jump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ however has dragged its feet on passing the legislation -- which includes a bank law that would prevent tycoons from regaining control over banks that were bailed out with public funds -- and the funds have yet to be released .
Now , Ukraine is likely to need to borrow even more money internationally as it increases spending to fight the spread of the coronavirus and support companies and individuals negatively affected by the potential economic fallout .
The country 's Health Ministry said the number of new coronavirus cases jumped by 26 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to 73 .
And Kyiv is closing all public transportation for non-critical personnel on March 23 .
Some economists have said Ukraine may need to borrow as much as $ 10 billion .
However , the recent surge in borrowing rates for some emerging market countries due to the pandemic has effectively shut Ukraine out of international bond markets , making access to IMF loans even more vital .
The IMF earlier this month set up a separate $ 50 billion emergency financing program specifically for low-income and emerging market countries like Ukraine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the coronavirus .
Ukraine is eligible for a loan under that IMF program whose conditions would differ from those attached to the $ 5.5 billion lending program .
Georgieva said the call with Zelenskiy was `` constructive '' and expressed support for Ukraine , but gave no indication the fund would ease its reform demands before releasing the pending $ 5.5 billion loan .

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke with International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva about greater financial support as the eastern European country faces a possible crisis due to the coronavirus.
"We discussed increasing the amount of support for Ukraine from the fund during a time of significant challenges for the economy associated with the global pandemic," Zelenskiy said in a statement on March 22.
Ukraine has been in talks with the IMF for months about a three-year, $5.5 billion loan tied to reforms to help the country meet a jump in debt repayments this year.
Kyiv however has dragged its feet on passing the legislation -- which includes a bank law that would prevent tycoons from regaining control over banks that were bailed out with public funds -- and the funds have yet to be released.
Now, Ukraine is likely to need to borrow even more money internationally as it increases spending to fight the spread of the coronavirus and support companies and individuals negatively affected by the potential economic fallout.
The country's Health Ministry said the number of new coronavirus cases jumped by 26 on March 22 bringing the nationwide total to 73. And Kyiv is closing all public transportation for non-critical personnel on March 23.
Some economists have said Ukraine may need to borrow as much as $10 billion.
However, the recent surge in borrowing rates for some emerging market countries due to the pandemic has effectively shut Ukraine out of international bond markets, making access to IMF loans even more vital.
The IMF earlier this month set up a separate $50 billion emergency financing program specifically for low-income and emerging market countries like Ukraine to help them deal with the impact of the coronavirus.
Ukraine is eligible for a loan under that IMF program whose conditions would differ from those attached to the $5.5 billion lending program.
Georgieva said the call with Zelenskiy was "constructive" and expressed support for Ukraine, but gave no indication the fund would ease its reform demands before releasing the pending $5.5 billion loan.


rferl--2020-03-22--Abkhaz Opposition Leader Wins Repeat Presidential Vote In Breakaway Georgian Region

The Abkhaz Central Election Commission has declared opposition leader Aslan Bzhania as the winner of a repeat presidential election in the breakaway region of Georgia .
Commission Chairman Tamaz Gogia told a press conference on March 23 that Bzhania took 56.5 percent of the 95,109 ballots cast in the vote .
Economy Minister Adgur Ardzinba garnered 35.4 percent of the votes , former Interior Minister Leonid Dzapshba won 2.2 percent , while 1.75 of voters were against all of the candidates .
The presidential inauguration is supposed to take place in 30 days , Gogia said .
The March 22 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sort out the Black Sea region 's government , which has been in flux since a January Supreme Court ruling annulled the election victory of Raul Khajimba three months earlier .
The ruling came amid violent protests and ultimately Khajimba stepped down .
The run-up to the vote was marked by intrigue when Bzhania suffered two mysterious illnesses , which some of his supporters alleged were caused by poisoning .
It had been uncertain if the actual vote would take place at all due to fears of coronavirus infection .
As of March @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reported any infections from COVID-19 .
Abkhazia declared independence from Georgia in 1992 , which led to all-out war with Tbilisi .
After Russia and Georgia fought a brief war in August 2008 , Moscow recognized Abkhazia as an independent nation .
But just a small handful of other countries have followed Russia ’ s lead .
Georgia ’ s Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized the elections , saying they “ fully contradict the fundamental norms and principles of international law ” and violate the nation ’ s sovereignty .
With reporting by @ @ @

Separatist officials in the globally unrecognized Abkhaz republic have declared opposition leader Aslan Bzhania as the winner of an election for the de facto presidency in the breakaway region of Georgia.
Tamaz Gogia, chairman of the self-declared republic's Central Election Commission, said on March 23 that Bzhania took 56.5 percent of the 95,109 ballots cast in the vote.
Turnout was 71.6 percent, easily surpassing the 50 percent threshold.
Georgia’s Foreign Ministry criticized the election, saying they “fully contradict the fundamental norms and principles of international law” and violate Georgia’s sovereignty.
After Russia and Georgia fought a brief war in August 2008, Moscow recognized Abkhazia as an independent nation. But only a handful of other countries have followed the Kremlin’s lead.
Economy Minister Adgur Ardzinba garnered 35.4 percent of the votes, former Interior Minister Leonid Dzapshba won 2.2 percent, while 1.75 of voters were against all of the candidates.
Gogia said that Bzhania will be inaugurated in the Moscow-backed breakaway region within 30 days.
The March 22 rerun vote is the latest effort to sort out the Black Sea region's government, which has been in flux since a January Supreme Court ruling annulled the election victory of Raul Khajimba three months earlier.
The ruling came amid violent protests. Ultimately, Khajimba stepped down.
The run-up to the vote was marked by intrigue when Bzhania suffered two mysterious illnesses, which some of his supporters alleged were caused by poisoning.
It had been uncertain if the actual vote would take place at all due to fears of coronavirus infection. As of March 20, the region had not publicly reported any infections from COVID-19.
Abkhazia declared independence from Georgia in 1992, a move which led to all-out war with Tbilisi.
With reporting by TASS and Interfax


rferl--2020-03-23--Russian Medical Expert Investigated After Failing To Self-Isolate Following Spain Trip

MOSCOW -- Russian investigators have opened a criminal probe into a leading infectious-disease specialist who allegedly failed to self-isolate following a trip to Spain .
The probe was launched on March 23 after an infectious-disease professor and top health-care consultant in the southern region of Stavropol became patient zero for the coronavirus there .
The woman , who is accused of negligence and concealing information that endangered the life or health of people , faces up to five years in prison if convicted .
She `` went on holiday to Spain , where she was from March 6 to 9 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did not self-isolate upon her return , according to the Investigative Committee .
It added in a statement that the woman `` continued her usual routine , giving lectures in the university , attending conferences '' and was eventually diagnosed with the coronavirus on March 17 after she felt unwell .
Stavropol was put on high alert on March 18 the day after the infectious disease specialist was diagnosed , which included a measure obliging people coming back from countries reporting coronavirus outbreaks to report about their trip .
Officials in the Stavropol @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who have been in contact with the woman are suspected of having contracted the deadly disease .
Investigators have not released the name of the woman , but local media have identified her as Irina Sannikova , a professor at Stavropol State Medical University ’ s Department for Infectious Diseases , who is also the regional Health Ministry ’ s chief freelance infectious-disease expert .
Russia has reported 438 confirmed cases of the coronavirus .
Health officials in Moscow said on March 19 that an infected person died due to the virus , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other officials who said that while the person who died had the virus , it was not the cause of death .
With reporting by TASS and AFP

MOSCOW -- Russian investigators have opened a criminal probe into a leading infectious-disease specialist who allegedly failed to self-isolate following a trip to Spain.
The probe was launched on March 23 after an infectious-disease professor and top health-care consultant in the southern region of Stavropol became patient zero for the coronavirus there.
The woman, who is accused of negligence and concealing information that endangered the life or health of people, faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
She "went on holiday to Spain, where she was from March 6 to 9, without telling her superiors" and did not self-isolate upon her return, according to the Investigative Committee.
It added in a statement that the woman "continued her usual routine, giving lectures in the university, attending conferences" and was eventually diagnosed with the coronavirus on March 17 after she felt unwell.
Stavropol was put on high alert on March 18 the day after the infectious disease specialist was diagnosed, which included a measure obliging people coming back from countries reporting coronavirus outbreaks to report about their trip.
Officials in the Stavropol region said that at least 11 people who have been in contact with the woman are suspected of having contracted the deadly disease.
Investigators have not released the name of the woman, but local media have identified her as Irina Sannikova, a professor at Stavropol State Medical University’s Department for Infectious Diseases, who is also the regional Health Ministry’s chief freelance infectious-disease expert.
Russia has reported 438 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. Health officials in Moscow said on March 19 that an infected person died due to the virus, but the report was quickly changed by other officials who said that while the person who died had the virus, it was not the cause of death.
With reporting by TASS and AFP


rferl--2020-03-23--MH17 Trial Resumes Briefly Amid Coronavirus Restrictions

The trial in absentia of three Russians and a Ukrainian charged with multiple counts of murder over the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014 resumed briefly at The Hague on March 23 amid coronavirus restrictions .
The Dutch judges in the trial read out several preliminary decisions before ruling to adjourn the case until June 8 in order to give the defense lawyers of one of the accused more time to prepare their case .
The courtroom was almost empty during the 45-minute session , which was livestreamed on the Internet due to restrictions aimed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Flight MH17 was shot down July 17 , 2014 , by a Russian-made Buk missile fired from territory in eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists .
The civilian passenger plane was on a flight from Amsterdam to Malaysia when it was shot down .
All 298 passengers and crew were killed .
The victims included 193 Dutch citizens as well as 43 Malaysians and 38 Australians .
The four accused -- Russian citizens Igor Girkin , Sergei Dubinsky , and Oleg Pulatov , and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko -- remain at large despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arrests .
Only Pulatov has appointed defense lawyers to represent him at the trial in the Netherlands .
When the trial opened on March 9 , it was attended by lawyers , judges , family members of victims , and journalists .
But the number of prosecutors , lawyers , and other staff on March 23 was reduced over the coronavirus pandemic .
Family and media were not allowed to attend the trial in person , and judges sat separated from one another by empty seats .
Prosecutors say the four men helped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ missile system used to shoot down MH17 .
Girkin , a former colonel in Russia 's Federal Security Service ( FSB ) , was the top military commander of a separatist group in eastern Ukraine while Ukrainian Kharchenko was in charge of a combat unit in the region , according to the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team ( JIT ) .
Dubinsky and Pulatov were connected with Russia 's Military Intelligence Service ( GRU ) , the investigators concluded .
Despite evidence that Russia 's military was directly involved in shooting down of Flight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any involvement .
The Kremlin also denies providing any military or financial support to Ukraine 's pro-Russia separatists , despite evidence assembled by the JIT and the Bellingcat open-source investigative group .
With reporting by AP , Reuters , AFP , and dpa

The trial in absentia of three Russians and a Ukrainian charged with multiple counts of murder over the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014 resumed briefly at The Hague on March 23 amid coronavirus restrictions.
The Dutch judges in the trial read out several preliminary decisions before ruling to adjourn the case until June 8 in order to give the defense lawyers of one of the accused more time to prepare their case.
The courtroom was almost empty during the 45-minute session, which was livestreamed on the Internet due to restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.
Flight MH17 was shot down July 17, 2014, by a Russian-made Buk missile fired from territory in eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
The civilian passenger plane was on a flight from Amsterdam to Malaysia when it was shot down.
All 298 passengers and crew were killed.
The victims included 193 Dutch citizens as well as 43 Malaysians and 38 Australians.
The four accused -- Russian citizens Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky, and Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko -- remain at large despite the issuance of international warrants for their arrests.
Only Pulatov has appointed defense lawyers to represent him at the trial in the Netherlands.
When the trial opened on March 9, it was attended by lawyers, judges, family members of victims, and journalists.
But the number of prosecutors, lawyers, and other staff on March 23 was reduced over the coronavirus pandemic. Family and media were not allowed to attend the trial in person, and judges sat separated from one another by empty seats.
Prosecutors say the four men helped to arrange the supply of the Russian missile system used to shoot down MH17.
Girkin, a former colonel in Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), was the top military commander of a separatist group in eastern Ukraine while Ukrainian Kharchenko was in charge of a combat unit in the region, according to the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT).
Dubinsky and Pulatov were connected with Russia's Military Intelligence Service (GRU), the investigators concluded.
Despite evidence that Russia's military was directly involved in shooting down of Flight MH17, the Kremlin has repeatedly denied any involvement.
The Kremlin also denies providing any military or financial support to Ukraine's pro-Russia separatists, despite evidence assembled by the JIT and the Bellingcat open-source investigative group.
With reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, and dpa


rferl--2020-03-23--Pompeo Leaves Kabul Without Announcing Deal Between Ghani, Abdullah

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has on March 23 met with Taliban leaders in Doha after an urgent visit to Kabul aimed at brokering an agreement between Afghanistan 's quarreling political leaders .
Pompeo went into a closed-door meeting with the Taliban 's chief negotiator , Mullah Baradar , and two other Taliban leaders at Qatar ’ s al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar after arriving from Kabul , State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said .
The meeting -- the highest-level ever held between U.S. and Taliban representatives -- was meant to press the Taliban to continue to comply with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Washington in late February , Ortagus said .
Pompeo arrived earlier the same day in Kabul to broker talks between President Ashraf Ghani and Ghani 's main political rival , former Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah .
But as Pompeo 's plane left Kabul late in the day , there was still no announcement on whether he was able to seal a deal between Ghani and Abdullah .
The Associated Press quoted reports from the Afghan capital that Pompeo had given Ghani and Abdullah until March 24 to come up with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's official presidential election results .
But there was no indication either side had offered to compromise their position .
Pompeo was hoping to advance progress on a peace deal signed on February 29 by U.S. negotiators and the Taliban that could lead to the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and an end to the country ’ s 18-year conflict .
Since the signing of the deal with the Taliban , the peace process has ground to a halt amid political turmoil , with both Ghani and Abdullah arguing they 'd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in September .
With reporting by AP and AFP