Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko appeared on state television for the first time in a week on Tuesday, but he looked tired and pale and the footage did little to dispel persistent rumors that he is in ill health following protests over his disputed re-election.
The authoritarian leader faced further pressure with the news that Russian gas giant OAO Gazprom said it would demand that Belarus triple its payments for gas deliveries. Such a move could cripple the country's Soviet-style command economy.
Lukashenko, who was shown on state television at a meeting with his foreign minister, rejected Western criticism of the March 19 poll.
"We won't yield to anyone. We have our own policy," he said in a measured voice.
The tone was in sharp contrast to the usual fiercely energetic demeanor of Lukashenko, who is noted for making hours-long speeches.
The president had not been seen on television news broadcasts since March 28, when he thanked the special services for dispersing demonstrators.
The opposition in this tightly controlled former Soviet republic claims Lukashenko disappeared from public view because of health problems after the unprecedented street protests by thousands of people over his election to a third term.
Hundreds of opposition protesters remain in jail after the breakup of a protest tent camp in a central Minsk square and a violent clash between demonstrators and riot police.
"Lukashenko has had a nervous breakdown, depression and heart problems," said Sergei Kalyakin, head of opposition presidential candidate Alexander Milinkevich's election headquarters.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
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FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
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