BUCHAREST: An Iranian cleric and judge accused of corruption in Tehran and also of human rights violations by activists was found dead on Friday at a hotel in the Romanian capital Bucharest, police said.
Gholamreza Mansouri, who fled Iran last year, is among several judges accused of graft during a high-profile trial of a former senior judiciary official that began in Tehran on June 7.
Romanian police detained Mansouri earlier this month and a Bucharest court had been expected to rule next month on whether to extradite him.
Bucharest police said a hotel had found one of its guests dead in the lobby after he appeared to have fallen from a higher floor.
"It was established that the man was a 52-year-old foreign citizen under judicial control for crimes committed in another country," the police said in a statement, adding that an investigation into his death was underway.
Mansouri had been placed under a 30-day judicial control period and was being kept under surveillance. A July 10 deadline had been set for Tehran to file extradition documents.
Last week the Paris-based media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) filed a complaint against Mansouri in Germany, where he was believed to have resided before travelling to Romania, accusing him of being responsible for the "arrest and torture" of at least 20 journalists in 2013.
Iranian judge accused of corruption found dead in Romanian hotel
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Iranian judge accused of corruption found dead in Romanian hotel
- Police said a hotel had found one of its guests dead in the lobby after he appeared to have fallen from a higher floor
- Authorities in Iran alleged Gholamreza Mansouri took about 500,000 euros ($560,000) in bribes
Canada’s Trudeau losing support within his party: MPs
- Ottawa area MP Chandra Arya: Dozens of Liberal MPs want the prime minister to go
- Trudeau has huddled with advisers to contemplate his future ahead of elections set for October 2025
Trudeau has suffered a series of blows in recent days, spurred by the surprise resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who clashed with her boss over incoming US president Donald Trump’s threats to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports.
Freeland’s exit, after nearly a decade at Trudeau’s side, marked the first open dissent against the prime minister from within his cabinet and has emboldened critics.
Ottawa area MP Chandra Arya told the public broadcaster CBC on Sunday that dozens of Liberal MPs wanted Trudeau to go.
Arya was interviewed a day after Liberal MPs from the province of Ontario held a meeting that addressed Trudeau’s future.
Multiple outlets, including the CBC and Toronto Star, reported that more than 50 of the 75 Ontario Liberals in parliament declared in Saturday’s meeting that they no longer supported Trudeau.
Asked about those reports, Arya said a “majority of the caucus thinks it is time for the prime minister to step aside.”
Anthony Housefather, a Liberal member of parliament from the province of Quebec, told the CBC on Sunday that “the prime minister needs to go.”
“We’re in an impossible situation if he stays,” Housefather said, arguing the party would be hammered in an election that amounted to a referendum on Trudeau’s leadership.
Trudeau has huddled with advisers to contemplate his future ahead of elections set for October 2025 but expected much sooner. He changed a third of his cabinet on Friday.
Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the small leftist New Democratic Party in parliament, declared Friday that he would join with other opposition parties to topple Trudeau’s minority government early next year.
The NDP had previously opposed a series of non-confidence votes brought by the opposition Conservatives.
A change in the party’s position would almost certainly bring down Trudeau’s government if another non-confidence vote is held.
Trudeau swept to power in 2015 and led the Liberals to two more ballot box victories in 2019 and 2021.
But he now trails his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, by 20 points in public opinion polls.
Trump names former staffer Katie Miller to Musk-led DOGE panel
- Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency, Trump posts
WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Katie Miller, who served in Trump’s first administration and is the wife of his incoming deputy chief of staff, as one of the first members of an advisory board to be led by billionaire allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy that aims to drastically slash government spending, federal regulations and the federal workforce.
Miller, wife of Trump’s designated homeland security adviser Stephen Miller, will join Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an informal advisory body that Trump has said will enable his administration to “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
“Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency,” Trump posted in a message on his social media platform Truth Social.
Musk and Ramaswamy recently revealed plans to wipe out scores of federal regulations crafted by what they say is an anti-democratic, unaccountable bureaucracy, but have yet to announce members of the DOGE team. Musk has said he wants to slash the number of federal agencies from over 400 to 99.
Katie Miller had served in the first Trump adminstration as deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and as press secretary for former Vice President Mike Pence.
She is currently a spokesperson for the transition team for Trump’s designated Health and Human Services secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr.
Panama rejects Trump’s threat to take control of Canal
- Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
PANAMA CITY: Panama’s president Jose Raul Mulino on Sunday dismissed recent threats made by US President-elect Donald Trump to retake control of the Panama Canal over complaints of “unfair” treatment of American ships.
“Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas belongs to Panama and will continue belonging to Panama,” Mulino said in a video posted to X.
Mulino’s public comments, though never mentioning Trump by name, come a day after the president-elect complained about the canal on his Truth Social platform.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” he said.
Trump also complained of China’s growing influence around the canal, a worrying trend for American interests as US businesses depend on the channel to move goods between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” Trump said. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!“
The Panama Canal, which was completed by the United States in 1914, was returned to the Central American country under a 1977 deal signed by Democratic president Jimmy Carter.
Panama took full control in 1999.
Trump said that if Panama could not ensure “the secure, efficient and reliable operation” of the channel, “then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question.”
Mulino rejected Trump’s claims in his video message, though he also said he hopes to have “a good and respectful relationship” with the incoming administration.
“The canal has no direct or indirect control from China, nor the European Union, nor the United States or any other power,” Mulino said. “As a Panamanian, I reject any manifestation that misrepresents this reality.”
Later on Sunday, Trump responded to Mulino’s dismissal, writing on Truth Social: “We’ll see about that!“
Musk, president? Trump says ‘not happening’
- Trump: “He wasn’t born in this country”
“He’s not gonna be president, that I can tell you,” Trump told a Republican conference in Phoenix, Arizona.
“You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country,” Trump said of the Tesla and SpaceX boss, who was born in South Africa.
The US Constitution requires that a president be a natural-born US citizen.
Trump was responding to criticism, particularly from the Democratic camp, portraying the tech billionaire and world’s richest person as “President Musk” for the outsized role he is playing in the incoming administration.
As per ceding the presidency to Musk, Trump also assured the crowd: “No, no that’s not happening.”
The influence of Musk, who will serve as Trump’s “efficiency czar,” has become a focus point for Democratic attacks, with questions raised over how an unelected citizen can wield so much power.
And there is even growing anger among Republicans after Musk trashed a government funding proposal this week in a blizzard of posts — many of them wildly inaccurate — to his more than 200 million followers on his social media platform X.
Alongside Trump, Musk ultimately helped pressure Republicans to renege on a funding bill they had painstakingly agreed upon with Democrats, pushing the United States to the brink of budgetary paralysis that would have resulted in a government shutdown just days before Christmas.
Congress ultimately reached an agreement overnight Friday to Saturday, avoiding massive halts to government services.
Russian president meets Slovak PM as Ukraine gas transit contract nears expiry
- Fico has also been a rare senior EU politician to appear on Russian state TV following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine
MOSCOW: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin met Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in the Kremlin on Sunday, a rare visit by a European Union leader to Moscow as a contract allowing for Russian gas to transit through Ukraine nears expiry.
Slovakia is dependent on gas passing through its neighbor Ukraine, and it has ramped up efforts to maintain those flows from 2025 while criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for refusing to extend the contract expiring at the end of the year.
Fico’s trip to Moscow was only the third by an EU government head since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Slovak opposition politicians called the visit a “disgrace.”
Fico said on Facebook after the meeting that top EU officials were informed of his trip on Friday.
He said it came in response to talks last week with Zelensky, who, according to the Slovak leader, had expressed opposition to any gas transit through Ukraine to Slovakia.
“Russian President V. Putin confirmed the readiness of the (Russian Federation) to continue to supply gas to the West and Slovakia, which is practically impossible after Jan. 1, 2025 in view of the stance of the Ukrainian president,” Fico said.
Fico came to power in 2023 and shifted Slovakia’s foreign policy. He immediately stopped state military aid to Kyiv, has said the war with Russia does not have a military solution, and has criticized sanctions against Moscow.
His visit to the Kremlin follows Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who visited in April 2022, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who went to Moscow last July. EU allies had criticized both of those visits.
Russian television showed Putin and Fico shaking hands at the start of their talks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the meeting had been arranged a few days ago.
In the talks, Fico said he and Putin exchanged opinions on the military situation in Ukraine, chances of a peaceful end to the war and on Slovak-Russian relations “which I intend to standardise.”
GAS TRANSIT
Slovakia, which has a long-term contract with Russia’s Gazprom, has been trying to keep receiving gas through Ukraine, saying buying elsewhere would cost it 220 million euros ($229 million) more in transit expenses.
Ukraine has repeatedly refused to extend the transit deal.
Fico pushed the subject on Thursday at a EU summit that was also attended by Zelensky, who reiterated his country would not continue the transit of Russian gas.
The Slovak prime minister, who has said his country was facing a gas crisis, has also spoken of solutions under which Ukraine would not transit Russian-owned gas, but rather gas owned by someone else.
Hungary has also been keen to keep the Ukrainian route, but it will continue to receive Russian gas from the south, via the TurkStream pipeline on the bed of the Black Sea.
Ex-Soviet Moldova has also relied on gas transiting Ukraine to supply its needs and those of its separatist Transdniestria enclave, including a thermal plant that provides most of the electricity for parts of Moldova under government control.
The acting head of Moldovagaz, the country’s gas operator, Vadim Ceban, said it could provide gas for Transdniestria acquired from other sources. But the pro-Russian region would have to pay higher prices associated with those supplies.
Ceban said Moldovagaz had made several appeals to Gazprom to send gas to Moldova through TurkStream and Bulgaria and Romania.
