Nation & World Glance
Plane carrying dissident in coma leaves Russia for Germany
OMSK, Russia — A plane carrying a Russian dissident who is in a coma after a suspected poisoning left for a German hospital Saturday following much wrangling over Alexei Navalny’s condition and treatment.
The plane could be seen taking off from an airport in the Siberian city of Omsk just after 8 a.m. local time. Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, confirmed the departure on Twitter. The flight to Berlin was expected to take about five hours.
Navalny, a 44-year-old politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, was admitted to an intensive care unit in Omsk on Thursday. His supporters believe that tea he drank was laced with poison — and that the Kremlin is behind both his illness and the delay in transferring him to a top German hospital.
When German specialists first arrived on a plane equipped with advanced medical equipment Friday morning at his family’s behest, Navalny’s physicians in Omsk said he was too unstable to move.
Navalny’s supporters denounced that as a ploy by authorities to stall until any poison in his system would no longer be traceable. The Omsk medical team relented only after a charity that had organized the medevac plane revealed that the German doctors examined the politician and said he was fit to be transported.
Deputy chief doctor of the Omsk hospital Anatoly Kalinichenko then told reporters that Navalny’s condition had stabilized and that physicians “didn’t mind” transferring the politician, given that his relatives were willing “to take on the risks.”
The Kremlin denied resistance to the transfer was political, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying that it was purely a medical decision.
2 storms pose possible double threat to US Gulf Coast
Two tropical systems could become almost simultaneous threats to the U.S. Gulf Coast early next week. They could even get sucked into an odd dance around each other. Or they could fall apart as they soak the Caribbean and Mexico this weekend.
Tropical Storm Laura and a depression that is likely to become Tropical Storm Marco have such bad and good environments ahead of them that their futures were not clear Friday. Computer forecast models varied so much that some saw Laura becoming a major hurricane nearing the U.S., while others saw it dissipating.
If both storms survive the weekend, Laura is forecast to head toward the central Gulf Coast around Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle, while the other system aims at Texas. The National Hurricane Center’s late Friday afternoon forecast pushed both farther west and slowed Laura’s track.
“A lot of people are going to be impacted by rainfall and storm surge in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Joel Cline, the tropical program coordinator for the National Weather Service. “Since you simply don’t know you really need to make precautions.”
Two hurricanes have never appeared in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time, according to records going back to at least 1900, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. The last time two tropical storms were in the Gulf together was in 1959, he said. Because the hurricane center slowed Laura’s entrance into the Gulf and moved its track westward, the two storms are now forecast to be together in the Gulf on Tuesday, just before the weaker western storm smacks Texas with Laura making landfall a bit less than a day later.
The hurricane center on Friday issued tropical storm warnings for the northern Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico. Laura was forecast to smack Puerto Rico on Saturday morning, go over or near the Dominican Republic and Haiti late Saturday and Cuba on Sunday. Laura, which set a record for the earliest 12th named storm of a season, was moving through the northern Leeward Islands on Friday evening, about 250 miles east-southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico. It had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph and was heading west at 17 mph.
The hurricane center also issued a tropical storm warning and hurricane watch for part of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula because the other storm system, called Tropical Depression 14, was predicted to strengthen into a tropical storm by Saturday.
On Friday evening, it was centered about 210 miles southeast of Cozumel, Mexico, with 35 mph winds. It was headed northwest at 13 mph.
If the two storms make it, they could be crowded in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time Tuesday about 550 miles apart. That would leave open some weird possibilities, including the storms rotating around each other in a tropical two-step, pulling in closer to each other, nudging each other, weakening each other or — far less likely — merging.
The last time two storms made landfall in the United States within 24 hours of each other was in 1933, Klotzbach said.
It seems fitting for 2020 to have this type of twin threats, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy.
“Of course, we have to have two simultaneously land-falling hurricanes,” McNoldy said. “It’s best not to ask what’s next.”
Belarus leader blames US for chaos, vows to end protests
MINSK, Belarus — Authorities in Belarus detained a leader of striking factory workers and threatened demonstrators with criminal charges Friday in a bid to stop the massive post-election protests challenging the country’s authoritarian president, who accused the United States of fomenting the unrest.
Investigators also summoned several opposition activists for questioning as part of a criminal probe into a council they created with the goal of coordinating a transition of power for the ex-Soviet nation that President Alexander Lukashenko has ruled with an iron fist for 26 years.
Protesters are demanding that Lukashenko resign, accusing him of stealing a sixth term in office by rigging the country’s Aug. 9 presidential election. Many are fed up with sinking living standards and the lack of opportunities under Lukashenko, and their disgust grew deeper as he dismissed the coronavirus pandemic and refused to order a lockdown.
Unfazed by government threats, thousands of demonstrators on Friday formed “chains of solidarity” across the capital of Minsk before marching to the central Independence Square as post-election protests entered their 13th straight day. Motorists honked and slowed down to block traffic in a show of solidarity.
“I have come through the hell, they were beating me without stop for two days,” said Artyom Progin, an artist whose legs have black marks from police clubs. “Bruises and scratches will heal, but the memory of these crimes will last.”
The 65-year-old leader blamed the U.S. for instigating the protests that started on election night and intensified after officials declared him the winner with 80% of the vote.
“The U.S. is planning and directing everything, and the Europeans are playing up to it,” Lukashenko said while visiting a state farm Friday.
The United States on Thursday described the Belarus presidential election as neither free nor fair and urged authorities to engage in a dialogue with the opposition council. European Union leaders are preparing sanctions against Belarusian officials.