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Putin ally Lukashenko declared winner of Belarus vote that West calls a charade

Lukashenko, who faced no serious challenge from the four other candidates on the ballot, took 86.8% of the vote, according to initial results.

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Belarusian leader and Russian ally Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule on Monday after electoral officials declared him the winner of a presidential election Western governments rejected as a sham, Reuters reported.

Lukashenko, who faced no serious challenge from the four other candidates on the ballot, took 86.8% of the vote, according to initial results.

European politicians said the vote was neither free nor fair because independent media are banned in the former Soviet republic and all leading opposition figures have either been jailed or forced to flee abroad.

“The people of Belarus had no choice. It is a bitter day for all those who long for freedom & democracy,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock posted on X.

Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called for an expansion of Western sanctions against Belarusian companies and individuals involved in repressing opponents of Lukashenko and supplying munitions for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, read the report.

“As long as Belarus is under Lukashenko and Putin’s control, there will be a constant threat to the peace and security of the entire region,” she said.

EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas and Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos said in a statement that the bloc would keep imposing “restrictive and targeted measures against the regime” while supporting civic society and the exiled opposition.

Asked about the jailing of his opponents, Lukashenko said on Sunday that they had “chosen” their own fate. He denied that his decision to release more than 250 people convicted of “extremist” activity was a message to the West in order to seek an easing of his isolation.

“I don’t give a damn about the West,” he told a rambling news conference that lasted well over four hours.

“We have never refused relations with the West. We have always been ready. But you do not want this. So what should we do, bow before you or crawl on our knees?” he said.

Throughout his career, Lukashenko has managed to make himself a useful ally to Russia and extract vital gains in the form of cheap oil and loans while preventing his country of 9 million people from being swallowed up by its much larger neighbour, Reuters reported.

But the war in Ukraine has tied him more closely than ever to Vladimir Putin, whose invasion was launched in part from Belarusian territory. Putin has also deployed Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said Lukashenko’s re-election had been “transformed into a political show for a single person.

An election held under total central control, it said, with “political repression, an absence of political alternatives, attacks on freedom of speech and in the absence of an independent press cannot be legitimate. It is a farce.”

Despite Lukashenko’s denial, opponents and political analysts interpret his prisoner pardons as a move to start repairing ties with the West, and his latest re-election as a bid to restore his legitimacy and get major European countries and the United States to return their ambassadors to Minsk for the first time in years.

Human rights group Viasna, which is banned as an “extremist” organisation in Belarus, says there are still about 1,250 political prisoners in the country, read the report.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that Belarus had “just unilaterally released an innocent American”, whom he named as Anastassia Nuhfer. He gave no further details about the case, which had not previously been made public.

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Ex-U.S. President Biden’s cancer has spread, is very painful, son says

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Former U.S. President Joe Biden’s prostate cancer has spread to other parts of his body and is causing him severe pain, his son Hunter Biden has said in an interview with the BBC.

“The cancer has spread, metastasized into his bones and further,” Hunter Biden told BBC’s Newsnight, according to video of the interview posted online on Friday. He described the illness as “very painful” and “very debilitating in many respects.”

A spokesperson for the 83-year-old Biden declined to comment on Hunter Biden’s remarks on Saturday.

Biden announced in May 2025, less than four months after leaving the White House, that he had been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer. At the time, he said the cancer had already spread to his bones.

In October, a spokesperson said Biden was receiving radiation treatment and hormone therapy.

Biden was the oldest person to be elected U.S. president when he won the 2020 election. His physical health and mental fitness also came under increased scrutiny during his presidency from 2021 to 2025.

Biden attended the dedication of former President Barack Obama’s presidential library in Chicago in June. He served as Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2017.

Biden’s presidential memoir is scheduled to be released on November 17.

 
 
 
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US Senate passes Russia sanctions championed by Graham; US House next

In a statement, the Ukrainian embassy in Washington welcomed passage, ​calling it “a timely and significant step that strengthens pressure on Russia.”

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The U.S. Senate easily passed sweeping Russia sanctions legislation on Friday, advancing a long-delayed measure backed by late ​Senator Lindsey Graham and setting the stage for consideration by the House of Representatives within weeks, Reuters reported.

Graham, a South Carolina Republican who died ‌last month, was among Kyiv’s most outspoken allies in Congress in its four-year-long war with Russia, and the bill aims to increase economic pressure on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

It also includes expanded sanctions on Iran sought by President Donald Trump as lawmakers pushed for a vote on the measure well over a year since it was introduced in 2025.

The Senate’s Republican leaders had not ​brought the bill up because of resistance from Trump, who had kept decisions on sanctions at the White House, not Congress, since starting his second ​term in January 2025.

The Senate voted 86-11 to pass the “Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026,” to sanction ⁠Russian officials and authorize stiff tariffs on China, India and other countries to reduce their dependence on Russian oil and gas.

In a statement, the Ukrainian embassy in Washington welcomed passage, ​calling it “a timely and significant step that strengthens pressure on Russia.”

However, broad support may not be enough to secure House passage, with some lawmakers and industries wary that new tariff ​powers for Trump could raise costs for U.S. importers and consumers while exposing Republicans to political blowback.

Representatives Gregory Meeks of New York and Don Beyer of Virginia said in a statement they still had “fundamental concerns” about the tariff powers for Trump, who has made them a central piece of his “America First” approach to foreign policy, read the report.

“What the bill does grant … are ​sweeping new tariff authorities that the president could weaponize with abandon, as he has repeatedly done in the past,” said Meeks, the top Democrat on the House ​Foreign Affairs Committee, and Beyer, the senior Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee.

Trump’s fellow Republicans control only slim majorities in both the House and Senate.

Only one Senate Republican, Rand Paul of ‌Kentucky, voted ⁠against the bill, likening tariffs to taxes on American consumers.

The chamber erupted into applause after Graham’s sister, Darline Graham, who was appointed to fill his seat, read out the final tally.

The Senate rejected an amendment sponsored by Paul and Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon that would have removed the tariff powers.

Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who also sought to change the tariff language, said he had received a written commitment from Trump’s U.S. trade representative, Jamieson Greer, to put guardrails on the tariff authorities, Reuters reported.

If it is approved by ​the House and signed into law by ​Trump, the measure would allow the ⁠president to impose tariffs of up to 100% on countries that are major consumers of Russian energy, including India, Japan and some countries in the European Union, and leave it to his discretion to lift them.

The legislation’s backers insist that the tariffs ​are narrow enough that they would do their intended job of reducing Russian energy revenue that funds its war on Ukraine ​without negative consequences.

Supporters called the legislation ⁠the best opportunity to support Ukraine, and the strong bipartisan Senate vote provided momentum for it to pass the House after it returns from its summer recess on August 31.

Graham had announced shortly before his sudden death on July 11 that he and Trump agreed finally to move forward with the legislation.

The legislation lets the president impose targeted ⁠tariffs on ​imported goods from countries that buy the vast majority of Russian oil or gas and enable Russia’s ​evasion of sanctions.

The bill limits these tariffs to the five largest importers of Russian crude oil or gas and the top five countries that aid Russia’s energy sanctions evasion. The measure includes a provision to ​prevent a lapse in sanctions authority that restricts funding for Iranian energy and weapons.

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Two dead, including gunman, at school shooting in Thailand, officials sayd

The incident took place in the Bang Kruai district of Nonthaburi province. Police identified the perpetrator as a ​student.

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At least one teacher was ​killed and four other people injured by ‌a student who opened fire at a school in Thailand north of Bangkok on Friday before killing himself, ​authorities said,  Reuters reported.

Lt. Col. Dechrapee Kongdee Nonthaburi Provincial ​Police Commander confirmed the casualties to Reuters and ⁠said the suspected gunman had committed suicide. ​Among those injured were one teacher and three ​students, he said.

The incident took place in the Bang Kruai district of Nonthaburi province. Police identified the perpetrator as a ​student.

In photos circulated by emergency workers, students ​streamed out of the Debsirin Nonthaburi School, on the northwestern ‌outskirts ⁠of Bangkok, as ambulances operated. In one photo, one person is seen lying down on a stretcher outside an ambulance, while another is attended to ​by a ​medic, read the report.

In the ⁠2025 academic year, the school had an enrollment of around 3,100 students ​and 147 teachers, according to district authorities.

In ​February ⁠a teacher died and a student was injured in southern Thailand’s Hat Yai district after a gunman opened ⁠fire ​at a school.

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