Russia has detained two athletes from the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar as they entered the country, adding to a diplomatic dispute that began with the arrest of two Russian secret agents for the assassination of an exiled Chechen leader, according to statements and news reports on Sunday.
In a statement, Qatar's Foreign Ministry said the athletes -- members of the national wrestling team -- were detained Thursday night as they traveled via Russia to an Olympic qualifying tournament in Serbia.
Two Russian agents in Qatar were charged last week in the death of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, the former president of the Chechen republic, who was killed Feb. 13 when a bomb destroyed his car in Qatar's capital, Doha.
The killing of Yandarbiyev, who was suspected of financing terrorist acts by separatists in the predominantly Muslim republic of Chechnya, threatens to become a diplomatic crisis between the two countries, with both issuing increasingly strident statements.
Igor Ivanov, Russia's acting foreign minister, called the arrests of the Russian agents a provocation, denying that they had any role in Yandarbiyev's death.
Russian officials have repeatedly demanded the release of the agents, who now face prosecution. A third agent who was also arrested but who worked under a diplomatic passport was released.
In Qatar, government-owned newspapers on Sunday denounced the Russian retaliation against the two Olympic aspirants, who were not identified, as an unwarranted step to use them as pawns to win the release of the agents.
"It seems the Russians are not satisfied with their scandalous assassination of Yandarbiyev but have added to that piracy and kidnapping of Qatari citizens," the government-owned Al Sharq said in an editorial, Reuters reported.
It was not clear why the detention of the athletes, evidently at a Moscow airport, had not become public sooner, though details of the case have been shrouded in murkiness on both sides.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
Hong Kong microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung (袁國勇) has done battle with some of the world’s worst threats, including the SARS virus he helped isolate and identify, and he has a warning. Another pandemic is inevitable and could exact damage far worse than COVID-19 pandemic, said the soft-spoken scientist sometimes thought of as Hong Kong’s answer to former US National Institutes of Health director Anthony Fauci. “Both the public and [world] leaders must admit that another pandemic will come, and probably sooner than you anticipate,” he said at the city’s Queen Mary Hospital, where he works and teaches. “Why I make such a horrifying prediction
A high-ranking North Korean diplomat stationed in Cuba defected to South Korea in November last year — just months before Seoul and Havana established diplomatic ties, the South Korean National Intelligence Service said yesterday. North Korean diplomat Ri Il-kyu had been responsible for political affairs at Pyongyang’s embassy in Cuba since 2019, tasked specifically “with obstructing the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Cuba,” South Korea’s Chosun Daily reported. Ri defected to South Korea with his wife and children in early November, making him the highest-ranking North Korean diplomat known to have defected since then-North Korean deputy ambassador to the
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,