Moldova has plunged deeper into political crisis after the Constitutional Court stripped pro-Russian President Igor Dodon of his power over his failure to form a new government after months of political deadlock. The court on Sunday also appointed former Prime Minister Pavel Filip as interim president. Filip immediately dissolved the parliament and called for snap elections on September 6 as thousands of his supporters gathered in the capital, Chisinau, for a rally. Dodon’s Socialist Party had said on Saturday it was forming a coalition government, but the court ruled that the move had come a day after the 90-day deadline for forming a new government had passed. The coalition has rejected the ruling, saying the deadline is three months rather than 90 days. Dodon accused the court of being biased in favor of Filip's Democratic Party and asked the international community to intervene.   “We have no choice but to appeal to the international community to mediate in the process of a peaceful transfer of power and/or to call on the people of Moldova for an unprecedented mobilization and peaceful protests," Dodon said in a statement. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said Washington “calls on all Moldovan parties to show restraint and to agree on a path forward through political dialogue.” “The February 24 parliamentary elections were competitive and respected fundamental rights,” she said in a statement on Sunday. “The will of the Moldovan people as expressed in those elections must be respected without interference.”  

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Venezuelan leader Juan Guaido said Friday that the opposition's demand for presidential elections is not negotiable, slowing mediation efforts by Norway aimed at resolving Venezuela's political crisis.    "A new meeting isn't planned at the moment, we can get what we've proposed on the agenda," Guaido said at an event in the central city of Valencia, dismissing earlier comments from Russia's foreign ministry that a third round of exploratory talks with representatives of Nicolas Maduro would take place next week.    "Nobody who is straight in the head would sit across from a dictator thinking he is negotiating in good faith," he added. Guaido's biting comments, coming as mediators from Norway were in Caracas trying to prevent the talks from derailing, highlight the huge obstacles to negotiating a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela, which has endured economic and political turmoil for years.    Guaido, who heads the opposition-controlled congress, revived a flagging opposition movement in January by declaring himself Venezuela's rightful leader, quickly drawing recognition from the United States and more than 50 nations that say Maduro's re-election last year was illegitimate. But Maduro, backed by the military as well as Cuba and Russia, has held on to power in the face of U.S. oil sanctions that are adding to misery in a nation hit hard by hyperinflation and widespread fuel, food and power shortages. Norway has hosted two rounds of exploratory talks between the Venezuelan government and opposition in an attempt to break the ongoing stalemate.    The opposition, mindful of the collapse of past dialogue attempts that only served to strengthen the government's hand, has insisted the starting point for negotiations be a willingness by Maduro to hold presidential elections within a reasonable time frame. Maduro has balked at that call, blaming the opposition for boycotting last year's presidential ballot and insisting instead on elections to revamp the opposition-controlled legislature. "As long as both sides are hurting and don't see a way out, there's a possibility negotiations can succeed," said James Dobbins, a senior fellow at the Rand Corporation who served as special U.S. envoy to several crisis hotspots including Haiti and Afghanistan. "It's really the only hope left." The setback in Norway's mediation effort comes amid a frenzy of regional diplomacy tied to the Venezuelan crisis. Talks with Cuba Also on Friday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez traveled to Toronto for talks with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, hours after he met Venezuelan socialist party boss Diosdado Cabello in Cuba.  "Cuba has a different position and that's one reason why it's important for us to talk to Cuba" about a solution to the Venezuelan crisis, Freeland said after meeting Rodriguez. She said "free and fair elections" is the way forward for Venezuela. Canada has joined the Trump administration in pressuring Maduro to resign. Cabello had arrived in Cuba on Thursday. One of his first meetings was with Rodriguez, who said on Twitter they "discussed themes of international interest."  Maduro's alleged crimes   Also Friday, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr, urging him to set up a unit to investigate and prosecute alleged crimes by Maduro and his associates.    "The long list of Maduro's crimes includes the illegal mining and trafficking of minerals, transnational drug trafficking, and theft of substantial sums of money from the Venezuelan government and hiding it in offshore bank accounts worldwide," Rubio said.    Maduro has denied any illegal activity and says the U.S. wants to overthrow him as a way to exploit Venezuela's vast oil resources. Venezuelan passports In another development, the Trump administration said it will recognize the validity of Venezuelan passports for five years beyond their printed expiration dates. The State Department announced that the passports will be considered valid for visa applications and entry into the United States in recognition of a decision by Venezuela's opposition-controlled National Assembly. Getting a new passport or an extension is expensive and lengthy for many Venezuelans. Many of the more than 4 million Venezuelans who fled the country in recent years had left without a valid passport.

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The Social Democrats emerged as Denmark's biggest party in elections Wednesday, with preliminary results indicating gains for left-leaning parties and a big loss for populists.   If confirmed in final returns, the outcome pointed to the Social Democrats returning to power after four years as the country's leading opposition party.   The Social Democrats got about 25.9% of the votes after a campaign in which party leaders vowed a tough stance against immigration.   Mette Frederiksen, the party's leader, said late Wednesday that the Social Democrats will try to govern as a minority rather than form a governing coalition with smaller parties. It will seek support from the right on some issues, such as immigration, and from the left on other matters, such as social welfare, she said. Although Frederiksen won't try to form a coalition, other left-leaning parties that increased their vote shares will likely support her effort to form a government to avoid the center-right from getting a chance. The Social Democrats and other left-of-center parties appear headed to having one more vote than a majority in the 179-seat parliament, the Folketing.   With nearly 100 percent of the votes counted, the Liberal Party of Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen showed a slight gain from four years ago. But the populist Danish People's Party, which often voted with the center-right Liberals, was hit with a big drop in support, meaning Loekke Rasmussen can no longer muster a majority in parliament. The Danish People's Party's performance was a contrast to some other European countries, where far-right populists have been on the rise. The party was the second-largest party in the outgoing parliament, but its vote share plunged to about 9% Wednesday, compared to 21.1% in 2015.   Loekke Rasmussen conceded defeat and would resign Thursday. "You have chosen that Denmark should have a new majority, that Denmark should take a new direction," Frederiksen said told a jubilant crowd at parliament. "And you have chosen that Denmark should have a new government."   At age 41, Frederiksen could become Denmark's youngest-ever prime minister.   "The election campaign is now over. It's time to find solutions," she said.   Many Danish People's Party voters have drifted to the Social Democrats, mainly because of it readopting tough views on immigration. The party advocated restricting immigrants in the 1980s and 1990s but softened its position later while in a coalition with left-wing parties.   Its lawmakers voted for several laws introduced by Loekke Rasmussen's government to tighten immigration.   "This is really, really bad," People's Party leader Kristian Thulesen Dahl said of his loss at the polls, but he said the party would not change its politics.   The Hardliner Course party didn't cross the 2% threshold needed to enter Parliament. The New Right, another openly anti-Muslim group that also fielded candidates for the first time, will be in the legislature after getting 2.4% of the votes.

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The Kremlin is pushing ahead with efforts to boost Russia’s presence in the Arctic. U.S. intelligence officials have been warning that Moscow’s military and economic activity in the region has reached levels not seen since the Cold War. President Vladimir Putin this year said his country will significantly expand its Arctic cargo lanes linking Russian ports to China. As Ricardo Marquina reports, that effort is evident in Russia’s drive to build advanced icebreakers. Jeff Custer narrates.

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The U.S.-based democracy watchdog Freedom House says press freedom is declining around the world, right alongside political rights and civil liberties. In its annual report released Wednesday, the nongovernmental group says global press freedom declined to its lowest point in more than a decade due to continued crackdowns on independent media in authoritarian states and unprecedented threats to journalists in traditionally free societies. The reports finds press freedoms have been deteriorating across the world with "new forms of repression taking hold in open societies and authoritarian states alike." Sarah Repucci, senior director for research and analysis at Freedom House, told VOA that the report found declining press freedoms at "two ends of the spectrum." New tactics On one hand, regimes that are known to stifle the press are continuing with "very familiar tactics: arrests of journalists, threats to their safety, repressive laws, defamation laws that criminalize free speech," she said. But, on the other hand, the report found democratically elected leaders who use new tactics to "manipulate the media in ways that are very subtle that enable them to take control of the message that is getting to the population." The report assesses the degree of media freedom as either "free," "partly free" or "not free." Freedom House characterizes a free press as a media environment where coverage of political news is robust, state intrusion in media affairs in minimal, the safety of journalists is guaranteed, and the press is not subject to legal and economic pressures. The report found that a total of 16 nations designated as "free" have seen a reduction in press freedom scores during the past five years. But a disturbing trend showed that in Europe, where four out of every five countries are "free," average press freedom scores dropped 8%. Repucci, the report’s lead author, said countries such as Hungary and Serbia "dropped to 'partly free' in our freedom in the world survey and have been at the forefront of new tactics for repressing the media." Leaders in both countries "had great success in snuffing out critical journalism by consolidating media ownership in the hands of their cronies, ensuring that the outlets with the widest reach support the government and smear their perceived opponents," the report said. "But we're also seeing this in democracies around the world, in India and Israel … and also here in the United States," Repucci said, adding while the U.S. has in the past stood as the protector of free speech, that history is under threat.  "The kinds of attacks that we're seeing from the Trump administration are new and are very worrying," she said. "These are verbal attacks on journalists, threats to change libel laws, threats against individual media outlets. And this is part of what appears to be a trend of undermining the respect that the government has for the role that the media is supposed to play in holding leaders to account." ​Legal protections Repucci said despite the efforts of the Trump administration, the U.S. maintains strong legal protections in the face of threats and attacks against individual media outlets. “The major news media have been really strong in pushing back against these attacks and in continuing to publish information that holds leaders to account. But the concern is that norms may be changing, and that it will be difficult to get back to where we were before,” she said. The report said the increasing influence of national leadership continues its disturbing trend, not only in countries that had been deemed "not free" but in countries that were seen as "partly free." "Over the past five years, countries that were already designated as 'not free' in Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report were also those most likely to suffer a decline in their press freedom scores, with 28 percent of 'not free' countries experiencing such a drop. "'Partly free' countries were almost equally likely to experience a gain as a decline in press freedom," the report noted. Making things even worse is the increasing influence of nations like China. As Western nations withdraw their support for global free press, "China is filling that gap, and that is very problematic for free media around the world," Repucci said. China is exporting its model of media repression to other countries, especially in Africa. "They're doing it by exporting their message and finding friendly outlets that will publish and broadcast that message. They're doing it by putting pressure on journalists, but also diplomats and media owners in countries to censor, basically, on Beijing’s behalf," Repucci said. "If democratic powers cease to support media independence at home and impose no consequences for its restriction abroad, the free press corps could be in danger of virtual extinction," the report said. Harassment aimed at journalists Violence and harassment aimed at specific journalists and media outlets have played a role in 63 percent of the countries that have seen a decline in press freedom, it said. The report cited the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at an embassy in Turkey as an example. "Journalists in El Salvador received death threats in 2015 after they uncovered stories of police abuse and extrajudicial killings," the report said. "A Malian journalist who was outspoken about rampant political corruption was shot in the chest in 2017. Also that year, a Tanzanian journalist investigating the murders of local officials disappeared, and his fate remains a mystery." Journalists have also faced imprisonment and threats in Nepal, Myanmar, Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia and France. ​But, Freedom House says not all is lost when it comes to press freedom. Repucci cites Ethiopia, Malaysia, Armenia, Ecuador and Gambia as "encouraging examples" of countries where democratic progress has come hand in hand with media independence. "Just as restrictions on media freedom frequently precede the erosion of other rights, the removal of such restrictions facilitates and catalyzes further democratic advancements," the report said. Repucci said she hopes media freedom will also spread in countries where the populations are fighting for increased political freedoms, such as in Sudan, Algeria and Venezuela. "The importance of free media really is because of the ability that it gives the population to hold their leaders to account. And that's why the decline in press freedom is so dangerous for democracy as a whole, and we hope that these positive trends will pick up, but we do have very grave concerns at this time" Repucci told VOA.

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