Georgian protests
In Georgia, a political scandal that led to large demonstrations in Tbilisi. About 240 people (80 of them policemen) have been injured.
On Thursday, a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy started in the Georgian parliament, with the participation of the Russian delegation. The deputy head of the assembly Sergei Gavrilov was sitting in the chair of the parliamentary speaker – after that, the opposition ran into the hall, began to shout and kicked him out of the hall. The meeting was disrupted, and the delegation was poured water and forced to leave Tbilisi. On the same evening, riots broke out near the parliament, protesters started to chant political slogans, right up to the early elections and the resignation of high-ranking politicians.
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili has called Russia an occupying country alongside the organizers of the protests.
As a result of the riots, flights from Georgia were interrupted from the Russian side.
Istanbul elections
In a redo of the municipal elections in Istanbul, opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu defeated the right hand of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, handing him the largest defeat in his 16-year reign.
According to Reuters, with 95% of ballots counted, Imamoglu received 53.6% of the vote.
The ruling Justice and Development Party’s candidate Binali Yıldırım received 45.4%, later admitting defeat.
Imamoglu, representing the Republican People’s Party, won by a small margin in the first election on March 31. The AKP successfully called for a re-election, citing fraud during the voting process.
Iran VS US
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Thursday reported that the Iranian military shot down an American drone in the southern part of the country after it violated Iranian airspace. Later, the Central Command of the US Armed Forces claimed that the Iranian anti-aircraft missile system shot down the Navy drone over the Strait of Hormuz in international airspace.
The United States will respond by attempting to increase Iran’s diplomatic isolation and economic pressure until it forces concessions, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday. According to him, the campaign of economic pressure on the regime will continue to increase. Trump continues to take action in agreement with this sentiment, regularly imposing new rounds of economic barriers ostensibly designed to prevent the construction of a nuclear weapon.