Iran’s worsening medicine shortages are driving patients to a booming black market, where essential drugs can cost several times official prices. Cancer and chronic disease patients face soaring costs, while authorities struggle with imports, currency shortages, and supply disruptions.

A suspected case of pneumonic plague killing a laboratory technician in Russia has sparked global alarm about the possibility of wider transmission. RFE/RL spoke to Brendan Wren, a professor of microbial pathogenesis, about the situation and Russia's moves to deal with it.

In this week's Wider Europe, Rikard Jozwiak drills down on two issues: the EU's new enlargement strategy and the EU's game plan to keep Russia (and Belarus) out of sports.

Powerful phone hacking software built by Russian-owned Oxygen Forensics was used by dozens of US and European government agencies, including the FBI and the Secret Service. One former agent used it to pull thousands of hidden files from Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Kazakhstan has asked Moscow to help bring home citizens who say they were pressured into signing military contracts to fight in Ukraine. The request puts a fresh spotlight on the vulnerability of Central Asian migrants to Russia’s military enlistment efforts.

A photo of Brigadier General Gholamreza Jalali, the head of Iran's Passive Defense Organization, wearing a smartwatch has sparked a backlash. His response, that it's peacetime and people have smart TVs at home, has only fueled criticism of lax security among Iran's top brass.

Police fired tear gas at protesters outside Kosovo's parliament on the evening of October 5 as a dispute over proposed restrictions on a Hague-based war crimes court became entangled with a last-minute political standoff over electing the country's next president.

After studying at Berklee and building a career in New York, Ukrainian singer Valeriia Vovk returned home to perform for troops, including near the front. She says simply being there, talking to soldiers and singing for them, has great value.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is heading to Iceland, Greece, and Portugal on October 5-8 for talks on security, defense, energy, economic cooperation, and technology as NATO allies face growing security concerns over Russia’s military activity and continued Middle East instability.

Milorad Dodik, the Russia-friendly former leader of Bosnia-Herzegovina's Serbian-led entity, declared victory for his party in the region, with nationalist forces also scoring wins in Bosnia's complex electoral system -- results likely to keep tensions high in the country and the region.

Citizens in Bosnia-Herzegovina are casting their votes in elections to various bodies in the country’s multi-layered political system on October 4, with some candidates pushing for increased efforts at joining the European Union and NATO.

The prolonged closure of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has brought cross-border trade to a standstill, leaving tens of thousands of people on both sides without work. It has also disrupted commercial activity and strained longstanding family and social ties.

Russia has vowed to intensify its relentless strikes against Kyiv and warned foreign diplomats and other visitors to leave the country or be exposed to “mortal danger,” while Ukraine's leader said his country will respond to the Kremlin's deadly air campaign.

A bipartisan, bicameral group of US lawmakers is pressing for tougher action on what they describe as democratic backsliding, corruption, and growing Russian, Chinese, and Iranian influence in Serbia, just weeks before snap parliamentary elections.

Historian Margaret MacMillan warns that increasingly interconnected wars are increasing the risk of a wider conflict, as she discusses Ukraine’s future, Putin’s Russia, NATO’s vulnerabilities, and an emerging “new world disorder.”

Georgian-Israeli dentist Shota Musayev told RFE/RL that he feared he might not survive when he left his wife’s side to help after the lead pilot was allegedly stabbed by his co-pilot during a Flydubai flight from Dubai to Israel on September 30.

US authorities designated the A7 financial network as a "significant transnational criminal organization," the latest in a series of steps by Western authorities to try and choke the sprawling Kremlin-backed sanctions-evading scheme.

Tajikistan has begun receiving oil and petroleum products from Iran in a move to diversify supplies long dominated by Russia. The volume, price, and route of the shipments remain unknown, raising questions about the commercial scale of the trade and potential US secondary sanctions risks.

In the days between the elections and his arrest, Aleksandr Kynev had pointed to evidence of falsifications benefitting the United Russia party. Some analysts see his arrest and reported beating as a sign of a power struggle pitting security agencies against political operatives in Putin’s Kremlin.

Pakistani air strikes hit targets in Afghanistan's Kunar and Helmand provinces overnight on October 1. Pakistani authorities said they were targeting militants operating near the border, but Afghan witnesses said civilians were among the dead, including children.