Ray Furlong

Prominent Iranian cartoonist Atena Farghadani has been detained by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) after attempting to post her work on a wall near the presidential palace in Tehran, multiple sources in Iran have told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) has established a new unit in Tehran to enforce a crackdown on women not wearing a head scarf. Called "Ambassadors of Kindness," the unit has issued videos of girls happily receiving hijabs. But footage on social media shows women without a hijab being detained.

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov has been arrested on suspicion of taking bribes worth $10 billion, according to Russian media. He could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Analysts weigh in on what's behind Ivanov's arrest and why it could weaken his boss, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

A Ukrainian Army spokesman told RFE/RL on April 30 that Russia used a cluster bomb in a deadly attack on a law school dubbed "Harry Potter's Castle" in Odesa. Among the wounded was a pregnant woman, a small child, and a former pro-Russian politician once awarded a state honor by Russian President Vladimir Putin. An RFE/RL reporter on the scene said that at least five people were killed and dozens injured.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has launched a new, AI-generated virtual spokesperson, Victoria Shi, to represent it online. In an interview with RFE/RL, Shi says she will free up time for human diplomats to do more important work and will never get tired.

Polish surgeons have performed a series of operations on a Ukrainian woman who had part of her face and lower jaw blown off in a Russian attack -- winning a "medical Oscar" and enabling her to smile to the camera in an interview with RFE/RL.

Surging brown waters were cascading through rural houses and shops in Afghanistan's Ghor Province in the latest flooding to hit the country. Taliban authorities say more than 1,000 families were forced from their homes in recent days. It comes after flooding claimed 100 lives in March and April.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic rolled out the red carpet for his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on May 8, declaring "Taiwan is China" before welcoming crowds in Belgrade. Vucic has sought to maintain close links with both Beijing and Moscow, even while pursuing European Union membership. Belgrade residents whom RFE/RL spoke to appeared broadly happy about Xi's visit and their country's ties to China.

Slovaks are still absorbing the shock the day after an unprecedented assassination attempt left its prime minister, Robert Fico, hospitalized with several gunshot wounds. The attack came amid high political tensions in the country.

RFE/RL has discovered that senior current and former Ukrainian officials have luxury investments in the United Arab Emirates, after trawling through records revealed in the Dubai Unlocked property information leak. Most of them denied knowledge of Dubai real estate. The head of a department at Ukraine's cabinet of ministers told us that he didn't know his wife had purchased a $331,000 apartment, while a senior manager in a state-owned defense enterprise said his daughter must have made the purchase while "dating a sheikh." The findings were made by Schemes, the investigation unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, by examining data shared by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Norwegian news outlet E24.