I am a bit burned out and I need time to recuperate. Also, I have some other things I need to work on, including developing some other revenue…
"Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to lie." -- Michael Rivero
The presidents of Kosovo and Serbia held talks on Thursday on resolving a political crisis that has spiralled into violence, with the leaders of France and Germany pressing them to take swift steps to reduce tensions.
Kosovo's Vjosa Osmani and Serbia's Aleksandar Vucic met briefly in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the European Union's foreign policy chief on the sidelines of a summit in Moldova.
France and Germany urged the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia to organise new elections as soon as possible in regions affected by recent civil unrest, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday after talks in Moldova with the two parties.
Speaking after a summit of European leaders in Moldova, Macron said he and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had given them a week to respond to their proposals.
The United States will soon open a small diplomatic mission in Norway that will be its northernmost in the world and only such facility above the Arctic Circle, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Thursday.
The move, which Blinken announced at a news conference in Oslo after attending a NATO foreign ministers meeting, comes as competition over the high north’s resources with Russia intensifies.
Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s decision to send the police to quell the ethnic Serb demonstrations in three municipalities in the north of Kosovo—Zvecan, Leposavic, and Zubin Potok—was ill-advised at best for several reasons.
First, although the municipalities are a part of Kosovo and the mayors have the technical right to enter municipal buildings, doing so at this juncture when tensions with the north are so high is a provocative step that was neither necessary nor wise.
Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga has warned that the European Union has become a stumbling bystander of history and is increasingly unable to resolve the challenges of its citizens. Varga blames the malaise partly on the absence of political leadership. She believes that the bloc is run by think tanks and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which dictate how it should be led.
China’s special envoy for Eurasian affairs Li Hui wrapped up a 12-day European tour that took him to Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany, Brussels and Russia on a mission to make clear Beijing’s position on the Ukraine war.
Sanctions!
Officially, it is ”acknowledged” by the US and the EU that it is “not possible” to decouple China.
Neocons don’t think so.
The world finds itself at a critical juncture as tensions escalate in Ukraine, claiming the lives of thousands on both sides. Meanwhile, Israel’s potential strike on Iranian nuclear development sites using US-built F-35 bomber aircraft looms, threatens to ignite a chain reaction of destabilization in the entire Middle East and risks a nuclear conflict with Russia.
The Polish government has signed a deal to purchase 800 Hellfire II missiles that are to be carried by a new fleet of attack helicopters, with a request to buy Boeing AH-64E Apaches still in the pipeline.
The contract for the sale of the missiles, which are manufactured by Lockheed Martin, was inked by the ministry’s Armament Agency and the United States Army Security Assistance Command (USASAC).
The deal is worth about $150 million, according to officials. Deliveries are slated to begin this year and stretch through 2029.
As the Russia-Ukraine crisis drags on, NATO has become the pronoun [?] of destabilizer of regional security.
The situation in the Balkans is now at an explosive point. KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, clashed with Serb protesters on Monday. The tension arose after ethnic Albanian mayors took office in northern Kosovo’s Serb majority area after April elections that the Serbs boycotted.
