RIYADMEDIA

Tensions between Serbia and Kosovo flared anew this weekend after Kosovo’s police raided Serb-dominated areas in the region’s north and seized local municipality buildings.

Violent clashes between Kosovo’s police and NATO-led peacekeepers on one side and local Serbs on the other have left several people injured on both sides.

The violence led Serbia to raise the combat readiness of its troops stationed near the border and warned it won’t stand by if Serbs in Kosovo are attacked again. The situation has again fueled fears of a renewal of the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo that claimed more than 10,000 lives and left more than 1 million homeless.

Why are Serbia and Kosovo at odds?

Kosovo is a mainly ethnic Albanian-populated territory that was formerly a province of Serbia. It declared independence in 2008.

Serbia has refused to recognize Kosovo’s statehood and still considers it a part of Serbia, even though it has no formal control there.

Kosovo’s independence has been recognized by about 100 countries, including the United States, Russia and China, while five European Union nations have sided with Serbia.

The deadlock has kept tensions simmering and prevented full stabilization of the Balkan region after the bloody wars in the 1990s.

What’s the latest flare-up about?

After Serbs boycotted last month’s local elections held in northern Kosovo — where Serbs represent a majority — newly elected ethnic Albanian mayors needed the help of Kosovo’s riot police to move into their offices last Friday.

Serbs tried to prevent them from taking over the premises, but police fired tear gas to disperse them.

On Monday, Serbs staged a protest in front of the municipality buildings, triggering a tense standoff that resulted in fierce clashes between the Serbs and local police, along with Kosovo peacekeepers.

The election boycott followed a collective resignation in November by Serb officials from the area, including administrative staff, judges, and police officers.

How deep is the ethnic conflict in Kosovo?

The dispute over Kosovo is centuries old. Serbia cherishes the region as the heart of its statehood and religion.

Numerous medieval Serb Orthodox Christian monasteries are in Kosovo. Serb nationalists view a 1389 battle against Ottoman Turks there as a symbol of its national struggle.

Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanians view Kosovo as their country and accuse Serbia of occupation and repression. Ethnic Albanian rebels launched a rebellion in 1998 to rid the country of Serbian rule.

Belgrade’s brutal response prompted a NATO intervention in 1999, which forced Serbia to pull out and cede control to international peacekeepers.

What is the situation locally?

There are constant tensions between the Kosovo government and the Serbs who live mainly in the north of the country and keep close ties with Belgrade.

Attempts by the central government to impose more control in the Serb-dominated north are usually met with resistance from Serbs.

Mitrovica, the main town in the north, has been effectively divided into an ethnic Albanian part and a Serb-held part, and the two sides rarely mix. There are also smaller Serb-populated enclaves in the south of Kosovo, while tens of thousands of Kosovo Serbs live in central Serbia, where they fled together with the withdrawing Serb troops in 1999.

Have there been attempts to resolve the dispute?

There have been constant international efforts to find common ground between the two former wartime foes, but there has been no final comprehensive agreement.

EU officials have mediated negotiations designed to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo. Numerous agreements have been reached during those negotiations, but they were rarely implemented on the ground. Some areas have seen results, such as introducing freedom of movement within the country.

An idea has been floated for border changes and land swaps as the way forward, but this was rejected by many EU countries out of fears that it could cause a chain reaction in other ethnically mixed areas in the Balkans and trigger more trouble in the region that went through bloody wars in the 1990s.

Who are the main players?

Both Kosovo and Serbia are led by nationalist leaders who haven’t shown readiness for a compromise.

In Kosovo, Albin Kurti, a former student protest leader and political prisoner in Serbia, leads the government and is the main negotiator in EU-mediated talks. He was also known as a fierce supporter of Kosovo’s unification with Albania and is against any compromise with Serbia.

Serbia is led by populist President Aleksandar Vucic, who was information minister during the war in Kosovo. The former ultranationalist insists that any solution must be a compromise in order to last and says Serbia won’t settle unless it gains something.

What happens next?

International officials are hoping to speed up negotiations and reach a solution in the coming months.

Both nations must normalize ties if they want to advance toward EU membership. No major breakthrough would mean prolonged instability, economic decline and constant potential for clashes.

Any Serbian military intervention in Kosovo would mean a clash with NATO peacekeepers stationed there. Belgrade controls Kosovo’s Serbs, and Kosovo can’t become a member of the U.N. and a functional state without resolving the dispute with Serbia.
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Poland imposed sanctions Monday on 365 Belarusian citizens and froze the financial assets of 20 entities and 16 other people associated with the Russian capital in reaction to what it condemned as a “draconian” verdict against a journalist.

Under the sanctions announced by Poland’s interior ministry, the 365 Belarusians will be barred from entering the Schengen area, an area of visa-free travel in Europe. The group includes lawmakers, judges, prosecutors, members of state media, athletes and people working for state enterprises.

The move is the latest development amid a tense relationship between Poland, a member of NATO and the European Union, and Belarus, a country on its northeastern border that is allied with Russia and led by an authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, who has held power since 1994.

“These people promoted the Belarusian regime and were also involved in legitimizing and supporting the repressive policy of the authorities in Minsk. They are also responsible for the politically motivated sentence against Andrzej Poczobut, issued on false charges,” the interior ministry said.

Belarus’ Supreme Court on Friday upheld an eight-year prison sentence against Poczobut, a prominent member of the country’s sizable Polish minority and a correspondent for a top newspaper in Poland.

The rulings against Poczobut, a 50-year-old reporter with Poland’s liberal Gazeta Wyborcza daily, is seen as part of the Belarusian government’s sweeping crackdown on opposition figures, human rights activists and independent reporters.

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called Poland’s move “an important gesture of solidarity with Andrzej Poczobut and all Belarusians who suffer at the hands of the regime.”

“All political prisoners must be released from prison without any conditions,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “It is also a message to all those who support the regime with their positions and actions. We hope that other countries will follow this example, and those responsible for political court verdicts will be held accountable for their actions.”

As Poland announced the sanctions, migrants were stuck at Poland’s border wall with Belarus. Polish human rights activists said that they heard from the migrants that the Belarusian forces would not let them turn back. Meanwhile, Polish authorities would not allow them in to request asylum.
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A United Nations committee met in Paris Monday to work on what is intended to be a landmark treaty to bring an end to global plastic pollution, but there is little agreement yet on what the outcome should be. 

The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for Plastics is charged with developing the first international, legally binding treaty on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment. This is the second of five meetings due to take place to complete the negotiations by the end of 2024. 

At the first meeting, held six months ago in Uruguay, some countries pressed for global mandates, some for national solutions and others for both. 

Because it’s an extremely short timeline for treaty negotiations, experts say that in this second session it’s critical that decisions are made about the objectives and scope of the text — such as what kind of plastics it will focus on. But that is easier said than done. Over 2,000 participants, including governments and observers, from nearly 200 countries have descended on the meeting hosted at the Paris-based U.N. cultural agency, UNESCO. 

One fundamental issue being considered Monday is the system of voting on decisions for each nation, which has already produced lively debate and delays in the plenary sessions that are due to end Friday. 

Humanity produces more than 430 million tons of plastic annually, two-thirds of which are short-lived products that soon become waste, filling the ocean and, often, working their way into the human food chain, the United Nations Environment Program said in April. Plastic waste produced globally is set to almost triple by 2060, with about half ending up in landfills and under a fifth recycled, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 

The treaty could focus on human health and the environment, as desired by the self-named “high ambition coalition” of countries, led by Norway and Rwanda, with limits on plastic production and restrictions on some of the chemicals used in plastics. The coalition is committed to an international, legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution by 2040. It says that this is necessary to protect human health and the environment while helping to restore biodiversity and curb climate change. 

Alternatively, the treaty could have a more limited scope to address plastic waste and scale up recycling, as some of the plastic-producing and oil and gas exporters want. Most plastic is made from fossil fuels. Countries supporting this plan include the United States, Saudi Arabia and China. The U.S. delegation in Uruguay said national plans would allow governments to prioritize the most important sources and types of plastic pollution. Many plastics and chemical companies want this approach, too, with a plastic waste treaty that prioritizes recycling. 

The International Council of Chemical Associations, the World Plastics Council, the American Chemistry Council and other companies that make, use and recycle plastics say they want an agreement that eliminates plastic pollution while “retaining the societal benefits of plastics.” They’re calling themselves the “global partners for plastics circularity.” They say that modern plastic materials are used around the world to create essential and often life-saving products, many of which are critical to a lower-carbon, more sustainable future. 

Joshua Baca, vice president of plastics at the American Chemistry Council, said countries are so different “a one-size fits all approach won’t be effective, equitable, or implementable. Instead, the agreement should require national action plans as that will most effectively eliminate plastic pollution specific to a country’s situation.” 

The International Pollutants Elimination Network, or IPEN, wants a treaty that restricts chemicals used to make plastic that are harmful to human health and the environment. 

“To focus on plastic waste in this treaty would be a failure because you have to look at plastic production to solve the crisis — including the extraction of fossil fuels and the toxic chemical additives,” said Dr. Tadesse Amera, the network’s co-chair. 

IPEN’s international coordinator, Björn Beeler, said countries need to plan by the end of this week to write up an initial draft of the treaty text so it can be negotiated at the third meeting. 

“If there’s no text to negotiate, you’re just continuing to share ideas,” he said. “Then because of the timeline, we could be looking at an early failure.” 
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Depending on who you ask, the city of Bakhmut or separate parts of it are during any given week either controlled by Russian troops or by the Ukrainian Army. But the reality is that the city is in ruins and has been a dangerous and even deadly place for civilians, including some children who stayed during the fighting. Omelyan Oshchudlyak has one 16-year-old’s story. VOA footage by Yuriy Dankevych.
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Spain’s prime minister called early general elections on Monday after unsatisfactory results in regional and local elections Sunday.

Speaking on national television, Pedro Sanchez said he would dissolve parliament and Spain would hold snap elections on July 23. 

“I have taken this decision given the results of the elections held yesterday,” Sanchez said, speaking from the Moncloa presidential palace.

“Although yesterday’s elections had a local and regional scope, the meaning of the vote conveys a message that goes beyond that. That is why, as both prime minister and PSOE’s secretary-general, I take personal responsibility for the results,” Sanchez said. 

Sanchez said he had spoken to King Filipe VI about the decision and would hold an emergency Cabinet meeting later Monday to dissolve parliament.

The results of regional elections showed the Spanish electorate swinging to the right with the Popular Party winning 31.5% of the vote, while Sanchez’s Socialists – PSOE – Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party – and its ally Podemos took 28.2%.

The PP won seven municipalities of the 12 contested, and dominated in several regions previously won by PSOE, including Valencia, Aragon and La Rioja. 

It remains to be seen, however, whether PP will form regional governments alone, or have to enter a coalition with the far-right Vox party.

Some information of this report came from Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press and Reuters.
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At least three people died and one person is missing after a 16-meter tourist boat capsized and sank on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy Sunday evening. 

Divers backed by a helicopter continued to search for the missing person. 

An air ambulance, several emergency vehicles, and firefighters, as well as the Coast Guard and the police were involved in the rescue and search.    

The National Fire and Rescue Service said 20 people managed to swim ashore or were rescued by other boats, and five of them were taken to area hospitals for medical attention.    

Rescue efforts, however, were slowed by heavy rain and darkness, authorities said. 

Italian media reported that the boat was carrying 24 people, including passengers and crew. The passengers were celebrating a birthday when a violent storm suddenly developed over the lake and strong winds overturned the boat. All the passengers ended up in the icy waters of Lake Maggiore.   

Unconfirmed reports in local media said that the passengers were British, Italian, and Israeli nationals. 

Lake Maggiore is located on the south side of the Alps on the border between Italy and Switzerland. It is a popular destination for tourists.  
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Ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo on Monday tried to take over the local government buildings where Albanian mayors entered last week with the help of police. 

Kosovar police and NATO-led Kosovo Force were seen protecting the municipality building in Zvecan, one of the four communes to hold snap elections last month that were largely boycotted by ethnic Serbs. Only ethnic Albanian or other smaller-minority representatives were elected in the mayoral posts and assemblies. 

More than a dozen Serbs and five Kosovar police officers were injured in clashes last Friday, and Serbian troops on the border with Kosovo were put on high alert the same day. 

Ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo, who are a majority in that part of the country, tried to block recently elected ethnic Albanian officials from entering municipal buildings. Kosovo police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd and let the new officials into the offices. 

The United States and the European Union condemned Kosovo’s government for using police to forcibly enter the municipal buildings. 

On Sunday evening, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, plus the United States and the European Union in Kosovo, again issued a statement saying they strongly caution “all parties against other threats or actions which could impact on a safe and secure environment, including freedom of movement, and that could inflame tensions or promote conflict.” 

At a rally Friday evening in Belgrade with his supporters, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said “Serbia won’t sit idle the moment Serbs in northern Kosovo are attacked.” 

However, any attempt by Serbia to send its troops over the border would mean a clash with NATO troops stationed there. 

A 2013 Pristina-Belgrade agreement on forming the Serb association was later declared unconstitutional by Kosovo’s Constitutional Court, which said the plan wasn’t inclusive of other ethnicities and could entail the use of executive powers to impose laws. 

The two sides have tentatively agreed to back an EU plan on how to proceed, but tensions still simmer. 

The U.S. and the EU have stepped up efforts to help solve the Kosovo-Serbia dispute, fearing further instability in Europe as war rages in Ukraine. The EU has made it clear to both Serbia and Kosovo they must normalize relations to advance in their intentions to join the bloc. 

The conflict in Kosovo erupted in 1998 when separatist ethnic Albanians rebelled against Serbia’s rule, and Serbia responded with a brutal crackdown. About 13,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, died. NATO’s military intervention in 1999 eventually forced Serbia to pull out of the territory. Washington and most EU countries have recognized Kosovo as an independent state, but Serbia, Russia and China have not. 
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A group of some 30 migrants seeking asylum, including small children, has been stuck at Poland’s border wall with Belarus for three days, Polish human rights activists said Sunday. 

Although the migrants were outside Poland’s border wall, activists from Grupa Granica (Border Group) said they were on Polish territory and Belarus was not allowing them to turn back. 

“In Belarus, they are not safe,” activist Marta Staniszewska said. 

“The Belarusian services, as this group has told us, threaten them that if they return, they will be beaten, or that they will kill them,” Staniszewska told The Associated Press. 

The migrants say that several among them are sick, one girl has a toothache, and the children have mosquito bites, according to Staniszewska. 

A representative of Poland’s ombudsman’s office visited and talked to the group on Sunday, but later told reporters that the decision about whether to allow them into the country belongs to the Polish Border Guard. 

“If these persons are indeed within the jurisdiction of the (Polish) Border Guard and declare their willingness to apply for international protection, then …. such applications should be accepted,” Maciej Grzeskowiak said. 

Last year, Poland put up almost 190 kilometers of tall metal wall intended to stop thousands of migrants from Asia and Africa entering the country from Belarus. 

The European Union has accused authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of aiding illegal border crossings in retaliation for EU sanctions. Lukashenko denies encouraging migration to Europe. 

Poland’s most powerful politician, the head of Poland’s right-wing ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said recently that building the wall was a good decision. He said it was protecting Poland and the EU against hostile moves by Belarus and Russia. 

Despite the wall, up to 150 migrants of various nationalities, often with Russian visas in their documents, try to cross illegally into Poland each day, according to the Border Guard. 

On some occasions, such groups threw stones and sticks from behind the wall at the border guards, but then apparently moved away. It is not possible from Poland’s side to determine what happens to the groups. 
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Western countries left Belarus no choice but to deploy Russian tactical nuclear weapons and had better take heed not to “cross red lines” on key strategic issues, a senior Belarusian official was quoted as saying on Sunday. 

Alexander Volfovich, state secretary of Belarus’ Security Council, said it was logical that the weapons were withdrawn after the 1991 Soviet collapse as the United States had provided security guarantees and imposed no sanctions. 

“Today, everything has been torn down. All the promises made are gone forever,” the Belta news agency quoted Volfovich as telling an interviewer on state television. 

Belarus, led by President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994, is Russia’s staunchest ally among ex-Soviet states and allowed its territory to be used to launch the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

Russia moved ahead last week with a decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory aimed at achieving specific gains on the battlefield. 

Russia says its “special military operation” in Ukraine was aimed at countering what it says is a drive by the “collective west” to wage a proxy war and inflict a defeat on Moscow. 

“The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus is therefore one of the steps of strategic deterrence. If there remains any reason in the heads of Western politicians, of course, they will not cross this red line,” Volfovich said. 

He said any resort to using “even tactical nuclear weapons will lead to irreversible consequences.” 

Lukashenko last week said the weapons were already on the move, but it is not yet clear when they will be in place. 

The United States has denounced the prospective deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus but says its stance on the use of such weapons has not been altered. 

Western sanctions were imposed on Belarus long before the invasion in connection with Lukashenko’s clampdown on human rights, particularly the repression of mass protests against what his opponents said was his rigged re-election in 2020. 

After independence from Soviet rule, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan agreed to their weapons being removed and returned to Russia as part of international efforts to contain proliferation. 
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Unable to sleep the night before her first-round match at the French Open against Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, the Grand Slam tournament’s No. 2 seed, Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine checked her phone at 5 a.m. Sunday and saw disturbing news back home in Kyiv.

At least one person was killed when the capital of Kostyuk’s country was subjected to the largest drone attack by Russia since the start of its war, launched with an invasion assisted by Belarus in February 2022.

“It’s something I cannot describe, probably. I try to put my emotions aside any time I go out on court. I think I’m better than before, and I don’t think it affects me as much on a daily basis, but yeah, it’s just — I don’t know,” Kostyuk said, shaking her head. “There is not much to say, really. It’s just part of my life.”

That, then, is why Kostyuk has decided she will not exchange the usual post-match pleasantries with opponents from Russia or Belarus. And that is why she avoided a handshake — avoided any eye contact, even — after losing to Australian Open champion Sabalenka 6-3, 6-2 on Day 1 at Roland Garros.

What surprised the 20-year-old, 39th-ranked Kostyuk on Sunday was the reaction she received from the spectators in Court Philippe-Chatrier; They loudly booed and derisively whistled at her as she walked directly over to acknowledge the chair umpire instead of congratulating the winner after the lopsided result. The negative response grew louder as she gathered her belongings and walked off the court toward the locker room.

“I have to say,” Kostyuk said, “I didn’t expect it. … People should be, honestly, embarrassed.”

Kostyuk is based now in Monaco, and her mother and sister are there, too, but her father and grandfather are still in Kyiv. Perhaps the fans on hand at the clay-court event’s main stadium were unaware of the backstory and figured Kostyuk simply failed to follow usual tennis etiquette.

Initially, Sabalenka — who had approached the net as if anticipating some sort of exchange with Kostyuk — thought the noise was directed at her.

“At first, I thought they were booing me,” Sabalenka said. “I was a little confused, and I was, like, ‘OK, what should I do?’”

Sabalenka tried to ask the chair umpire what was going on. She looked up at her entourage in the stands, too. Then she realized that while she is aware Kostyuk and other Ukrainian tennis players have been declining to greet opponents from Russia or Belarus after a match, the spectators might not have known — and so responded in a way Sabalenka didn’t think was deserved.

“They saw it,” she surmised, “as disrespect (for) me.”

All in all, if the tennis itself was not particularly memorable, the whole scene, including the lack of the customary pre-match photo of the players following the coin toss, became the most noteworthy development on Day 1 in Paris.

Sabalenka called Sunday “emotionally tough” — because of mundane, tennis-related reasons, such as the nerves that come with a first-round match, but more significantly because of the unusual circumstances involving the war.

“You’re playing against (a) Ukrainian, and you never know what’s going to happen. You never know how people will — will they support you or not?” explained Sabalenka, who went down an early break and trailed 3-2 before reeling off six consecutive games with powerful first-strike hitting. “I was worried, like, people will be against me, and I don’t like to play when people (are) so much against me.”

A journalist from Ukraine asked Sabalenka what her message to the world is about the war, particularly in this context: She can overtake Iga Swiatek at No. 1 in the rankings based on results over the next two weeks and, therefore, serves as a role model.

“Nobody in this world, Russian athletes or Belarusian athletes, support the war. Nobody. How can we support the war? Nobody — normal people — will never support it. Why (do) we have to go loud and say that things? This is like: ‘One plus one (is) two.’ Of course, we don’t support war,” Sabalenka said. “If it could affect anyhow the war, if it could like stop it, we would do it. But unfortunately, it’s not in our hands.”

When a portion of those comments was read to Kostyuk by a reporter, she responded in calm, measured tones that she doesn’t get why Sabalenka does not come out and say that “she personally doesn’t support this war.”

Kostyuk also rejected the notion that players from Russia or Belarus could be in a tough spot upon returning to those countries if they were to speak out about what is happening in Ukraine.

“I don’t know why it’s a difficult situation,” Kostyuk said with a chuckle.

“I don’t know what other players are afraid of,” she said. “I go back to Ukraine, where I can die any second from drones or missiles or whatever it is.”
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NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg called on Kosovo to tone down tensions with Serbia on Sunday, two days after clashes between Kosovan police and protesters who are opposed to Albanian mayors taking office in ethnic Serbian areas.

Stoltenberg, the transatlantic military alliance’s Norwegian secretary-general, said he had spoken to European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell about Kosovo and that Pristina and Belgrade must engage in the EU-led dialog.

“Pristina must de-escalate & not take unilateral, destabilizing steps,” Stoltenberg said in a tweet.

Serbs, who form the majority of the population in Kosovo’s northern region, do not accept its 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia and still see Belgrade as their capital more than two decades after the war ended in 1999.

Ethnic Albanians make up more than 90% of the population in Kosovo as a whole.

Serbs refused to take part in local elections in April and Albanian candidates won all four municipalities with a 3.5% turnout.

Local Serbs, backed by Belgrade, said they will not accept the mayors and that they do not represent them.

On Friday, three out of four mayors were escorted into their offices by police, who were pelted with rocks and responded with tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters.

Heavily armed police in armored vehicles were still guarding the mayors’ offices on Sunday.

A joint statement from the embassies of the United States, Italy, France, Germany and Britain, known as the Quint group, and the EU office in Pristina warned Kosovo against any other measures to force access to the municipality buildings.

“We strongly caution all parties against other threats or actions which could impact on a safe and secure environment, including freedom of movement, and that could inflame tensions or promote conflict,” Quint and the EU said.

“New unilateral actions will negatively impact relations with the Quint countries and the EU.”

The United States, Britain and the EU are Kosovo’s main backers as the country is still not a United Nations member due to objections from Serbia, Russia, China and others.
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Britain’s health minister, Steve Barclay, said on Sunday that the government would not negotiate on pay with the nurses’ union, as the threat of further strikes looms.

The government’s offer, which includes a one-off payment equivalent to 2% of salaries in the 2022/23 financial year and a 5% pay raise for 2023/24, was rejected by the members of the Royal College of Nursing in April.

When asked by Sky News whether the government would resume talks with the union, Barclay said, “Not on the amount of pay.”

The union is already balloting its 300,000 members on further strike action over the next six months.

The union did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for a comment on Barclay’s remarks on Sunday. It has said that the government must pay National Health Service staff “fairly.”

The relationship between the union, which has staged multiple strikes that have disrupted patient care, and the government became strained in late April when the health department limited the length of a strike after legal action against the RCN.
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Good relations with China are possible even without being part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) deal, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in an interview published Sunday, as her government weighs abandoning the project.

Italy is the only major Western country to have joined China’s BRI scheme, which envisions rebuilding the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with large infrastructure spending.

In an interview with Il Messaggero daily, Meloni said it was too early to anticipate the outcome of Italy’s decision on whether to remain part of the project, which it signed up for in 2019, drawing criticism from Washington and Brussels.

“Our assessment is very delicate and touches upon many interests,” said Meloni. The pact expires in March 2024 and will be automatically renewed unless either side informs the other that they are pulling out, giving at least three months’ notice.

In an interview with Reuters last year, before she won power in a September election, Meloni made clear she disapproved of the 2019 move, saying she had “no political will … to favor Chinese expansion into Italy or Europe.”

Meloni noted that while Italy was the only one of the Group of Seven (G7) rich democracies to have signed the Belt and Road memorandum, it was not the European and Western country with the strongest economic and trade ties with China.

“This means it is possible to have good relations, also in important areas, with Beijing, without necessarily these being part of an overall strategic design,” she said.

Earlier this month a senior Italian government official told Reuters Italy was highly unlikely to renew the Belt and Road deal.

A first test of the right-wing government’s attitude toward China looms as Rome vets a shareholder pact at tire maker Pirelli’s, whose top investor is China’s Sinochem.

China is among the biggest markets for most countries in the G7 group, particularly for export-reliant economies such as Japan and Germany.

At a summit last weekend, G7 leaders pledged to “de-risk” without “decoupling” from China, an approach that reflected European and Japanese concerns about pushing Beijing too hard, officials and experts said.
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Police in Venice are investigating the source of a phosphorescent green liquid patch that appeared Sunday in the city’s famed Grand Canal. 

The governor of the Veneto region, Luca Zaia, posted a photo of the green liquid that spread through the water near the arched Rialto Bridge. The patch was reported by residents. 

Images on social media show a bright patch of green in the canal along an embankment lined with restaurants. 

Zaia said that officials had requested that the police investigate to determine who was responsible. Environmental authorities were also testing the water.
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Russia hit Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, overnight with the largest drone attack on the city since the start of the war. The attack came as Kyiv prepared to celebrate the anniversary of its founding on Sunday. Mayor Vitali Klitscho said one person was killed.  

Ukraine’s air force said it downed more than 50 drones, but it was not immediately clear whether all the drones were over Kyiv or around the country.   

“The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians,” Andriy Yermak, the head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said. 

“Today is another sanction day,” Zelenskyy said on Saturday. He said 220 companies and 51 individuals are being sanctioned, “most of them are Russian — who work for terror.”  

“When Russia started this aggression, they looked at the world as if they were looking at themselves in a mirror,” he said. “They thought that supposedly everyone in the world was as cynical and despised people in the same way as the masters of Russia do. But the world is different — the world helps us protect life.” 

Meanwhile, the British Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update that Russian-state backed media and business groups want the Economic Ministry to authorize a six-day workweek “in the face of the economic demands of the war, apparently without additional pay.”  

The groups already have petitioned the Russian ministry for the longer work week, the British ministry posted on Twitter. 

The update said Margarita Simonyan, described as a “leading Russian propagandist,” recently called for citizens to work for two extra hours in munitions factories every day, after their regular jobs.  

These calls for a longer work week without additional pay “echoes a Soviet-style sense of societal compulsion,” the British update said, adding that the Russian “leadership highly likely identifies economic performance as a decisive factor in winning the war.”  
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Voters in Turkey are going to the polls Sunday to decide who will be the country’s president.

Sunday’s vote is the second runoff vote for the presidency. Incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has led Turkey for 20 years, fell just a few points short of winning the election in a first runoff poll earlier this month.

The president’s challenger is 74-year-old Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of a six-party alliance and leader of Turkey’s center-left main opposition party.

Kilicdaroglu is facing a formidable candidate in the 69-year-old Erdogan, who was able to survive the presidential election for the runoff despite Turkey’s crippling inflation and the aftermath of a destructive earthquake three months ago.

A victory Sunday for Erdogan would mean the beginning of his third decade as Turkey’s leader. Under his watch, Turkey’s government has become increasingly authoritarian.

Polls indicate Erdogan remains just a few points ahead of his opponent.

Voting ends at 5 p.m. and results are expected within hours.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Turks vote Sunday in a presidential runoff that could see Tayyip Erdogan extend his rule into a third decade and intensify Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian path, muscular foreign policy and unorthodox economic governance.

Erdogan, 69, defied opinion polls and came out comfortably ahead with an almost five-point lead over his rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the first round May 14. But he fell just short of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff, in a race with profound consequences for Turkey itself and global geopolitics.

His unexpectedly strong showing amid a deep cost-of-living crisis, and a win in parliamentary elections for a coalition of his conservative Islamist-rooted AK Party (AKP), the nationalist MHP and others, buoyed the veteran campaigner who says a vote for him is a vote for stability.

Kilicdaroglu, 74, is the candidate of a six-party opposition alliance — and leads the Republican People’s Party (CHP) created by Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. His camp has struggled to regain momentum after the shock of trailing Erdogan in the first round.

The election will decide not only who leads Turkey, a NATO-member country of 85 million, but also how it is governed, where its economy is headed after its currency plunged to one tenth of its value against the dollar in a decade, and the shape of its foreign policy, which has seen Turkey irk the West by cultivating ties with Russia and Gulf states.

The initial election showed larger-than-expected support for nationalism — a powerful force in Turkish politics which has been hardened by years of hostilities with Kurdish militants, an attempted coup in 2016 and the influx of millions of refugees from Syria since war began there in 2011.

Turkey is the world’s largest host of refugees, with some 5 million migrants, of whom 3.3 million are Syrians, according to Interior Ministry data.

Third-place presidential candidate and hardline nationalist Sinan Ogan said he endorsed Erdogan based on a principle of “nonstop struggle (against) terrorism,” referring to pro-Kurdish groups. He achieved 5.17% of the vote.

Another nationalist, Umit Ozdag, leader of the anti-immigrant Victory Party (ZP), announced a deal declaring ZP’s support for Kilicdaroglu, after he said he would repatriate immigrants. The ZP won 2.2% of votes in this month’s parliamentary election.

A closely watched survey by pollster Konda for the runoff put support for Erdogan at 52.7% and Kilicdaroglu at 47.3% after distributing undecided voters. The survey was carried out May 20-21, before Ogan and Ozdag revealed their endorsements.

Another key is how Turkey’s Kurds, at about a fifth of the population, will vote.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) party endorsed Kilicdaroglu in the first round but, after his lurch to the right to win nationalist votes, it did not explicitly name him and urged voters rather to reject Erdogan’s “one-man regime” in the runoff.

More Erdogan

Polls will open at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and close at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT). By late Sunday there should be a clear indication of the winner.

“Turkey has a longstanding democratic tradition and a longstanding nationalist tradition, and right now it’s clearly the nationalist one that’s winning out. Erdogan has fused religious and national pride, offering voters an aggressive anti-elitism,” said Nicholas Danforth, Turkey historian and non-resident fellow at think tank ELIAMEP.

“More Erdogan means more Erdogan. People know who he is and what his vision for the country is, and it seems a lot of them approve.”

Turkey’s president has pulled out all the stops on the campaign trail as he battles to survive his toughest political test. He commands fierce loyalty from pious Turks who once felt disenfranchised in secular Turkey and his political career has survived the failed coup and corruption scandals.

Erdogan has taken tight control of most of Turkey’s institutions and sidelined liberals and critics. Human Rights Watch, in its World Report 2022, said Erdogan’s government has set back Turkey’s human rights record by decades.

However, if Turks do oust Erdogan, it will be largely because they saw their prosperity, equality and ability to meet basic needs decline, with inflation that topped 85% in October 2022.

Kilicdaroglu, a former civil servant, has pledged to roll back much of Erdogan’s sweeping changes to Turkish domestic, foreign and economic policies.

He would also revert to the parliamentary system of governance, from Erdogan’s executive presidential system, narrowly passed in a referendum in 2017.
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President Vladimir Putin on Sunday ordered stronger border security to ensure fast Russian military and civilian movement into Ukrainian regions now under Moscow control.

Speaking in a congratulatory message to the border service, a branch of Russia’s Federal Security Service, on their Border Guard Day holiday, Putin said their task was to “reliably cover” the lines in the vicinity of the combat zone.

Attacks inside Russia have been growing in intensity in recent weeks, chiefly with drone strikes on regions along the border but increasingly also deep into the country, including on an oil pipeline northwest of Moscow on Saturday.  

“It is necessary to ensure the fast movement of both military and civilian vehicles and cargo, including food, humanitarian aid, building materials sent to the new subjects of the (Russian) Federation,” Putin said in a message posted on the Kremlin’s Telegram messaging channel.  

Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk are the four regions in Ukraine that Putin proclaimed annexed last September following what Kyiv said were sham referendums. Russian forces only partly control the four regions.

On Saturday, officials said three people were injured in Ukrainian shelling in Belgorod, a region that was the target of pro-Ukrainian fighters this week that sparked doubts about Russia’s defense and military capabilities.

The Kursk and Belgorod Russian regions bordering Ukraine have been the most frequent target of attacks that have damaged power, rail and military infrastructure, with local officials blaming Ukraine.  

Kyiv almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia and on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine but said that destroying infrastructure is preparation for its planned ground assault.

Ukraine indicated on Saturday that it was ready to launch a long-promised counteroffensive to recapture territory taken by Russia in the 15-month war, a conflict that has claimed the lives of thousands and turned Ukrainian cities into rubble.
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Iran struck back at Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday, saying his accusation the Islamic republic is arming Russia was an attempt to gain the West’s military and financial support.

The United States and the European Union have sanctioned Iran over its drone program, alleging it had supplied Moscow with unmanned aerial vehicles during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — a charge Tehran denies.

On Wednesday, during his daily speech, Zelenskyy said Tehran’s “support for evil cannot be denied” and appealed directly to Iranians, asking: “Why do you want to be accomplices in Russian terror?”

In response, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said Zelenskyy’s “repetition of false claims” against the Islamic republic was “in harmony with the propaganda and media war of the anti-Iranian axis.”

“It is done with the aim of attracting as much military and financial aid from Western countries as possible,” Kanani said.

Ukraine, he added, had “specific political goals and motives behind such accusations” and was “avoiding expert negotiations with the Iranian side to investigate the claims.”

Russia has reportedly used 1,160 Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones in attacks against Ukraine.

“Even though we have learnt to shoot down most of your kamikaze drones… there are still hits,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday.

“When an Iranian drone kills a pregnant Ukrainian girl and her husband in their home, why do you, mothers and fathers in Iran, need this?” he added.

“When your Shahed hits a dormitory with our students, people die, a fire starts, rescuers arrive, and in a few minutes a second Shahed hits.”

Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022, sparking the biggest conflict on European soil since World War II.
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Police in Berlin said Friday that they have opened an investigation of Roger Waters on suspicion of incitement over a costume the Pink Floyd co-founder wore when he performed in the German capital last week.

Images on social media showed Waters firing an imitation machine gun while dressed in a long black coat with a red armband. Police confirmed that an investigation was opened over suspicions that the context of the costume could constitute a glorification, justification or approval of Nazi rule and therefore a disturbance of the public peace.

Once the police investigation is concluded, the case will be handed to Berlin prosecutors, who would decide whether to pursue any charges.

Waters rejected the accusations in a statement early Saturday on Facebook and Instagram, saying that “the elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms.”

He claimed that “attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated.”

Waters has drawn ire for his support of the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts and sanctions against Israel. He has rejected accusations of antisemitism.

Authorities in Frankfurt tried to prevent a concert there scheduled for Sunday, but Waters challenged that move successfully in a local court. In Munich, the city council said it had explored possibilities of banning a concert but concluded that it wasn’t legally possible to cancel a contract with the organizer. His appearance there last Sunday was accompanied by a protest attended by the local Jewish community’s leader.

Last year, the Polish city of Krakow canceled gigs by Waters because of his sympathetic stance toward Russia in its war against Ukraine.
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Serbian troops near Kosovo’s border were placed on high alert Friday, after clashes between police and Kosovo’s Serbian population injured at least 10 people.

Serbs in Kosovo had taken to the streets to prevent newly-elected Albanian mayors from entering their offices.

Clashes erupted when Kosovan police attempted to move the protesters to allow the politicians to enter their offices.

Authorities say at least five police were injured in the skirmishes Friday and several cars were set on fire.

Britain, France, Italy, Germany and the United States have issued a joint statement urging Kosovo “to de-escalate.”

The Western powers said they are “concerned by Serbia’s decision to raise the level of readiness of its armed forces at the border with Kosovo.”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Friday, “We will preserve peace — but I am telling you that Serbia won’t sit idle the moment Serbs in northern Kosovo are attacked.”

Last month’s municipal elections were generally ignored by Kosovo’s Serbs. That move allowed Albanians to win offices.

Serbian politicians in several Serbian-majority municipalities left their offices last year after Kosovan officials prevented them from establishing an organization to coordinate their approaches to social and economic concerns.
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Ahead of Turkey’s presidential runoff election on Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his main contender Kemal Kilicdaroglu are both eyeing voters who back the country’s various nationalist parties.

Nationalist parties like Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Good Party (IYIP), Victory Party (ZP) and Great Unity Party (BBP) received more than 23% of the votes in the parliamentary election on May 14, which made Turkish nationalists “the winner of the election,” according to some experts.

“Political parties and candidates that define themselves [as] nationalist achieved an outstanding number of votes that no one could foresee,” Ismet Akca, a political scientist formerly with Istanbul’s Yildiz Technical University, told VOA.

Kemal Can, a veteran journalist and commentator at digital media outlet Medyascope, does not find the increase in the nationalist votes significant, but thinks that the nationalist parties gained bargaining power.

“As a result of these elections, we can say that both the visibility and bargaining ability of nationalism increased rather than the numerical increase,” Can told VOA.

Endorsements

On Monday, the nationalist ATA alliance’s presidential candidate Sinan Ogan, who placed third in the first round of the presidential election May 14, announced his endorsement of Erdogan, who got 49.52% of the votes in the first round.

Ogan also highlighted that his candidacy made Turkish nationalists the key players in the election and explained why he is backing Erdogan as his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the People’s Alliance hold the majority in the parliament.

Even though Ogan received 5.2% of the votes in the first round, Kemal Can thinks that Ogan will not be able to carry his support in its entirety to Erdogan.

“Ogan was presented as a candidate in front of a group of voters and [received] a reaction,” Can told VOA.

“He did not collect these votes; they are not his own votes. They are the votes of an alliance and reactionary votes,” Can added.

On Wednesday, Umit Ozdag, the head of the far-right Victory Party, the leading party in the ATA alliance, endorsed Erdogan’s rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who received 44.88% of votes in the first round.

Kilicdaroglu has toughened his tone before the second round of the election as he pledged to send Syrian refugees back and to end terrorism in his campaign posters. At the same time, Erdogan has repeatedly suggested links between him and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Kilicdaroglu has denied this allegation.

Kurdish support

Ozdag and Kilicdaroglu also signed a seven-point protocol Wednesday on the principles of their cooperation. The protocol promises to deport all the refugees, including 3.6 million Syrians in Turkey, within a year and to replace elected mayors with state-appointed trustees with court rulings in case of legal proof that shows their links with terrorism.

Akca thinks the protocol is a success for Ozdag, but it puts Kilicdaroglu at risk of not receiving the Kurdish votes as he got in the first round because of the trustees.

Since the 2019 local elections, at least 48 out of 65 municipalities won by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party have been run by government-appointed trustees over terrorism allegations.

Following Ogan and Ozdag’s endorsements, the pro-Kurdish Green Left Party (YSP) on Thursday reiterated its support for opposition against Erdogan in the runoff without naming Kilicdaroglu. YSP endorsed Kilicdaroglu by name in the first round.

“Even though the party has declared its support for Kilicdaroglu, it remains a question how far it can mobilize its voters to go to the ballot box amid this radical nationalist frenzy,” Akca told VOA.

Key party

Kemal Can said that during this year’s campaign, the opposition asked the public if they wanted to see a change from the country’s current direction. The government instead framed the question as who should decide if there will be change: the Kurds or the nationalists?

“We see that nationalists entered into a power play demanding the decision-making power in a reactionary way,” Can said.

According to political scientist Akca, nationalists in Turkey see refugees and the Kurds as their main problems.

“Existing nationalism [in Turkey] has two main problems, and one is refugees because the nationalist movement has caught a streak over the refugee problem among the public. We see a nationalism based on xenophobia,” Akca told VOA.

“The second is the Kurds. ‘Let’s not allow the Kurds and the political movement representing them to become the key party.’ Sinan Ogan and the Victory Party voiced this as they were saying, ‘Everyone will see who the key is,’” Akca added.

Akca views the two different endorsements by Ogan and Ozdag, the two main actors of the nationalist ATA alliance, as “a gamble on their political futures.”

“Here, I find Umit Ozdağ, who has an organization like the Victory Party behind him, more advantageous than lone-wolf Sinan Ogan,” Akca said.
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Somali diplomats said Friday that Russia had offered to help support Somalia’s armed forces in their battle against the al-Shabab terrorist group.

The diplomats, who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had made the offer during talks with his Somali counterpart, Abshir Omar Jama, in Moscow.

One diplomat said, “Russia was ready to provide Somalia’s army with military supplies, to strengthen the government fight against al-Shabab.”

The diplomats did not specify the kinds of materiel Russia was offering to Somalia, which is under a long-standing U.N. arms embargo.

The U.N. Security Council imposed the embargo in 1992 after the outbreak of civil war and factional violence. The embargo was partially lifted in 2013 to help Somalia’s security forces fight the Islamist militants.

Russia’s offer came hours after al-Shabab militants stormed a military base manned by African Union forces from Uganda in Bulo Marer, an agricultural town in the Lower Shabelle region, about 110 kilometers south of Mogadishu.

Earlier, at the opening of the talks between the two foreign ministers, Lavrov emphasized the long relationship between the two countries, which goes back to quick Soviet recognition of Somalia after it gained independence in 1960.

He also said he and Jama would discuss preparations for the Russia-Africa summit scheduled for late July in St. Petersburg.

Diplomatic relations

In modern times, Russia and Somalia have had fairly routine diplomatic relations, with Russia sending humanitarian aid to Somalia several times.

In May 2010, Somalia reacted angrily to the way Russian marines handled their rescue of a tanker, the MV Moscow University, that had been hijacked 560 kilometers off the coast of Yemen.

Russian media reported at the time that 10 Somali pirates, who had taken the tanker and its crew hostage, were released on the open sea because there were no grounds to prosecute them in Russia.

Somali authorities said the pirates never made it ashore and likely died at sea.

Somalia’s Foreign Ministry statement at the time warned that relations with Russia might be harmed over the incident and demanded an apology from the Russian government.

Since then, two Somali prime ministers, Omar Sharmarke and Hassan Ali Khaire, have met with top Russian officials requesting assistance to strengthen the Somali National Army.

In recent years, Somali diplomats, who asked for anonymity, told VOA Somali that the Russian military has been eyeing Berbera port, located in the breakaway republic of Somaliland, as a potential base on the Red Sea.

Last November, Russia, China, Gabon and Ghana abstained from a Security Council vote to maintain an arms embargo on Somalia, in support of Mogadishu’s strong objections. The United States and Britain supported maintaining the ban, although the measure did loosen restrictions on some weapons like portable surface-to-air missiles in recognition of the government’s improved oversight of weapons and munitions.
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Tens of thousands of people converged on the Serbian capital on Friday for a major rally in support of President Aleksandar Vucic, who is facing an unprecedented revolt against his autocratic rule amid the crisis triggered by two mass shootings that stunned the nation. 

The event was somewhat overshadowed by a new crisis in Serbia’s former province of Kosovo, where ethnic Serbs clashed with Kosovo police on Friday and Vucic ordered Serbian troops to be put on a “higher state of alert.” Vucic also said he ordered an “urgent” movement of Serbian troops to the border with Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008. 

Answering Vucic’s call for what he called “the largest rally in the history of Serbia,” his supporters, many wearing identical T-shirts with his portrait, were bused to Belgrade from all over the Balkan country as well as neighboring Kosovo and Bosnia. 

Those working in state firms and institutions were told to take a day off from work to attend the rally in front of the parliament building. Some said that they were warned that they could lose their jobs if they didn’t show up on the buses, which started arriving hours before the gathering was to start. 

Serbian officials said the rally promotes “unity and hope” for Serbia. 

At three large anti-government protests held earlier this month in the capital, demonstrators demanded Vucic’s ouster and the resignation of two senior security officials. They also demanded the withdrawal of broadcasting licenses for two pro-Vucic television stations that they say promote violence and often host convicted war criminals and other crime figures. 

Opposition protesters blame Vucic for creating an atmosphere of hopelessness and division in the country that they say indirectly led to the May 3 and May 4 mass shootings that left 18 people dead and 20 wounded, many of them schoolchildren who were gunned down by a 13-year-old schoolmate. 

Vucic has vehemently denied any responsibility for the shootings, calling organizers of the opposition protests “vultures” and “hyenas” who want to use the tragedies to try to come to power by force and without an election. 

“They are not against violence, they want my head,” he said. 

Analysts believe that by staging the mass rally, Vucic, who has ruled the country for more than a decade with a firm grip on power, is trying to overshadow the opposition protests with the sheer number of participants. 

“For the first time, Vucic has a problem,” said political analyst Zoran Gavrilovic. “His problem is not so much the opposition, but Serbian society that has woken up.” 

During the rally, Vucic is expected to announce he is stepping down from the helm of his Serbian Progressive Party and forming “a movement” that will unite all “patriotic forces” in the country. He also could call for a new parliamentary election for September — something unlikely to be accepted by the opposition under the current conditions where he has full control over all pillars of power, including the mainstream media. 

Vucic, a former pro-Russia ultranationalist who now says that he wants to take the country into the European Union, has alleged that “foreign intelligence services” are behind the opposition protests. He said that he received the tip from “sisterly” spy agencies “from the east” — thought to mean Russia. 

There are widespread fears that violence could erupt during the rally on Friday that could then be used as a pretext for a crackdown on future opposition protests, including one that is scheduled in Belgrade on Saturday. 

Similar big rallies were held in Serbia in the early 1990s when strongman Slobodan Milosevic delivered fiery speeches that heralded the violent breakup of Yugoslavia and rallied the masses for the wars that followed. 
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