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Serbia

In The News

Netanyahu’s Gaza Plan, EU Toughens Asylum Stance, Gold Toilet Theft

👋 Manao ahoana!*

Welcome to Tuesday, where the world marks one month since Hamas’ attack on Israel, Italy signs a deal to build migrant centers in Albania, and charges have been filed in the UK’s gold toilet heist of 2019. Meanwhile, Gabriel Grésillon in French business daily Les Echos looks at whether Paris’ aging and emptying La Défense business center can reinvent itself.

[*Malagasy, Madagascar]

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Israel Hits 450 Gaza Targets, Putin Until 2030, Musk’s AI Chatbot

👋 Salaam alaykum!*

Welcome to Monday, where Israel continues to step up its air and ground assault on Gaza, Vladimir Putin aims to remain at Russia’s helm until 2030, and Elon Musk unveils a new “sarcastic” chatbot, Grok, to be integrated into X/Twitter. Meanwhile, Ireneusz Sudak in Warsaw-based daily Gazeta Wyborcza looks at how coal-loving Poland is learning to catch some rays.

[*Somali]

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Blinken In Israel, Storm Ciaran, Cowbell Petition

👋 Bonjour!*

Welcome to Friday, where Gaza’s health ministry says the death toll since Oct. 7 has topped 9,000, Storm Ciaran hits Tuscany, and a Swiss village is in a bad moo-d. Meanwhile, for London-based, Persian-language news site Kayhan, Haqiqatjou writes that to understand what is currently going on in Gaza, we ought to look back at Tehran in 1979.

[*French]

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More Gaza Exits, Putin Pulls Out Of Nuke Treaty, Meloni Pranked

👋 Hej!*

Welcome to Thursday, where a modest flow of people continue to exit Gaza into Egypt, Putin revokes Russia’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni didn’t realize who she was talking to. Meanwhile, we also look at how so-called “Ghost Kitchens” are now spreading through Europe to feed delivery service demand.

[*Swedish]

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Geopolitics
Michal Kubala

Kosovo, A New Theater For Russia's War With The West?

After meeting with the Russian ambassador, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has now demanded NATO take over security in northern Kosovo, days after a deadly shootout between Serbian gunmen and Kosovar police. The violent clash has raised tensions in the Balkan region, with some Russian authorities drawing parallels with another European conflict — the one in Ukraine.

The deadly clash in northern Kosovo on Sunday is reverberating far beyond the Balkans. At first glance, distant histories seem to be repeating: World War I starting in Sarajevo, the breakup of Yugoslavia drove 1990s geopolitics.

Yet there may be much more recent history at play: is the conflict linked to the war in Ukraine?

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The latest incident began with ethnic Serb gunmen blocking a bridge with armored vehicles and opening fire on approaching Kosovar policemen, killing one officer. The gunmen then barricaded themselves in a monastery, where at least three were killed by sniper fire. The incident has escalated tensions between Kosovo and Serbia that have been festering for years.

Indeed, Kosovo has long accused Serbia of receiving Russian support to destabilize the Balkans. Belgrade meanwhile has alleged ethnic cleansing of Serbians in Kosovo, and has refused to recognize Kosovo’s unilateral proclamation of independence, withome of the rhetoric has harkening back to the prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Is Russia behind the latest incident? If the situation blows up in the Balkans, could there be spillover that escalates the showdown between Moscow and NATO?

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Geopolitics
Pierre Haski

Serbia And Kosovo: A Local Conflict Turns Dangerously International

Tension are rising between Serbia and Kosovo, taking on an international dimension with Russia lending its support to Serbia, while NATO has long had a presence in Kosovo. There is only one real solution to such a historic feud over territory and ethnicity, and it's called: Europe.

-Analysis-

PARIS An unresolved conflict is always a potential time bomb. That's what happened last week in the Caucasus, with Azerbaijan's recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh, driving thousands of Armenians into exile. And it is also what is threatening Europe's southern flank, with violence breaking out between Serbia and Kosovo.

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This Happened

This Happened — July 28: World War I Begins

World War I started on this day in 1914, with the outbreak of hostilities following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary.

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This Happened

This Happened—November 11: The End Of The War To End All Wars

Updated November 11, 2023 at 12:00

After Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia for the assassination of Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a series of diplomatic failures transformed a relatively inconsequential tragedy into the catalyst for two large Alliances of world powers to go to war in the largest conflict the world had ever seen. On this day, after 20 million deaths, World War I ends.

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LGBTQ Plus

LGBTQ+ International: Argentine Trans Icon Murder, Fleeing Russia, Bad Bunny Kiss — And The Week’s Other Top News

Welcome to Worldcrunch’s LGBTQ+ International. We bring you up-to-speed each week on a topic you may follow closely at home, but can now see from different places and perspectives around the world. Discover the latest news on everything LGBTQ+ — from all corners of the planet. All in one smooth scroll!

This week featuring:

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Geopolitics
Anna Akage

A Ukrainian In Belgrade: The Straight Line From Milosevic To Putin, And Back Again

As hostilities flare again between Serbia and Kosovo, the writer draws connections between the dissolutions of both the USSR and Yugoslavia, and the leaders who exploit upheaval and feed the worst kind of nationalism.

-Analysis-

At high school in Kyiv in the late 1990s, we studied the recent history of Yugoslavia: the details of its disintegration, the civil wars, the NATO bombing of Belgrade. When we compared Yugoslavia and the USSR, it seemed evident to us that if Boris Yeltsin or Mikhail Gorbachev had been anything like Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, bloody wars would have been unavoidable for Ukraine, Belarus, and other republics that instead had seceded from the Soviet Union without a single shot being fired.

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Fast forward to 2020, when I visited Belgrade for the first time, invited for a friend's wedding. Looking around, I was struck by the decrepit state of its roads, the lack of any official marked cabs, by the drudgery, but most of all by the tension and underlying aggression in society. It was reflected in all the posters and inscriptions plastered on nearly every street. Against Albania, against Kosovo, against Muslims, claims for historical justice, Serbian retribution, and so on. A rather beautiful, albeit by Soviet standards, Belgrade seemed like a sleeping scorpion.

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Geopolitics
Alexander Demchenko

In The Balkans, Russia Is Already Busy Rekindling The Ugly Past

Even with no end in sight to the war in Ukraine, Russia may be plotting to destabilize the Balkans by the end of this year. The target? Bosnia and Herzegovina, which may be already close to splitting.

The eyes of the world may be on Ukraine, but Russia may be also planning to destabilize the Balkans as early as this year. The Foreign Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bisera Turković, warned that the plan for a breakaway Republika Srpska, one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, may start this autumn. Bosnia and Herzegovina was founded after the breakup of Yugoslavia 1992 after a referendum that was boycotted by the majority of Bosnian Serbs. Serbs are an overwhelming majority in Republika Srpska.

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Ideas
Tatjana Đorđević Simić

Novak Djokovic Could Wind Up As A Puppet Of Serbia's Nationalists

The Serbian tennis star is neither a victim nor a heavy, writes Serbian journalist Tatjana Đorđević Simić. But back home in Serbia, he is a hero who risks to turn in to a puppet of Serbia's nationalistic government.

In a video circulating from Serbia's public broadcaster RTS, a young Novak Djokovic is asked by an interviewer what his dream in life is. He doesn't hesitate: to become No. 1 tennis player in the world. Djokovic was only seven years old at the time.

"As a boy I often dreamed of playing at Wimbledon," Djokovic once said. He has played it, and won it six times. In his career so far, he has won all the other major tournaments, 20 Grand Slams in total.

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