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TOPIC: serbia

Geopolitics

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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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 — August 26: Mother Teresa Is Born

Mother Teresa was born on this day in 1910.

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The Widest Europe: The Meaning Of Moldova In The Face Of Russian Aggression

Europe's leaders are in Moldova as tensions increase with Russia and in Kosovo. The summit is already making an impact as Europe pushes back against Russian interference.

-Analysis-

CHISINĀU One should never underestimate the power of symbols. All of Europe has gathered on Thursday in Moldova, just a few kilometers away from the separatist region of Transnistria, where Russian troops are stationed . The Balkan countries, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and of course, Ukraine, are present as well.

The European Political Community (EPC) is an unprecedented entity launched last year on a French proposal and currently in its second summit. No one knows for sure yet what the future holds for the EPC, but everyone benefits from its informal nature, allowing for valuable exchanges at a crucial moment for Europe.

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The summit comes at an opportune time, as a crisis has erupted between Kosovo and Serbia, leading to the deployment of NATO reinforcements following street clashes. The issue at hand is the appointment of ethnically Albanian mayors in Serbian neighborhoods, a misstep by Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti, which has drawn criticism from NATO allies .

The summit has already made an impact, as the Kosovar Prime Minister mentioned the possibility of holding new local elections in the tense areas. His intention was to try to defuse the crisis before Thursday's summit. Yesterday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he would meet with the Kosovar Prime Minister alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz . That’s what summits are for!

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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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In The News
Lisa Berdet, Lila Paulou, Anne-Sophie Goninet and Bertrand Hauger

End Of Mariupol Siege, Tripoli Clashes, Looking For Mars Life

👋 Bonjour!*

Welcome to Tuesday, where Russia declares victory in Mariupol as the 82-day siege ends, Biden’s administration lifts some Trump-era restrictions on Cuba and NASA’s rover starts digging around for life on Mars. Meanwhile, America Economia explains how blockchain technology could take the cannabis business to an all-time high.

[*French]

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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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LA STAMPA
Camilla Cupelli

A New Calais? Migrant 'Jungle' Forms On Serbia-Croatia Border

Migrants have begun to live in an informal camp 70 miles from Belgrade, hoping to start a new life westward in Europe.

ŠID — After the Serbian government shut down an official migrant center in this town on the Croatian border, an informal camp arose next to the train station. Locals were quick to start calling it "the Jungle," a reference to the sprawling makeshift camp in Calais , France that had long been a decrepit home to thousands of migrants seeking to cross the English Channel.

More than 100 people have been stuck here since the border was closed in the autumn of 2016, taking shelter in the railway tracks and an abandoned factory nearby. In the last few weeks, many have left on a new route to the European Union through Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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LA STAMPA
Rita Rapisardi

Inside Belgrade's Migrant Camps


New waves of migrants, including Syrian war refugees, seek to reach the gates of Europe at the Hungarian border.

BELGRADE — It's still dark at 5 a.m near the railway station in the Serbian capital . The streetlights are on but the roads are quiet. A half hour later, everything changes as the camped-out migrants awaken, and dozens of migrants quickly get up, take their sheets and clear the way for the commuters arriving at the train station.

The new day brings with it the race for some free electricity, and behind a small café five young men huddle around an adapter plugged into a wall socket. The smartphones are everything for a migrant in a faraway place: a direct line to loved ones they've left behind at home and the source of all the information they need to proceed, including addresses and maps.

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Migrant Lives
Benoît Vitkine

Macedonia, The New Nightmare For Migrants

Thousands of asylum seekers are passing through the small Balkan nation on their way to the European Union, but the short journey is far more arduous than it seems.

KUMANOVO — On Macedonia's roads, in the parallel world of migrants, a good pair of shoes is as valuable as hard cash. Last month, in Athens, Najib Mahmoudi bought a great pair, top-notch basketball shoes to match his standing as a celebrity, at least among his fellow Afghans.

Najib became a national idol in Afghanistan after winning the 2007 season of Afghan Star, the country's most popular TV singing competition. Compatriots who see him here in this forgotten corner of Europe regard Najib with a mixture of respect and amusement.

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Hungary
Marie Maurisse, Maryline Baumard, Joëlle Stolz, Alain Salles

Cracks In Schengen As Europe Builds Walls Against Migrants

From Hungary to Switzerland, fortifications are rising in the heart of Europe, where the once-heralded borderless zone is being diminished by the day.

GENEVA — The Hungarian government announced plans earlier this month to build a 175-kilometer-long, four-meter-tall barrier along its border with Serbia. Ostensibly for protection, the project is yet another barricade built at the edges of the European Union , where the foundations of the borderless Schengen Area are weakening by the day.

Faced with the growing difficulty of leaving Greece by sea or air, migrants are choosing the long land route through the Balkan peninsula to reach the Schengen Area. As we near its 30th anniversary, tensions between member states are intensifying. In France , Austria and Switzerland, the specter of closing borders to keep out migrants is rearing its ugly head.

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blog

Eurovision 2015 Contestants: Serbia

When it first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest as an independent country — and not part of Yugoslavia or with Montenegro as it used to — in 2007, Serbia actually won, for the first time. Fairly promising for the future. But since then, the country has unfortunately not managed to repeat the performance, finishing 6 th , 13 th , 14 th , 3 rd the following years, and not even bothering to participate in 2014 because, you know, austerity.

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