Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is willing to develop a bill that would grant special status to the two breakaway republics in the country’s south-eastern Donbass region, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during a press conference on Monday. Speaking in Kiev after a meeting with Zelensky, Scholz revealed that the Ukrainian …
Read More »China’s moves in this war-ravaged region are a tactical and strategic gambit
China kicked off 2022 with a diplomatic tour of Africa, with its Foreign Minister Wang Yi visiting Comoros, Eritrea and Kenya. While on the trip, Wang announced that China would be creating a “special envoy” for The Horn of Africa – the region of East Africa comprising Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea …
Read More »Russia advises countries bordering Afghanistan to shut out NATO forces from region after Taliban takes control after US withdrawal
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that, “we once again request that Afghanistan’s neighboring countries prevent the military presence of the US and NATO on their soil, as they plan to move in there in light of the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.” Earlier that day, in an interview …
Read More »Russia’s Kamchatka Region will choose environment over profit – governor
“We turned down the project to build a hydroelectric power station on the Zhupanova River, abandoned plans to build a fish-breeding channel for Lake Kronotskoye and a number of other projects. We consider it important to explicitly discard them if the environmental harm from [the projects] is greater than the …
Read More »Serbia inks deal with breakaway Kosovo region to end spat that featured jet flyovers and tanks at border
The recent disagreement had seen Kosovo order its police to force any cars attempting to cross the border to remove Serbian license plates, arguing that a 10-year-old deal between the nations had expired. Serbia had responded by sending military planes to fly near the border, while footage from the area …
Read More »Risk of Afghan instability ‘overflowing’ across region, Russian FM says, as Taliban insurgents gain ground following US withdrawal
Addressing a regional security conference on Friday, Moscow’s top diplomat said that “the uncertainty of the development of the military-political situation in this country and around it has increased.” “Unfortunately, in recent days we have witnessed a rapid degradation of the situation in Afghanistan … It is obvious that in …
Read More »Total shutdown of brothels in German region ‘no longer constitutional,’ court says, allowing red-light district to reopen
The High Administrative Court of Baden-Wurttemberg ruled that brothels can once again open their doors on Monday following a request filed by a brothel operator from the Karlsruhe region. According to the description of the case on the court’s website, the plaintiff argued that the coronavirus-related ban on the operation …
Read More »Famine hits Ethiopia’s Tigray region, UN humanitarian chief says, with 350,000 reportedly at risk
“There is now famine in Tigray,” the official told representatives of UN, EU and US organizations on Thursday, warning the situation may be the worst since the 2011 famine in neighboring Somalia, which killed around 260,000 people. Lowcock said things are “going to get a lot worse”, but added that …
Read More »EU pledges aid to an anti-Damascus region in the name of Syrian sovereignty but sanctions Assad government for being sovereign
Right after pledging a humanitarian-aid package of some 26 million euro on Wednesday to the Kurdish-controlled breakaway region of Northeastern Syria (NES), EU authorities on Thursday renewed punitive sanctions against the Syrian government of Bashar Assad. That same day, the Syrian leader won re-election as president in a landslide victory, …
Read More »Moscow’s troops could dominate NATO in Baltic region, top Polish general predicts… but Russia insists it’s just not interested
General Waldemar Skrzypczak, who once led the Polish Armed Forces, and more recently served as a government defense adviser, said that Russian troops could use the enclave of Kaliningrad as a staging ground for a push into Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, cutting off NATO troops, before setting its sights on …
Read More »