Новини

The stone steps leading into the medieval church where Serbian Orthodox worshipers enter are worn. In the half-light of the interior, some pilgrims reverentially lean on or drape themselves across the tomb of King Stefan Dečanski, considered by Serbs a “holy monarch.”

Others light candles. One young woman has dozens of tapers in her hand, lighting each one slowly and methodically after a brushing kiss and a silent prayer.

Many of the pilgrims have driven six hours from Belgrade to pray this Sunday in one of the most revered Serbian Orthodox churches, the 14th century Visoki Dečani. For many Serbs, Visoki Dečani is a besieged church, surrounded as it is by Kosovar Albanians and located deep in the territory of Kosovo, the former province that broke away from Serbia in 1999 after a U.S.-led NATO intervention brought a year-long ethnic war to a halt.

“We have had a very hard time since the last Kosovo conflict,” said Father Sava Janjic, Visoki Dečani’s abbot.

“Last” seems an appropriate word, hinting at the possibility of more conflict to come.

And taking the long, historical view, it is not hard to imagine that sometime in the future, monks at Visoki Dečani will again hear the fearsome echo of war raging around them.

The church has been plundered over the centuries by Ottoman troops, Austro-Hungarian soldiers, and during World War II, it was targeted for destruction by Albanian nationalists and Italian fascists. During the Kosovo War, the final one in a series of Balkan wars in the 1990s, the church was attacked five times. In May 1998, two elderly Albanians were killed 400 meters from its walls reportedly by the Kosovo Liberation Army for allegedly collaborating with Serbian forces.

“This is one of the most politically turbulent areas in Europe. The Balkans have always been on the crossroads of civilizations and invasions,” said Fr. Sava.

As he talked with VOA, soldiers from the NATO-led Kosovo Force of peacekeepers patrolled the grounds – as they have done every day since the war’s end.

“Since 1999, we have had three mortar attacks and one RPG (rocket-propelled grenade), bazooka attack. Thank God no particular damage was made and nobody was hurt,” said Fr. Sava. A strong advocate of multi-ethnic peace and tolerance, he likes to think of the church as “a haven for all people of goodwill.” During the war, the church sheltered not only Serbian families but also Kosovar Albanians and Roma.

He added, “I’m still trying to believe that the majority of Kosovar Albanians don’t harbor negative feelings toward us. But very often we are seen just as Serbs. This church is seen as something alien here, as a kind of threat to the new Kosovo identity.”

Now he worries about whether Serbia and Albania can put conflict behind them.

Serbs and Kosovar Albanians remain at odds over Kosovo, and the jigsaw puzzle of the Balkans map isn’t helping them.

The presidents of Serbia and Kosovo are considering border changes in a bid to reach a historic peace settlement which, if sealed, could advance their countries’ applications to join the European Union and, for Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, secure U.N. membership. More than 100 countries recognize Kosovo as an independent state, but not Serbia. The EU has said it will not consider advancing accession talks until Belgrade and Pristina have made up.

Most EU leaders have long opposed any Balkan border changes, fearing any tweaks large or small might spark a return of ethnic violence.

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton recently indicated that Washington could entertain the idea of border changes.

The U.S. ambassador to Greece, Geoffrey Pyatt, appeared more cautious about a land-swap deal, but kept the door open. In an interview with VOA, Pyatt said, “There are no blank checks.” “What we have been very clear on is that this process needs to be locally-owned and locally-driven and we are supporting European Union efforts to see progress.”

Under the land-swap deal, the Serbian border would be extended south to include Serbs in Kosovo’s north and some majority ethnic Albanian areas in Serbia would be traded in return by Belgrade. That would not help the majority of Serbs in Kosovo, who are spread across the south and west of the country.

Fr. Sava worries a land-swap deal, if pulled off, would amount to ‘peaceful’ ethnic cleansing. “Land swaps, where the majority of Kosovo Serbs would not just be left in majority-Albanian territory but also probably be forced to leave, would be very unjust,” he said.

Ultranationalists on both sides reject land swaps.

Serbia’s main opposition leader, Vojislav Šešelj, dismissed land transfers. “What are we talking about? Kosovo is just part of Serbia,” He told VOA. Kosovo is being illegally occupied, he said, due to assistance from the West, and especially the U.S.

“We are not exchanging the land,” Šešelj said. “They can only have the highest level of autonomy. We will not recognize their independence.”

Šešelj, a onetime deputy to Serbia’s wartime leader Slobodan Milošević, was found guilty by the U.N. court of crimes against humanity for instigating the deportation of Croats from the village of Hrtkovci in May 1992. He argues Serbs and Albanians cannot possibly live together and that they should be in separate communities. “Albanian ones in Kosovo could be allowed some self-administration rights,” he added.

Earlier in September, Kosovo Albanian nationalists led by veterans of the 1998-1999 war disrupted a planned two-day visit by Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, to Kosovo by blocking roads and burning tires. Their action showed how inflammatory the whole issue can easily become. Banje, the village west of the capital, Pristina, that Vučić planned to visit was the scene of the first crackdown by Serbian troops against ethnic Albanian separatists in 1998, which triggered the outbreak of open hostilities.

“All the wars in the former Yugoslavia were focused on territory and division, and to continue with the idea of territory is dangerous and will inflame nationalistic passions,” warned Nataša Kandić, a Serbian human rights campaigner and Nobel Peace prize nominee.

Fr. Sava harbors the same fear. “We still see people who are drawing up maps, and these maps in the 1990s became actually the killing fields. Do we still need it now?” he asked. “I am just trying to be hopeful that politicians see the risk of going into this story again.”
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Swedish lawmakers have ousted Prime Minister Stefan Lofven in a mandatory confidence vote.

Tuesday’s vote comes in the aftermath of the September 9 parliamentary elections, when the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats won 62 seats, with the ruling center-left Social Democrats winning 144 seats and the center-right Alliance coalition 143 seats, creating a hung parliament.

The Social Democrats and the Alliance have both ruled out joining forces with the Swedish Democrats to form a ruling coalition. Lofven will remain prime minister in a caretaker role until a new government is formed.

Sweden, like most of Europe, has been hit by an influx of asylum seekers, who are fleeing from the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. The rising tide of immigrants has polarized voters and fractured a once cozy political consensus.

 
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The five remaining parties to the Iran nuclear deal have agreed to establish a special payment system to allow companies to continue doing business with the regime, bypassing new sanctions imposed by the United States.

Envoys from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran issued a statement late Monday from the United Nations announcing the creation of a “Special Purpose Vehicle” that will be established in the European Union. The parties said the new mechanism was created to facilitate payments related to Iranian exports, including oil. 

Federica Mogherini, EU’s foreign policy chief, told reporters after the deal was announced that the SPV gives EU member states “a legal entity to facilitate legitimate financial transactions with Iran…and allow European companies to continue to trade with Iran in accordance to European Union law and could be open to other partners in the world.”

Mogherini said the financial agreement is also aimed at preserving the agreement reached in 2015 with Iran to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for relief from strict economic sanctions. The deal was reached under then-President Barack Obama, but Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, pulled out of the accord in May of this year, saying it didn’t address Tehran’s ballistic missile program or its influence in the Middle East.
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Greece are using drones to buzz over boats running day trips on the Aegean at the start of a new effort aimed at cracking down on rampant tax evasion at holiday hotspots.

With the black economy by some accounts representing about a quarter of national output in a country which depends hugely on tourism, Greek authorities are turning to high-tech to stamp out undeclared earnings.

Finance ministry tax inspectors and the coast guard launched the drones project on Santorini, an island highly popular with tourists, to check on whether operators offering short day trips were issuing legal receipts to all their passengers.

Based on data from the drones, authorities were able to establish how many passengers were on board, then cross-referenced it with declared receipts and on-site inspections.

“We used the drones for the first time on an experimental basis to monitor how many tourists were on board,” said an official at the Independent Authority for Public Revenue. “The results were excellent”, he added.

Nine tourist vessels checked were alleged to have not issued a number of receipts, totalling about 25,000 euros ($29,460).

Their owners now face fines.

Tourism is a much-needed motor of growth and tax revenue for the economy, accounting for about a fifth of Greek gross domestic product.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday he expected to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in New York as Washington expressed concern at Moscow’s plans to supply the S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Syria.

“I’m sure Sergei and I will have our time together,” Pompeo said of plans to meet Lavrov on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

“We are trying to find every place we can where there is common ground, where we can work with the Russians,” adding that there were many areas where Moscow was working against the United States and “we will hold them accountable.”

Russia announced on Monday it will supply a S-300 missile system to Syria in two weeks despite strong Israeli objections, a week after Moscow blamed Israel for indirectly causing the downing of a Russian military plane in Syria.

The White House said it hoped Russia would reconsider the move, which U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton called a “significant escalation” of the seven-year war.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Helsinki, Finland in July and Bolton and his Russian counterpart met in August.

However, U.S.-Russian relations remain at their lowest point in decades, in part over differences in Syria, Ukraine and U.S. allegations Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election.

The United States has already imposed economic sanctions on Moscow over the election. Moscow denies any interference.
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Charities operating the Mediterranean rescue ship Aquarius on Monday urged European governments to help the vessel find a new flag to sail under after Panama revoked its registration, and they asked France to let its passengers disembark in Marseille.

Panama’s move to cancel the registration of the Aquarius, now sailing towards the southern French port with 58 migrants on board, means there will be no charity rescue ships operating off the Libyan coast in the near future.

“This a call to European countries,” Francis Vallat, head of the SOS Mediterranee charity, told reporters in Paris.

“The tragedy we’re facing is a European problem,” Thomas Bischoff, another SOS Mediterranee executive, said. “Italy’s European partners are guilty by remaining silent.”

The charity has accused Rome of putting pressure on Panama to revoke the Aquarius’s registration, but Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said it had done no such thing.

A public backlash over the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants in the past five years has fuelled a swing towards far-right parties in many countries in Europe, and helped bring Italy’s anti-establishment ruling coalition to power earlier this year.
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The European Union sued Poland on Monday in the EU’s highest court over the ruling party’s changes to the judiciary, which the bloc believes violate the independence of the courts.

“The European Commission maintains that the Polish law on the Supreme Court is incompatible with EU law as it undermines the principle of judicial independence, including the irremovability of judges,” the EU’s executive Commission said.

The new Polish law lowers the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 70 to 65 years, putting 27 out of 72 sitting judges at risk of being forced to retire. The mandate of the head of the Supreme Court would be prematurely terminated.

The Commission asked the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice to suspend the application of the law until it reaches a verdict to prevent the forced retirement of the judges and the appointment of new ones.

The Commission requested the injunction because the new Supreme Court judges are appointed by the National Council for the Judiciary, which, after the changes introduced by the ruling, eurosceptic PiS party, is composed of PiS-appointed nominees.

The loss of independence by the National Council for the Judiciary was the reason why Poland was suspended last week from the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary (ENCJ).

Poland’s situation echoes that of Hungary, which the European Parliament sanctioned earlier this month for flouting EU rules on democracy, civil rights and corruption.

“Poland is ready to defend its legal and constitutional position before the ECJ,” government spokeswoman Joanna Kopcinska told the Polish press agency PAP.

The Polish government said it would comment on the lawsuit once it gets the relevant documents from the Commission, but noted that only a binding ruling of the European Court of Justice could make it change legislation.

Diplomats in Brussels said Europe ministers of other EU countries would hold a hearing on Oct. 16 at which Warsaw would be asked to explain its actions on the judiciary.

EU ministers held similar hearings in June and September, each time concluding that they were not satisfied with Poland’s explanations.
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The United Nations, the World Bank and the International Committee of the Red Cross are partnering with technology powerhouses to launch a global initiative aimed at preventing famines.

“The fact that millions of people — many of them children — still suffer from severe malnutrition and famine  in the 21st century is a global tragedy,” World Bank President Jim Young Kim said announcing the initiative.

The global organization will work with Microsoft, Google and Amazon Web Services to develop the Famine Action Mechanism (FAM), a system capable of identifying food crisis area that are most likely to turn into a full-blown famine.

“If we can better predict when and where future famines will occur, we can save lives by responding earlier and more effectively,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a statement.

The tech giants will help develop a set of analytical models that will use the latest technoligies like Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to not only provide early warnings but also trigger pre-arranged financing for crisis management.

“Artificial intelligence and machine learning hold huge promise for forecasting and detecting early signs of food shortages, like crop failures, droughts, natural disasters and conflicts,” Smith said.

According to the U.N. and World Bank, there are 124 million people experiencing crisis-level food insecurity in the world today.

FAM will be at first rolled out in five countries that “exhibit some of the most critical and ongoing food security needs,” according to the World Bank, which didn’t identify the nations. It will ultimately be expanded to cover the world.
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Spain’s maritime rescue service said Sunday it rescued more than 400 people from 15 small boats, most of them off the country’s southern coast, while humanitarian groups lamented that the sole private rescue boat operating near the deadly central Mediterranean human trafficking route risked being put out of action by Italy’s anti-migrant leaders.

While the Spaniards pulled 447 people to safety on Saturday in the western part of the sea, two humanitarian groups which operate the last private rescue vessel in the central Mediterranean, considered the deadliest route for trafficked migrants, said Panama had yanked the ship’s registration following Italian complaints.

Panama’s maritime authority said in a statement that it has begun procedures to remove the registration of Aquarius 2 after Italy complained the boat’s captain failed to follow orders. It said Italy contends that the captain of Aquarius 2 defied instructions to return migrants to Libya that it had rescued from unseaworthy vessels launched by Libyan-based traffickers.

But SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders, the humanitarian groups jointly operating Aquarius 2, say violence-wracked Libya doesn’t meet international standards for safe harbor. On Sunday, they asked European governments to reassure Panama that Italy’s contentions are unfounded or issue a new flag so Aquarius 2 can keep operating.

Right-wing Interior Minister Matteo Salvini won’t let private rescue boats dock in Italy.

In a statement Sunday, the two non-governmental organizations alleged that Italy had forced the Panamanians to revoke the registration “under blatant economic and political pressure from the Italian government,” which has vowed to stop arrivals in Italian ports of migrants saved by private rescue boats.

Italy’s right-wing, anti-migrant interior minister, Matteo Salvini, denied that allegation in a tweet Sunday night, saying “no pressure at all on Panama for the Aquarius 2. I don’t even know Panama’s area code.”

The Panama Maritime Authority said it was acting after the “principal complaint came from Italian authorities” about the ship’s captain. It also noted that maritime authorities in Gibraltar over the summer took Aquarius 2 off its registry and had requested that it suspend its operations.

The two humanitarian groups in response said they “demand that European governments allow the Aquarius to continue its mission, by affirming to the Panamanian authorities that threats made by the Italian government are unfounded, or by immediately issuing a new flag under which the vessel can sail.”

Nearly 300 migrants have died in waters separating Spain and Africa so far in 2018, according to the United Nations, and over 1,600 have died this year trying to cross the Mediterranean, as departures in smugglers boats from Libya’s coast to Italy have sharply declined this year compared to previous years, after the Italian authorities began cracking down on the rescue boats.

But U.N. refugee agency officials say the central route from Libya is by far the deadliest for migrants smuggled by sea.

A recent spike in migrant arrivals in Spain has strained public services, and the Spanish government has faced further pressure since Italy refused to let humanitarian boats dock with migrants they have rescued from the sea.

Aquarius 2 was carrying 58 migrants it rescued in the last few days, and where they would be taken was unclear Sunday night.

The U.N. refugee agency says largely lawless Libya, bloodied by a recent surge in fighting among militias, isn’t a safe harbor. Migrants returned there are brought back to detention centers, where food is scarce and beatings and sexual assault are common.

International maritime law stipulates that those rescued at sea are brought to the nearest safe harbor.

Italy, which has trained and equipped the Libyan coast guard, says that human trafficking will be discouraged by returning those rescued at sea to Libya.

The Mediterranean island of Malta has also come down hard on private rescue boats, blocking the vessels in their harbors and launching prosecutors’ probes of their crew.

In other actions against migrants, Macedonian police said they have detained 120 migrants, in two separate cases, who illegally entered Macedonia from Greece as the number of illegal crossings has significantly risen in recent months.

Police said Sunday that a border police patrol discovered 37 migrants in southern Macedonia, near the frontier with Greece. They were detained, but police gave no more details about their nationality.

In a second case, 83 migrants, 11 of them minors, and most of them Pakistanis (76), were discovered packed in a truck coming from Greece. The truck driver was detained and the migrants transferred to the reception center in the southern town of Gevgelija.

Macedonian police say they have turned back about 6,600 migrants attempting to cross the border in the first half of 2018.
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Macedonia’s president says he won’t vote in a Sept. 30 referendum on whether to change the Balkan country’s name to “North Macedonia.”

Macedonians will vote next weekend on a proposal to change the country’s name, ending a long-running dispute with neighboring Greece, which sees the use of the term “Macedonia ” as a claim on its own province of the same name.

President Gjorge Ivanov was speaking to members of the Macedonian diaspora in Detroit on Saturday. He reiterated his position that the deal with Greece is “harmful and defeating” for Macedonia, according to a statement released by his office Sunday.

Polls indicate Macedonians will likely back the deal, but it remains unclear whether turnout will meet the required 50-percent threshold for the vote to be valid.

 
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The U.S. State Department said Saturday that Washington would not wait to impose sanctions on any shippers helping to get fuel to North Korea, in

an apparent warning to Russia days after the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations accused Moscow of cheating on the measures.

North Korea continues to employ tactics to evade U.N. sanctions, Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement, adding that U.N. member states are required to prohibit ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum fuel to the country.

“The United States will not hesitate to impose sanctions on any individual, entity or vessel supporting North Korea’s illicit activities, regardless of nationality,” Nauert said.

The 15-member U.N. Security Council has unanimously boosted sanctions on North Korea since 2006 in a bid to choke off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

But the United States and Russia have recently shown cracks in the unity of the council over the sanctions.

Washington has “evidence of consistent and wide-ranging Russian violations” of the sanctions, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said Monday.

Russia was helping North Korea illegally obtain fuel through transfers at sea, had refused to expel a North Korean whom the Security Council blacklisted last year, and had pushed for changes to an independent U.N. report on sanctions violations to cover up breaches by Russians, she said.

Russia blames Haley

Russia said after Haley’s comments that Moscow had not pressured the authors of the U.N. report, and it blamed Haley for heightening tensions.

With the warning on fuel shipments, the Trump administration signaled it was keeping pressure on Pyongyang even after saying there has been progress.

President Donald Trump this week hailed a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and said there had been “tremendous progress” with North Korea on several fronts,

including Pyongyang’s denuclearization.

Washington has tracked 148 cases this year of tankers delivering fuel to North Korea in breach of a U.N. cap of 500,000 barrels a year. Haley has not said how many of those transfers may have involved Russia.

Both Russia and China have suggested the Security Council discuss easing sanctions after Trump and Kim met in June and Kim pledged to work toward denuclearization.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday that the United States was working to set up another summit between Trump and Kim after their unprecedented meeting in Singapore, but that there was still work to do.
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Comcast beat Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox in the battle for Sky after offering 30.6 billion pounds ($40 billion) for the British broadcaster, in a dramatic auction to decide the fate of the pay-television group.

U.S. cable giant Comcast bid 17.28 pounds a share for control of London-listed Sky, bettering a 15.67 offer by Fox, the Takeover Panel said in a  statement shortly after final bids were made Saturday.

Comcast’s final offer was significantly higher than its bid going into the auction of 14.75 pounds, and compares with Sky’s closing share price of 15.85 pounds on Friday.

Brian Roberts, chairman and chief executive of Comcast, coveted Sky to expand its international presence as growth slows in its core U.S. market.

Owning Sky will make Comcast the world’s largest pay-TV operator with around 52 million customers.

“This is a great day for Comcast,” Roberts said on Saturday. “This acquisition will allow us to quickly, efficiently and meaningfully increase our customer base and expand internationally.”

Comcast, which also owns the NBC network and movie studio Universal Pictures, encouraged Sky shareholders to accept its offer. It said it wanted to complete the deal by the end of October.

Comcast, which requires 50 percent plus one share of Sky’s equity to win control, said it was also seeking to buy Sky shares in the market.

A spokesman for Fox, which has a 39 percent holding in Sky, declined to comment.

The quick-fire auction marked a dramatic climax to a protracted transatlantic bidding battle waged since February, when Comcast gate-crashed Fox’s takeover of Sky.

It is a blow to media mogul Murdoch, 87, and the U.S. media and entertainment group that he controls, which had been trying to take full ownership of Sky since December 2016.

It is also a setback for U.S. entertainment giant Walt Disney, which agreed on a separate $71 billion deal to buy the bulk of Fox’s film and TV assets, including the Sky stake, in June and would have taken ownership of the British broadcaster following a successful Fox takeover.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May’s aides have begun contingency planning for a snap election in November to save both Brexit and her job, the Sunday Times reported.

The newspaper said that two senior members of May’s Downing Street political team began “war-gaming” an autumn vote to win public backing for a new plan, after her Brexit proposals were criticized at a summit in Salzburg last week.

Downing Street was not immediately available to comment on the report.

Meanwhile, opposition Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn said Saturday that his party would challenge May on any Brexit deal she could strike with Brussels, and he said there should be a national election if the deal fell short.

The British government said Saturday that it would not “capitulate” to European Union demands in Brexit talks and again urged the bloc to engage with its proposals after May said Brexit talks with the EU had hit an impasse.

“We will challenge this government on whatever deal it brings back on our six tests, on jobs, on living standards, on environmental protections,” Corbyn told a rally in Liverpool, northern England, on the eve of Labor’s annual conference.

“And if this government can’t deliver, then I simply say to Theresa May the best way to settle this is by having a general election.”

Labor’s six tests consist of whether a pact would provide for fair migration, a collaborative relationship with the EU, national security and cross-border crime safeguards, even treatment for all U.K. regions, protection of workers’ rights, and maintenance of single-market benefits.
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