For most experts, deflation is bad news since it generates expectations for a continued decline in prices, leading consumers to postpone the purchases of present goods, since they expect to purchase them at lower prices in the future. Consequently, this weakens the overall flow of current spending and this, in …

As a rule of thumb, all dictators are worried at the end of their rule about the future and who will grip power after them. Their attempts are geared towards somehow putting their children in their place in order to continue their rule. This is also true of Ali Khamenei, …

While Europe shows compassion to refugees from Ukraine, those from outside Europe face the same obstacles to get to the West as before – as BIRN found out on a nighttime visit to a forest in northern Serbia. If you didn’t know the context, it might look like a rave …

With political will and the right incentives, a number of Balkan states could provide Ukraine with significant Soviet-made weaponry in its fight against Russia. From T-72 tanks to BMP infantry fighting vehicles, Mi-24 gunships to Strela anti-aircraft missiles, the countries of the Balkans have a lot to offer when it …

Moscow is busy selling its own version of the war in Ukraine to Bosnian citizens – cynically using analogies with the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica to justify its invasion and destabilize Bosnia at the same time. “There were literally bodies on the streets. Some of them had just been shot, …

The EU’s proposed oil embargo on Russia causes more rifts within the V4. The European Commission’s latest planned sanctions to punish Russia has highlighted once again how the war in Ukraine is exacerbating differences between the Visegrad Four group of countries. Poland has been long calling for a ban on …

If government instability, public polarisation and a Russian gas cut-off was not enough, 2022 has also brought Bulgaria a new political party sympathetic to the Kremlin. usted as defence minister for refusing to call Russia’s Ukraine war a ‘war,’ on May 5 Stefan Yanev unveiled Bulgarian Rise as Bulgaria’s third …

Nearly three years after U.S.-backed forces in Syria seized the last remaining territory held by Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate, members of the global coalition charged with eradicating the terror group warn their task is not getting any easier. Despite IS’s loss of several key leaders and intelligence that suggests a …

The attack comes two months after the IRGC launched ballistic missiles at what it said was an Israeli base in Erbil. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has shelled an area in Erbil in neighbouring Iraq, targeting positions it said were held by “terrorist groups”. The IRGC ground forces launched …

The holder of the highest seat in the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, said that the West is partly to blame for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, the Pope said “that barking of NATO at the door of Russia” has pushed …