In 2018, veteran Palestine solidarity campaigner and Jewish anti-Zionist Tony Greenstein was expelled from the Labour Party after being smeared as an anti-Semite. As has been seen so often during Labour’s manufactured anti-Semitism crisis, the charges cited by party lawyers referred not to actual “anti-Semitism”, but to legitimate criticism of …
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Pakistan returns $1 bln of Saudi Arabia's loan over Kashmir dispute
Pakistan has returned $1 billion to Saudi Arabia as a second instalment of a $3 billion soft loan, as Islamabad reaches out to Beijing for a commercial loan to help it offset pressure to repay another $1 billion to Riyadh next month, officials said on Wednesday according to a report …
Read More »China bails out Pakistan for repayment of debt to Saudi Arabia
China has agreed to bail out Pakistan by providing it with $1.5 billion to help to repay a $2 billion debt to Saudi Arabia, according to the Express Tribune.
Read More »Trump pardons Blackwater contractors jailed for massacre of Iraq civilians
Four guards fired on unarmed crowd in Baghdad in 2007, killing 14 and sparking outrage over use of private security in war zones Donald Trump has pardoned four security guards from the private military firm Blackwater who were serving jail sentences for killing 14 civilians including two children in Baghdad …
Read More »Albanians Search Anxiously for Youngsters Arrested in Street Protests
Parents of the youthful protesters arrested during the latest anti-government rallies are hunting in police stations across Tirana for their children – some accusing the police of making arbitrary arrests. Emin Basha, uncle of Ibrahim Basha, a police officer killed on duty while fighting drug lords in southern Albania four …
Read More »Last Despatches: News Team Killed the Day After Kosovo War Ended
It was June 13, 1999, and Uli Reinhardt, a photojournalist from the German news magazine Stern was due to meet his colleague Gabriel Gruener at 6pm in the southern Kosovo city of Prizren.
Read More »With Arms Deals and Donations, Turkey Steps up Balkan Influence
Turkey has long pursued a policy of soft-power diplomacy in the Balkans. More recently, the defence sector has come to the fore. When, in the midst of a reignited war over the Caucasus mountain region of Nagorno-Karabakh, President Aleksandar Vucic said Serbia was considering buying Turkish armed drones, it was …
Read More »Kosovo Truth Commission’s Future in Doubt After Thaci’s Indictment
President Hashim Thaci set in motion the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Kosovo – but after he was charged with war crimes, it’s unclear whether any other political leader has the will to push the idea forward.
Read More »DEMOCRACY DIGEST: BATTLE OF THE BUDGET HAS POLAND AND HUNGARY CLAIMING VICTORY
Poland and Hungary declare victory in their fight with Brussels over a plan to make EU funds conditional on upholding the rule of law. But the mechanism is still coming in. Central European leaders headed to the summit of EU leaders in Brussels buoyed by a compromise plan to end …
Read More »Balkan States Race to Secure COVID-19 Vaccine Supplies
As the countries of the Balkans strive to secure sufficient supplies of COVID-19 vaccine, many questions remain unanswered – how much will there be, when will it start and what will it all cost? With UK grandmother Margaret Keenan becoming the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech …
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