December 23, 2020 Eurasia, Middle Orient
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 …
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December 21, 2020 Balkans, Eurasia
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 …
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December 21, 2020 Balkans, Eurasia
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.
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December 21, 2020 Balkans, Eurasia, Middle Orient, Turkey
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 …
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December 21, 2020 Balkans, Eurasia
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.
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December 21, 2020 Eurasia
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 …
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December 21, 2020 Balkans, Eurasia
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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December 21, 2020 Eurasia, Middle Orient
The assassination of Iran’s top military commander, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, raises a lot of questions about what an all-out war between the United States and Iran might look like.
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December 21, 2020 Eurasia
The Islamic State’s deadly assault on one of the last remaining Sikh temples in Afghanistan this week was a grim reminder of how much more devastation lies ahead as the U.S. drawdown continues.
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December 21, 2020 Afghanistan, Eurasia, South East Asia
After more than a month of negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government, progress toward a peace agreement remains slow.
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