Month: September 2023

Kosovo demanded Saturday that Serbia withdraw its troops from their common border, saying it was ready to protect its territorial integrity.   Tensions between the two countries have been high since last Sunday when Kosovo police fought around 30 heavily armed Serbs who stormed the Kosovo village of Banjska and barricaded themselves in a Serbian Orthodox monastery. Three attackers and one police officer were killed.  The gunbattle prompted new international concern over stability in Kosovo, which has an ethnic Albanian majority and declared independence from Serbia in 2008 after a guerrilla uprising and a 1999 NATO intervention.  “We call on …

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In pockets of Europe’s Alpine mountains, glaciers are abundant enough that ski resorts operate above the snow and ice. Ski lifts, resorts, cabins and huts dot the landscape — and have done so for decades. But glaciers are also one of the most obvious and early victims of human-caused climate change, and as they shrink year by year, the future of the mountain ecosystems and the people who enjoy them will look starkly different. Glaciers — centuries of compacted snow and ice — are disappearing at an alarming rate. Swiss glaciers have lost 10% of their volume since 2021, and …

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Pope Francis created 21 new cardinals at a ritual-filled ceremony Saturday, including key figures at the Vatican and in the field who will help enact his reforms and cement his legacy as he enters a crucial new phase in running the Roman Catholic Church. On a crisp sunny morning filled with cheers from St. Peter’s Square, Francis further expanded his influence on the College of Cardinals who will help him govern and one day elect his successor: With Saturday’s additions, nearly three-quarters of the voting-age “princes of the church” owe their red hats to the Argentine Jesuit. In his instructions …

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Voters in Slovakia cast ballots Saturday in an early parliamentary election that pits a populist former prime minister who campaigned on a pro-Russia and anti-American message against a liberal, pro-West newcomer. Depending on which of them prevails, the election could reverse the small eastern European country’s support for neighboring Ukraine in the war with Russia, threatening to break a fragile unity in the European Union and NATO. Former Prime MInister Robert Fico, 59, and his leftist Smer, or Direction, party have vowed to withdraw Slovakia’s military support for Ukraine in Russia’s war, if his attempt to return to power is …

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Editor’s note: Here is a look at immigration-related news around the U.S. this week. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com. What Happens to Immigration if US Government Shuts Down? With congressional leaders gridlocked over the nation’s budget and the deadline to pass spending bills fast approaching, the federal government could shut down on October 1. And that could affect some immigration services and visa programs. If the federal government closes, only essential personnel will be working. All other federal workers will not be allowed to work. So how will that affect immigration in the U.S.? VOA’s Immigration …

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How do you cook a meal when a staple ingredient is unaffordable?  This question is playing out in households around the world as they face shortages of essential foods like rice, cooking oil and onions. That is because countries have imposed restrictions on the food they export to protect their own supplies from the combined effect of the war in Ukraine, El Nino’s threat to food production and increasing damage from climate change.  For Caroline Kyalo, a 28-year-old who works in a salon in Kenya’s capital of Nairobi, it was a question of trying to figure out how to cook …

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Dozens of people from around the world lined up on a sunny morning this week in front of a former mental health hospital in Berlin to apply for asylum in Germany. There were two older women from Moldova. A young man from Somalia sat next to them on a bench. A group of five young Pakistanis chatted loudly, standing behind two pregnant women from Vietnam. The newcomers are among more than 10,000 migrants who have applied for asylum in the German capital this year, and are coming at a time when Berlin is running out of space to accommodate them. …

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The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced Friday a bipartisan resolution calling for the immediate release by Russia of two American detainees, Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan. The resolution, co-sponsored by 27 senators, focuses on the continuing detention of Gershkovich, 32, a Wall Street Journal reporter, who was arrested on March 29 in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg on espionage charges that carry up to 20 years in prison. A Moscow court declined Gershkovich’s latest appeal Tuesday of his pre-trial detention. Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive, has been imprisoned in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges that his family and …

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The United States called on Belgrade to pull its forces back from the border with Kosovo on Friday after detecting what it called an unprecedented Serbian military buildup. Serbia deployed sophisticated tanks and artillery on the frontier after deadly clashes erupted at a monastery in northern Kosovo last week, the White House said. The violence in which a Kosovo policeman and three Serb gunmen were killed marked one of the gravest escalations for years in Kosovo, a former Serbian breakaway province. “We are monitoring a large Serbian military deployment along the border with Kosovo,” White House National Security Council spokesperson …

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Emergency aid efforts for tens of thousands of refugees who have fled to Armenia from the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave in Azerbaijan are gathering speed as the exodus from the disputed region shows no signs of letting up. Since Azerbaijan launched an attack on Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19, the United Nations refugee agency says, more than 88,700 refugees have arrived in Armenia, mainly in the country’s southern Syunik region. “The numbers are increasing as we speak, and the needs are also really increasing,” said Kavita Belani, UNHCR representative in Armenia, speaking in the capital, Yerevan, Friday. She said the government has registered …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin is calling up 130,000 conscripts for military service this fall, increasing the age limit of conscripts from 27 to 30, according to a document posted on the Russian government website on Friday. Russia’s lower house of parliament voted last July to raise the age for conscripts, and that legislation will take effect on January 1, 2024. Putin said earlier this month that he is bracing for a long war with Ukraine as Russia’s armed forces press on with their “special military operation” in Ukraine, now in its 20th month. Starting at the age of 18, all …

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