Month: December 2018

U.S. President Donald Trump has urged Serbia and Kosovo to secure a “historic” deal that would bring “long-sought” peace to the Balkan region — a sign that Washington is willing to take a more active role in mediating between the two wartime foes. The office of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Thursday published a letter he received from Trump, in which the U.S. president says, “I encourage you to seize this moment and to exercise the political leadership in making decisions needed to balance the interests of both countries.” “It would be extremely regrettable to miss this unique opportunity for …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed support for a surprise White House decision to pull 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria, calling their presence there illegitimate and an impediment to peace in the region. Addressing a record 1,700 journalists at his 14th annual end-of-year marathon press conference Thursday, Putin said he agreed with President Donald Trump’s assessment that Islamic State had largely been defeated on the ground in Syria. “Donald is right, I agree with him [about that],” he said, stating that radical militants still holding small parts of northern Syria had suffered at least a “serious blow” over the past …

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A large number of rare and collectable whiskies, sometimes sold for hundreds of thousand of pounds, are likely to be fake, researchers have found. Investigators from the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre used carbon-dating to sample 55 bottles of Scotch bought through the secondary market, discovering that 21 were outright fakes or not distilled in the year declared, Rare Whisky 101, which commissioned the study, said. The sale of rare collectors’ whiskies is more and more popular, and this October a 60-year-old The Macallan Valerio Adami 1926 was sold for record 848,750 pounds ($1.08 million) at auction. Researchers look at …

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The charity Doctors Without Borders says the medical and health needs of the Yemeni population are being overshadowed and neglected by the almost single-minded focus on a looming famine in the country. Doctors Without Borders Program Manager Charles Gaudry has just returned from three weeks in Yemen. He said he was particularly struck by the extent of the needs of the population, which is paying the highest cost of more than three years of war. He said they are victims of direct violence with thousands killed and wounded by airstrikes, shootings and shelling. While this has taken a heavy toll …

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The European Commission says it has started to implement plans for a no-deal Brexit — in preparation for Britain crashing out of the European Union without a withdrawal deal — which would dislocate manufacturers’ supply chains, disrupt air-travel, and gridlock busy seaports on both sides of the English Channel. With just 100 days to go before Britain’s scheduled departure on March 29, the Conservative government of Theresa May is also accelerating arrangements for a chaotic “no-deal Brexit,” ordering all ministries to shelve non-essential business and to divert staff to focus on contingency planning. Both the British government and Brussels are …

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The Trump administration is slapping more sanctions on Russian officials and entities for election interference and what the Treasury Department calls other “malign activities.” They include the alleged assassination attempt by poison of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain. “The United States will continue to work with international allies and partners to take their collective action to deter and defend against sustained malign activity by Russia, its proxies, and intelligence agencies,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday. Among those sanctioned are 15 military intelligence agents and four government entities, including the Internet Research Agency. A new report …

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More than 750 million people, or 15 percent of the world’s population, would move permanently to other countries if given the opportunity, and the same percentage are not deterred by talk in a number of political circles about curbing immigration. These are the findings of a recent Gallup poll, which looked at the desire by people around the world to migrate. Gallup found that the desire to go to another country permanently climbed between 2015 and 2017. This marked an increase of one percent from the period spanning 2013 to 2016. Gallup conducted interviews with close to half a million …

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The U.N. Secretary-General on Wednesday welcomed the formal adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration at the General Assembly. “The compact is a non-legally binding agreement that reaffirms the foundational principles of our global community, including national sovereignty and universal human rights, while pointing the way toward humane and sensible action to benefit countries of origin, transit and destination as well as migrants themselves,” Antonio Guterres said in a statement. There are 250 million migrants worldwide, many traveling at great peril and at the hands of smugglers or traffickers.  The General Assembly voted 152 in favor, …

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Leaders from Iran and Turkey are scheduled to hold talks Thursday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he was withdrawing American forces from Syria because they defeated Islamic State militants in the country.     Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit with Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara could worsen U.S.-Turkish relations, which have been strained recently over Ankara’s threat to attack a Syrian Kurdish militia that is a key U.S. ally in the fight against IS.    How the U.S. will remain engaged in the region following the troop pullout remains unclear, but a White House statement called the withdrawal …

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