Month: May 2023

A senior adviser to the Biden administration and other experts say that deepening cooperation between China and Russia could overturn decades of stable international nuclear arms control. Pranay Vaddi, the U.S. National Security Council’s senior director for arms control, said that China and Russia have been deepening cooperation on key technologies for nuclear weapons while strengthening ties with Iran, according to Bloomberg. “We’re entering a different period,” Vaddi said. He told Bloomberg that during the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed to maintain a nuclear balance and limit certain types of weapons. The Cold War lasted from …

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Troops from Azerbaijan and Armenia exchanged fire with weapons including mortars and drones on their joint border Friday, killing one soldier from each side two days before top-level talks on a long-term peace deal.  It was the second straight day of exchanges of fire ahead of Sunday’s planned meeting in Brussels between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev.  One Azeri soldier died in Thursday’s hostilities.  The two ex-Soviet states have fought two wars in 30 years focusing on the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, recognized as part of Azerbaijan but populated mainly by ethnic Armenians.  In a …

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Experts from the United States and several other countries will begin working with Ukrainian counterparts within weeks to collect evidence and identify individuals involved in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine who can be prosecuted for the crime of aggression, a U.S. diplomat told VOA. VOA was told this week that the work, to be conducted by the newly formed International Center for Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression, was given the go-ahead at a meeting in Warsaw of the year-old Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group, which comprises the United States, European Union and Britain. “The United States will be sending the senior …

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European Union ministers on Friday backed reducing the bloc’s economic dependence on China but will now have to figure out how to make that a reality, foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. Borrell said foreign ministers gave broad backing to a plan to adjust policy on China to place greater emphasis on its role as a political rival, while continuing also to see Beijing both as a partner on global issues and an economic competitor. “Colleagues welcomed the paper that we presented. They agree on the basic lines of this recalibration of our strategy on China,” Borrell told reporters after …

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On Sunday, Turkey will go to the polls in what many consider the most important election in decades. Still suffering the impacts of the deadliest earthquake in centuries and facing a deep economic crisis, Turkish voters are divided between the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the main opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.  …

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A war of words is brewing between the U.S. and South Africa after the U.S. ambassador to the country said he would “bet his life” on U.S. intelligence that South African weapons were loaded onto a Russian vessel when it docked at a Cape Town naval base in December. The South African government hit back, saying that while it would investigate the matter, the U.S. ambassador’s remarks had “undermined” the relationship between the two nations. Pretoria summoned U.S. Ambassador Reuben Brigety on Friday, amid a diplomatic spat that has put relations between the two friendly nations at their lowest ebb …

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Serbian citizens have handed over nearly 6,000 unregistered weapons in the first three days of a monthlong amnesty period that is part of an anti-gun crackdown following two mass shootings last week, police said Thursday.  Police also have received nearly 300,000 rounds of ammunition and about 470 explosive devices during the same period, the Serbian Interior Ministry said on Instagram.  The effort to rid Serbia of excessive guns was launched after 17 people were killed in two mass shootings last week and 21 were wounded, many of them children. One of the shootings took place in a school for the …

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