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United States Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis on Thursday ruled out any military collaboration between the US and Russia, saying that the conditions just aren’t correct “right now.” “We are not in a position right now to collaborate on a military level.  But our political leaders will engage and try to find common ground,” Mattis said during a news conference at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. Before military cooperation takes place, Russia must “prove itself” able to comply with international law, Mattis said. WATCH: Mattis on Russia-US relations Mattis’ comments come after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow is …

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Wrapped up in grey blankets, migrant boys, some as young as 10, warm themselves by a fire in a large, abandoned warehouse near the main railway station in Serbia’s capital Belgrade. Hungry, destitute and cold, they are often visited by Serbian men who offer to pay them for sex – knowing some are so desperate that they will do anything to survive. “They come here and target the foolish ones,” said Navid, a 16-year-old from Afghanistan, who did not wish to use his real name like other child migrants interviewed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “They ask how much money …

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Portuguese prosecutors are bringing charges of corruption, money-laundering and forgery against Angolan Vice President Manuel Vicente as part of an investigation in Lisbon, Portugal’s attorney general’s office said Thursday.   Vicente is suspected of bribing a Portuguese magistrate to favor him in two investigations, a statement said. It said Vicente was at the time of the alleged crimes the head of Angolan state oil company Sonangol.   The magistrate, Vicente’s lawyer, and his representative in Portugal are also accused in the case, called Operation Fizz.   The attorney general’s office said it would inform Vicente of the charges via Angolan …

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U.S. Vice President Mike Pence heads to Europe this week to meet with allies seeking clarity on the Trump administration’s foreign policy strategy and its stance toward Russia after the resignation of the top White House national security aide. Pence, who has hewn more closely to Republican orthodoxy than his boss President Donald Trump, will attend the Munich Security Conference this weekend and will visit Brussels. The trip comes as turmoil swirls within the administration following the resignation of Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, on Monday. Flynn, who championed closer ties to Russia, stepped down after reports he had …

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Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny did not fall into despair after a court in Kirov on February 8 upheld his guilty verdict in the Kirovles embezzlement case. The court’s ruling, which almost to the letter reiterated the verdict reached in a 2013 trial, has created a formal barrier to Navalny registering as a candidate in Russia’s presidential election, to be held in March 2018, given that Russian law bars those convicted of grave crimes from running for office. Navalny was found guilty of embezzlement and received a five-year suspended jail sentence in the Kirovles case, which he …

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The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signed into law constitutional amendments aimed at giving him sweeping new powers under an executive presidency. The reforms are deeply divisive, with supporters saying they will strengthen democracy, while critics warn of dictatorship. Turks will decide in a referendum set for April 16. Doubts over its fairness are growing among opponents of the reforms, who claim a crackdown against them already has started. Leading right-wing politician Meral Aksener recently spoke at a rally to oppose the presidential constitutional reforms. The meeting ended up being held in darkness after the electricity to the venue …

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The largest university in Kosovo has received a threat warning of attacks from Islamic State (IS), university officials said Wednesday. A threatening letter, allegedly signed by IS, was found at the campus as the University of Pristina as students and teachers prepared to mark its 47th anniversary.  The letter was found in the ceremony hall where the anniversary celebration was supposed to take place, authorities said. After receiving the threat, school officials changed the venue for the annual celebration to another campus location. “When our staff went to make the final preparations, they found a letter with an inscription [text] …

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Several thousand people have joined renewed protests in Belgrade over the shady demolition last year in an area marked for a United Arab Emirates-financed real estate project. No one has been held responsible for the nighttime destruction last April of a block of houses by a group of masked men despite repeated promises to the contrary by the government.   Carrying anti-government banners and blowing whistles, protesters marched Wednesday through central Belgrade blocking traffic. Participants have demanded the resignation of mayor Sinisa Mali.   UAE investors have been building a Dubai-style business and residential complex in the run-down urban area …

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The leadership of Serbia’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) decided on Tuesday to nominate Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic as a candidate for the presidency. The presidential election is tentatively expected in April and will pit the SNS’s candidate against those from a fragmented and bickering opposition. While the president’s role is largely ceremonial, if he also controls the parliamentary majority he could then have huge sway over the government and a new prime minister. In a live interview with state RTS TV, Vucic said he would accept the nomination to secure stability and continuity for the country, which wants to …

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Academics and students protested Tuesday outside Istanbul’s Marmara University, criticizing the latest wave of firings of scholars under emergency rule. The university saw some of its top staff fired this month, under an emergency decree that removed 330 academics nationwide, along with 4,000 civil servants. Among those dismissed is Marmara University’s internationally renowned professor Ibrahim Kaboglu, one of Turkey’s foremost constitutional law experts. “There is no reason for my sacking,” said Kaboglu, adding that “as a law person I cannot give you any reason, because every judicial process, even the tiniest one, should have a reason and justification. And as …

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One drops you, trapped and powerless, in the middle of a civil war, while the other uses humor to depict what’s it like to start a new life in Europe after escaping the same conflict. “Insyriated” and “The Other Side of Hope” are two films about Syria, and they brought tears and smiles to the Berlin Film Festival. The former is shot almost entirely inside the walls of an apartment that becomes like a prison for Oum Yazan, a mother determined to survive a war whose brutality is conveyed mostly through the sounds of bombs and sniper gunfire. “It shocked …

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Russian experts weighed in Tuesday on the resignation of Michael Flynn as White House national security adviser and its potential impact on U.S.-Russian relations. Boris Makarenko, chairman of the board of the Center for Political Technologies, a Moscow think tank, told VOA’s Russian service that Flynn’s resignation would negatively affect the reputation of President Donald Trump and his administration. “It’s his personal appointee who violated several written and unwritten rules of American politics,” he said. “Above all, it is that Flynn in a public statement lied to his immediate supervisor, and thereby set him up.” Naturally, the new administration’s detractors …

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A senior U.N. official said Tuesday that he feared the fragile cease-fire between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine would not hold. Neal Walker, the U.N. resident coordinator and humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, said that although calm had returned, the situation in eastern Ukraine remained very serious. The rebels’ renewed siege of the airport at Donetsk, which began January 21, lasted until February 3. Walker said the fighting between January 29 and February 3 was extremely intense. Walker said there were more than 40,000 violations of the cease-fire during a 10-day period, which is more violations than …

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