Month: December 2018

NATO is expected to activate its program of advice and assistance for Bosnia-Herzegovina this week — a step in the Balkan country’s path to join the military alliance. …

Vladimir Medinsky has been one of the most vocal defendants of “Panfilov’s 28 men,” a Soviet wartime legend largely debunked by historians. …

Al-Shabab and pro-Islamic State militants in Somalia are engaged in an economic war, and it is the country’s business sector that is getting cut down in the crossfire. Somali businessmen and analysts say the rival Islamist groups are targeting companies to an unprecedented degree with demands for so-called taxes. Al-Shabab has already strong-armed business owners …

Read more “In Somalia, Businesses Face ‘Taxation’ by Militants”

Embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May has just eight days before the House of Commons votes on a contentious deal that would have Britain locked in a customs union with the European Union for several years while it negotiates a more permanent, but vaguely defined, free-trade settlement with its largest trading partner. In the temporary …

Read more “May’s Brexit Deal Appears Doomed in House of Commons”

The Pentagon says a fourth soldier has died from wounds suffered last week in a roadside bomb blast in eastern Afghanistan. Sgt. Jason Mitchell McClary died Sunday at the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. He was 24 years old and from Export, Pennsylvania. Three other service members were killed in the explosion last Tuesday near …

Read more “Fourth US Soldier Dies From Wounds in Afghanistan Blast”

During a visit to Pristina, EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn has urged Kosovo’s government to revoke a recent decision to impose a 100 percent tariff on imports from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. …

The chief of Britain’s foreign intelligence service will warn the Kremlin on Monday not to underestimate the West after a brazen nerve agent attack on a retired double agent in England stoked fears about Russian covert activity abroad. In his second major speech since being named in 2014 to head the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, …

Read more “UK Spy Chief to Tell Russia: Don’t Underestimate West”

Pierre Buyoya, Burundi’s former president, on Sunday dismissed as politically motivated an arrest warrant issued against him for his alleged participation in the assassination of his country’s first democratically elected leader. On Friday, Burundi’s attorney general issued 17 international arrest warrants for Buyoya and former senior military and civilian officials suspected of involvement in the …

Read more “Ex-Burundi Leader Rejects Warrant for His Arrest as Tactic”

Dancer and comic actor Ken Berry, who starred in two iconic U.S. television series, has died at 85. No cause of death was immediately announced. Berry was a stage and Broadway performer known for his athletic dance routines when he turned to comedy in the 1960s. He is best known as the clumsy Captain Wilton …

Read more “US TV Sitcom Star Ken Berry Dies at 85”

Lawmakers representing Kosovo’s ethnic Serb minority are refusing to leave the parliament building in Pristina to protest a 100-percent tax on products imported from Serbia. …

One Russian cosmonaut and two astronauts from the United States and Canada are set to board the first manned mission to the International Space Station (ISS) since an aborted launch in October. …

British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson has called on the public to report suspicious activity near army sites after a Russian TV crew prompted an alert at a highly sensitive military facility, the Daily Mail newspaper reports. …

The U.S. military said it killed nine militants in an airstrike targeting al Shabaab in Lebede, Somalia, as part of its operations to support the government’s efforts to weaken the militant group. The military’s Africa Command (Africom) said the strike was carried out Friday. “We currently assess this airstrike killed nine militants with no civilians …

Read more “US Military: Airstrike Kills 9 Militants in Somalia”

U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday he will give formal notice to the U.S. Congress soon to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), giving six months for lawmakers to approve a new trade deal signed Friday. “I will be formally terminating NAFTA shortly,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way …

Read more “Trump Ready to Terminate NAFTA”

U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday he is likely to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in January or February and that three sites for their second meeting are under consideration. “We’re getting along very well. We have a good relationship,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on his return from a G-20 …

Read more “Next Trump-Kim Meeting Likely Early Next Year”

The White House says U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, have agreed on a 90-day cease-fire to their mounting trade war, as the world’s two biggest economies try to avert further escalation. The White House said in a statement December 1 that Washington had also agreed not to raise tariffs on Chinese …

Read more “Trump, Xi Agree On Tariff Cease-Fire, As Trade Talks Continue”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he and U.S. President Donald Trump briefly discussed the recent naval confrontation in the Black Sea between Ukrainian and Russian naval ships. Putin gave few details of the conversation, which happened December 1 on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Argentina. “We spoke in passing. I …

Read more “Putin Says He And Trump Briefly Discussed Ukraine Naval Confrontation”

The U.S. defense secretary strongly criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of deceit involving a key Cold War-era arms control treaty, and acting recklessly in last week’s naval confrontation with Ukraine. …