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Former US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell Explains How Jack Smith Nearly Rekindled Conflict in the Balkans to Get Trump Richard Grenell was one of the Donald Trump administration’s brightest stars. The former spokesman to the UN in the George W. Bush administration, Grenell was named ambassador to Germany in 2018, and in 2020 became acting director of National Intelligence where he declassified information that helped expose the Department of Justice’s anti-Trump plot. Lesser known is the role that Grenell played mediating between once warring sides in the Balkans as special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations. And...

Russia supports Kosovo's Serbian population and believes their legal rights and interests must be protected, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday. Peskov also said Moscow was following with concern the unrest in Kosovo, which has increased sharply since ethnic Albanian mayors took office in the country's northern Serb-majority area after votes last month. "We support Serbia and the Serbs unconditionally... We consider that all legal rights and interests of the Kosovo Serbs must be observed," Peskov told a daily news briefing, adding that there must be no room for "provocative actions". Serbs refused to take part in the local...

Topline Novak Djokovic has been warned by sporting authorities against making political statements at the French Open, the latest controversy for the Serbian tennis star after he weighed in on ethnic tensions between Serbia and Kosovo amid rising ethnic tensions in the region.

NATO peacekeeping soldiers formed security cordons around three town halls in Kosovo on Monday as police clashed with Serb protesters, while Serbia's president put the army on the highest level of combat alert. The tense situation developed after ethnic Albanian mayors took office in northern Kosovo's Serb majority area after elections the Serbs boycotted. In Zvecan, one of the towns, Kosovo police - staffed by ethnic Albanians after Serbs quit the force last year - sprayed pepper gas to repel a crowd of Serbs who broke through a security barricade and tried to force their way into the municipality building,...

NATO has condemned as "totally unacceptable" attacks by demonstrators in Kosovo that left some 25 of its peacekeepers injured. Police and NATO troops clashed with Serb protesters in the north where there has been unrest over the installation of ethnic Albanian mayors. Tear gas and stun grenades were used to deter protesters in Zvecan, after they tried to invade a government building. NATO soldiers also formed a security cordon around two other town halls... The NATO-led troops in Zvecan at first tried to separate protesters from the police, but later dispersed the crowd using shield and batons, AFP reported. Several...

(Video of the riot in the Kosovo region by the Serbian minority against Albanian rule the local police and US led KFOR troops getting beaten up)

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg called on Kosovo to tone down tensions with Serbia on Sunday, two days after clashes between Kosovan police and protesters who are opposed to Albanian mayors taking office in ethnic Serbian areas. Stoltenberg, the transatlantic military alliance's Norwegian secretary-general, said he had spoken to European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell about Kosovo and that Pristina and Belgrade must engage in the EU-led dialog. "Pristina must de-escalate & not take unilateral, destabilizing steps," Stoltenberg said in a tweet. Serbs, who form the majority of the population in Kosovo's northern region, do not accept its 2008 declaration...

...In multiple interviews, Macgregor has confidently predicted that the conflict will end with Russia "annihilating" Ukrainian forces and winning the war. One such interview, with Carlson, was aired on Russia's state-controlled TV. ..."The battle in eastern Ukraine is really almost over, all of the Ukrainian troops there have been largely surrounded and cut off. You have a concentration down in the Southeast of 30 or 40,000 of them, and if they don't surrender in the next 24 hours, I suspect Russia will ultimately annihilate them." Macgregor added that he believed Zelensky needed to "negotiate the best deal he can get,"...

A tentative, EU-brokered deal between Serbia and Kosovo this week to normalise relations marks a quiet victory for the West as it vies with Russia for influence in Belgrade. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year ago, pro-Moscow sentiment has spilled into Serbia's streets. T-shirts with the letter Z, a symbol of Russia's campaign, are sold as souvenirs while far-right groups openly tout support for Russia. President Aleksandar Vucic, trying to pull off a tricky balancing act between Serbia's deep cultural and religious ties with Russia on the one hand and European Union ambitions and a NATO partnership on...

This is just a 16 second video clip to give you an indication of how serious things may be getting between Kosovo and Serbia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPwa-dXog5Y

The Serbian army says it is at its "highest level of combat readiness" after weeks of escalating tensions between Serbia and Kosovo. President Aleksandar Vucic says he will "take all measures to protect our people and preserve Serbia". The sabre-rattling is louder than ever and follows media claims that Pristina is preparing "an attack" on ethnic Serb areas in north Kosovo. The government in Pristina has made no comment about the allegations. But it has previously accused Mr Vucic of playing "games" to stir up trouble.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic dispatched the army chief on Sunday night to the border with Kosovo, General Milan Mojsilovic himself announced, as strained relations between the two countries were exacerbated by recent blockades. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but Belgrade refuses to recognise the move and encourages the remaining 120,000 Serbs to defy Pristina's authority. .... Shots fired near NATO forces in northern Kosovo as tensions remain high - report https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/shots-fired-near-nato-forces-in-northern-kosovo-as-tensions-remain-high-report/ar-AA15ECsM

12 people are now reported dead in the Buffalo, New York area (Erie County) because of a blizzard... Six people dead and two hurt when a bus went off a bridge and into an overflowing river... 43 Chinese warplanes flying across the median line in the Taiwan Strait coming close to Taiwan. This happened in a 24-hour period. In all Taiwan tracked 71 warplanes and seven ships from China in its vicinity... In Kosovo tonight the NATO military force KFOR denies any fighting between it and Serbs in Kosovo... Israel grounding its F-35I fighter jets... "Of course we'll take them...

The situation in Kosovo is "on the brink of armed conflicts", Serbian prime minister Ana Brnabic said Wednesday, amid mounting tensions in former Belgrade province's volatile north. "We have to give our best, all of us together, to try to keep the peace. We are really on the brink of armed conflicts, thanks to unilateral moves from Pristina," Brnabic said during a meeting with Serbian NGOs. Ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence in 2008, but Belgrade still does not recognise it and encourages the territory's Serbs to defy Pristina's authority. Hundreds of ethnic Serbs, outraged over the arrest of an ex-police...

There have been skirmishes between armed ethnic Serb protesters and Kosovo police. The reason is that a while ago, Kosovo ordered that drivers surrender Serbian-issued license plates and replace them with Kosovo plates. On Dec. 10, Serbs living in northern Kosovo started erecting barricades. Kosovo residents confronted them, and Kosovo police blocked the border checkpoints. A traffic jam ensued, and so did a small shootout, including the use of a stun grenade. The shooting has died down but the threats have mounted. A shootout over license plates may seem excessive, but this is the Balkans. It is a relatively small...

Tonight in the Balkans tensions high where Serbs have set up barricades in northern Kosovo... An axe attack tonight in France... In the Australian state of Queensland six killed including two police officers in a siege... Police in the Bahamas arresting Sam Bankman-Fried... In Germany the "Walk" protests (Spaziergang) continue against government COVID, Economic and Russia policies... In Israel today opposition forces fiercely opposing the attempt of Benjamin Netanyahu's majority in Parliament to name a new Speaker... Meanwhile the Religious Zionist parliament member and National Security Minister Designate Itamar Ben-Gvir is demanding a key post on a committee that advances...

Kosovo’s Prime Minister urged NATO peacekeeping troops to intervene after minority Serb protesters blocked roads and unknown gunmen exchanged fire with police over the weekend amid rising ethnic tensions in the country’s restive north.... ...Vucic demanded the release of recently arrested Kosovo Serbs “as they are held on trumped-up charges” and the pullout of Kosovo police, in line with an EU-brokered agreement that stipulates consent of Serb mayors in the area for that. “Kosovo police has nothing to do in the north…especially people armed…up to their teeth,” Vucic said. “That causes uneasiness and fear among the Serb population.” Belgrade and...

Tensions in the Balkan territory of Kosovo tonight with the majority Muslim administration sending police into the Serbian populated northern regions... Protest in Odessa, Ukraine where residents of one neighborhood have been without electricity for five days... President Trump dropping a lawsuit... The US House passing that "Respect for Marriage Act" creating a legal framework for same-sex marriage... Israel's COVID czar recommending wearing masks indoors... French President Emmanuel Macron appearing masked in public today... In the UK an American woman linked to the US intelligence community sentenced in the vehicular death of Harry Dunn... The Prisoner Swap Between Russia And...

The so-called "referendums" of 4 Ukrainian regions are coming to an end. Information has already appeared in the official Russian media that laws on the admission of new territories to the Russian Federation will be adopted within the next few days after the announcement of the results. But what will happen next? Naturally, in any situation there are several options for development. 1. The most likely one is that Putin will start waving a "nuclear club" and demand the withdrawal of the Armed Forces from the territory of these regions. First of all - Donetsk and Lugansk. Parts of the...

"Are you for the withdrawal of the Zaporozhye region from Ukraine, the formation of an independent state by the Zaporozhye region and its entry into the Russian Federation as a subject of the Russian Federation?" — it was these words (with one syntactic error in the Russian-language version and one grammatical error in the Ukrainian-language version) that turned the topic of "referendums" in the "new Russian territories" from the senseless chatter of journalists and political strategists into the menacing roar of a nuclear apocalypse. It is pointless to talk about the legal side of "referendums" in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and...