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A George Soros-backed prosecutor in Virginia mistakenly freed a man charged with murder who was apprehended the following day in Georgia. The office of Loudoun County prosecutor Buta Biberaj (D.) on Thursday dropped second-degree murder charges in general district court for 25-year-old Stone Colburn, who last year was accused of stabbing his brother’s girlfriend to death. Biberaj’s office dropped charges in an effort for the Loudoun County Circuit Court to declare Colburn mentally fit to stand trial. Biberaj said the district court was on the verge of committing him to a mental hospital.

The leaders of nine NATO nations from Central and Eastern Europe issued a joint statement on Sunday in support of Ukraine's path to membership in the alliance. "We firmly stand behind the 2008 Bucharest NATO Summit decision concerning Ukraine’s future membership," the presidents of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Poland, Czechia, Romania, North Macedonia, and Slovakia said on Sunday. At that 2008 summit, NATO allies said they "welcomed" Ukraine and Georgia's aspirations to the join the alliance, though no clear timetable has ever been announced.

Under the leadership of His Eminence Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro of blessed memory, hundreds of thousands of Orthodox faithful took to the streets in Montenegro throughout 2020 in regular cross processions and prayers in defense of their holy sites, which the anti-Orthodox government was trying to seize from the Church. Now the faithful are mobilizing against another threat—the LGBTQ agenda which stands against their traditional family values in Montenegro. On Friday, October 7, His Grace Bishop Metodije of Budimlja and Nikšić led a moleben for the sanctity of marriage and the preservation of the family on the plateau in front...

Charles McGonigal, the former head of counterintelligence at the FBI field office in New York City who was involved in the investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia during the 2016 election, has fallen under the scrutiny of a grand jury convened by U.S. attorneys late last year for his own ties with Russia and other foreign governments, reports Insider. The grand jury is reportedly investigating McGonigal’s business dealings with a top aide to Oleg Deripaska, the billionaire Russian oligarch who was at the center of allegations that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign, according to a recently obtained...

At government headquarters in NATO member Montenegro, computers are unplugged, the internet is switched off and the state's main websites are down amid a massive cyberattack that officials say bears the hallmark of pro-Russian hackers and its security services.

Vladimir Putin has approved a 31-page "humanitarian policy" which says Russia should "protect, safeguard and advance the traditions and ideals of the Russian World". The foreign policy concept of a "Russian World" is a notion that hardliners have used to justify intervening abroad to support Russian speakers, such as in parts of Ukraine. It means that the idea is now enshrined in official policy, though it was presented as a soft power strategy. The new policy stated that Moscow should further deepen its ties with the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic - two breakaway entities in...

Žarko Pejanović, champion of Montenegro in lying down The 12th lying down competition, traditionally organized by the Ethno village of Montenegro in Brezni, has ended. The title of the most relaxed was won by Žarko Pejanović, known as "Knele" from Zabjela. After approximately 60 hours of lying down, the title of the biggest champion in lying down goes to Zabjelo! Of the nine contestants who took part in this year's competition, the finalists Žarko Pejanović from Zabjela and Vuk Koljenšić from Danilovgrad fought for the title. As it was previously unofficially announced, there were negotiations on the division of the...

A man went on a shooting rampage in the streets of this western Montenegro city Friday, killing 10 people, including two children, before being shot dead by a passerby, officials said. Montenegrin police chief Zoran Brdjanin said in a video statement shared with media that attacker was a 34-year-old man he identified only by his initials, V.B. Brdjanin said the man used a hunting rifle to first shoot to death two children ages 8 and 11 and their mother, who lived as tenants in the attacker’s house in Cetinje’s Medovina neighbourhood. The shooter then walked into the street and randomly...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Western weaponry pouring into Ukraine helped blunt Russia’s initial offensive and seems certain to play a central role in the approaching, potentially decisive, battle for Ukraine’s contested Donbas region. Yet the Russian military is making little headway halting what has become a historic arms express. The U.S. numbers alone are mounting: more than 12,000 weapons designed to defeat armored vehicles, some 1,400 shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to shoot down aircraft and more than 50 million rounds of ammunition, among many other things. Dozens of other nations are adding to the totals. The Biden administration is preparing yet...

That stark warning followed the release of a “draft treaty” proposal from Moscow that Russian officials portray as a resolution to the standoff, which has intensified as Russian forces amass near Ukraine's borders. Yet the Russian document demands not only that NATO promise never to admit Ukraine to the alliance, but it also goes so far as to demand the removal of U.S. and Western European forces from Central and Eastern Europe — a rollback that would amount to a practical breakup of NATO. “It’s not even valid to consider it,” a Baltic official told the Washington Examiner on condition...

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PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP) — Montenegro has registered the first same-sex partnership in the staunchly conservative country that is striving to join the European Union, authorities said Sunday. The announcement is seen as a major step forward for the LGBT community in Montenegro, which has suffered harassment and isolation in the past. The strongly patriarchal nation last year passed a law allowing same-sex partnerships as part of reforms needed to move closer to EU membership. Government Minister Tamara Srzentic says she is proud that the law has been used. “Today is an important day for the LGBTQ community in Montenegro,” Srzentic...

Montenegro is a tiny nation Balkan nation across the Adriatic Sea from Italy, nestled between Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, and Croatia, and with a population roughly the size of Vermont’s. It’s in deep trouble because a past government, using a $1 billion loan from a Chinese state bank, entered into a deal with a Chinese state-owned construction company to build a 270-mile-long highway. Now, with only 25-miles extending from nowhere to nowhere built, the debt is coming due and Montenegro has no money with which to pay it. Montenegro’s troubles are waking Europe to the way China has inveigled...

The European Union will not help Montenegro pay off its almost €1bn loan from China. The western Balkan state borrowed the Beijing money to build a highway, which has since turned into one of the world's most expensive roadworks. Unable to pay off the debt, the Financial Times reported Montenegro had asked the European Union to step in. But a European Commission spokesperson on Monday (12 April) told reporters there is no chance of that happening. "We are not repaying the loans they are taking from third parties," said spokesperson Peter Stano. Stano said every country is free to do...

A widening investigation into allegations of high-level corruption on the island of Malta, first levelled by murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, stretches to China and a $400 million investment into Europe by a Chinese state power company, Reuters has found. Caruana Galizia was murdered in October 2017 as she investigated a web of companies that she believed were funneling bribes to Maltese politicians. Now, Reuters and a consortium of journalists have traced two firms involved in that web to relatives of a senior Chinese executive for Accenture, the global consultancy firm. The executive, 43-year-old Chen Cheng from Shanghai, negotiated investments...

His Eminence Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro (Serbian Orthodox Church) and his concelebrating clergy were detained by police yesterday, Sunday, April 12, after celebrating Liturgy for the Great Feast of Palm Sunday at a monastery in Zlatica, a suburb of the capital city of Podgorica. Several priests were also detained after celebrating Liturgy in the city’s Cathedral of the Resurrection, although no parishioners were present for the service. According to the Montenegrin outlet Vijesti, the hierarch and his clergy were taken by police to a security center in Podgorica to gather information about a “gathering of people in front of religious...

PODGORICA (Reuters) - Perched atop massive cement pillars that tower above Montenegro’s picturesque Moraca river canyon, scores of Chinese workers are building a state-of-the-art highway through some of the roughest terrain in southern Europe. The government has described the 165 km (103 mile) highway, with its imposing bridges and deep-cut tunnels, as the construction of the century and a pathway to the modern world. It is designed to link the port of Bar on Montenegro’s Adriatic coast to landlocked neighbor Serbia. But once the first, challenging 41 km stretch through mountains north of the capital is completed, the government faces...

Once again, Donald Trump has raised questions about America’s commitment to NATO, this time in an interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson. Carlson asked a variation of the typical question about American military commitments overseas: Why send our kids to fight in obscure foreign lands? Membership in NATO obligates the members to defend any other member that’s attacked. So let’s say Montenegro, which joined last year, is attacked. Why should my son go to Montenegro to defend it from attack?

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona lashed out at President Donald Trump on Wednesday for Trump's recent comments about NATO's collective defense obligations. In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday evening, in response to a question by host Tucker Carlson, Trump echoed Carlson's concerns about whether the U.S. should defend a small country like Montenegro if it were to come under attack. McCain, who is known to be hawkish on Russia, accused Trump of toeing the Kremlin line. “The people of #Montenegro boldly withstood pressure from #Putin’s Russia to embrace democracy. The Senate voted 97-2 supporting its accession to...

Four Russian diplomats will be banned from Greece after evidence revealed Russia was trying to foment opposition to a historic deal between Greece and Macedonia that is likely to pave the way for Macedonia’s Nato membership and so weaken Russian influence in the western Balkans. Russia, involved in a wider struggle for influence with the EU across the region, has already been accused of backing a failed coup in Montenegro in 2016. Russia said it would respond to the Greek expulsions by taking similar steps against Greek diplomats in Moscow. The expulsion of the diplomats, revealed in the Greek media...