Europe

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Hundreds of people in Serbia spent part of a holiday weekend blocking roads Saturday to protest plans for lithium mining in the Balkan country.

The protests came a day after Orthodox Christians in Serbia and many other countries celebrated Christmas. The demonstrations took place in the capital, Belgrade, and several other locations.

Anti-mine activists have organized weekly gatherings to keep pressure on the populist government of President Aleksandar Vucic to scrap the possibility of lithium excavations in western Serbia.

07 Jan 2022; MEMO: Norway's Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), pledged to advance the UN Security Council discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a ministerial level this month, to restore its focus on this decades-long conflict, reported Wafa news agency.

Mona Juul expressed deep concern at the lack of international attention to the issues in Palestine and Israel, which has been compromised as a result of multiple other conflicts raging across the Middle East.

MOSCOW (AP) — The former head of Kazakhstan’s counterintelligence and anti-terror agency has been arrested on charges of attempted government overthrow in the wake of violent protests that the president has blamed on foreign-backed terrorists.

The arrest of Karim Masimov was announced Saturday by the National Security Committee, which Kasimov headed until he was removed this week by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

LONDON (AP) — U.K. government advisers have recommended against giving a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine to nursing home residents and people over 80 because data shows that a third shot offers lasting protection against admission to the hospital.

For people over 65, protection against hospitalization remains at about 90% three months after the third dose, according to data compiled by the U.K. Health Security Agency.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — He was once described in Washington as an anti-nationalist “breath of fresh air” in the murderous, genocide-scarred Balkan morass of ethnically divided Bosnia.

How times change.

This week Bosnian Serb political leader Milorad Dodik, now a genocide-denying secessionist, was slapped with new U.S. sanctions for alleged corruption. He responded in typical style, saying the days when the United States and other Western democracies “modeled Bosnia to their taste” are long gone.

07 Jan 2022; MEMO: More than one million people have signed an online petition asking that former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair's newly announced knighthood be rescinded.

The petition was created by Angus Scott at change.org as soon as the New Year Honours were announced on 31 December.

Scott accused Blair of causing "irreparable damage to both the constitution of the United Kingdom and to the very fabric of the nation's society."

08 Jan 2022; MEMO: Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland's ruling Conservative party Law and Justice, has admitted that his country bought Israel's notorious NSO Group's spyware, Associated Press (AP) reported on Friday.

BERLIN, Jan 7 (APP): Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain on Friday said that IIOJK presented a sad face of human tragedy, political havoc and a constant denial of human rights to generations of innocent Kashmiris by fascist Indian regime.

“Jammu and Kashmir is not a territorial dispute, but a matter of the people of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said while addressing a webinar organized by the Embassy of Pakistan, Berlin to mark the Jammu and Kashmir, Right to Self-determination Day.

BRUSSELS, January 7. /TASS/: Top diplomats of the NATO member nations have called for dialogue, diplomacy and de-escalation in relations with Russia ahead of a NATO-Russia Council meeting on January 12, the US mission to NATO said on Friday after an emergency videoconference of NATO top diplomats.

MOSCOW, January 7. /TASS/: Twelve military-transport aircraft Il-76 and An-124 carrying servicemen of the CSTO peacekeeping contingent and equipment flew from the Chkalovsky airfield in the Moscow region to Kazakhstan, an official with the Defense Ministry told reporters on Friday.

"Twelve Russian military transport aircraft Il-76 and An-124 flew from the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow to promptly deliver servicemen and airborne forces equipment to the airfields of Almaty and Zhetygen of the republic of Kazakhstan," the ministry said.