NATO allies met yesterday hoping to calm Russian fears over their missile shield project, but US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton angered Moscow by criticizing its parliamentary elections.
Clinton is joining her 27 alliance counterparts in Brussels for two days of talks that will also touch on the Afghan war amid tensions with Pakistan after a NATO air strike on the Afghan border last month killed 24 Pakistani troops.
They will then meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today to tell him the missile shield will go ahead, but that NATO still wants to negotiate a cooperation deal with Moscow, alliance diplomats said.
A diplomat said NATO wants to “calm things down” after Russia activated a radar warning system in its enclave of Kaliningrad on the EU’s borders last week, days after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened to deploy missiles there.
“Some of President Medvedev’s recent comments about NATO’s missile defense system reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the system,” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen wrote in Russia’s Kommersant newspaper on Tuesday.
The Russian threats “reflect the rhetoric of the past,” Rasmussen said.
While he was pleased that Medvedev did not shut the door on dialogue, Rasmussen indicated that NATO would continue to refuse to provide legal guarantees that the system does not threaten Russia.
Western officials insist that the missile shield is aimed at countering Iran.
NATO and the US have sought to improve ties with Russia since US President Barack Obama took office in 2009.
However, Clinton irked Russia by voicing “serious concerns” about the parliamentary elections, and calling for allegations of fraud and vote-rigging to be investigated.
“As we have seen in many places, and most recently in the Duma elections in Russia, elections that are neither free nor fair have the same effect,” Clinton said in Lithuania on Tuesday.
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
Counting was under way in Nepal yesterday, after a high-stakes parliamentary election to reshape the country’s leadership following protests last year that toppled the government. Key figures vying for power include former Nepalese prime minister K. P. Sharma Oli, rapper-turned-mayor Balendra Shah, who is bidding for the youth vote, and newly elected Nepali Congress party leader Gagan Thapa. In Kathmandu’s tea shops and city squares, people were glued to their phones, checking results as early trends flashed up — suggesting Shah’s centrist Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) was ahead. Nepalese Election Commission spokesman Prakash Nyupane said the counting was ongoing “in a peaceful manner”
RSS