The spectre of a second war in Europe looms large with tensions extraordinarily high in Kosovo
They move efficiently down the mountain paths and through the brush.
The Kosovo police are reasserting their authority in these northern territories after gunmen stormed the village of Banjske in the valley below.
The attack, by more than thirty heavily armed ethnic Serb paramilitaries in late September was the worst explosion of violence in this nascent state for many years.
Pic: Alex Rossi
Pic: Alex Rossi
The siege lasted many hours and cost the life of one police officer – it also raised the spectre that another Balkan conflagration may be simmering below the surface of what for many had been a period of relative calm.
The reasons behind the uprising are disputed and point to the complications that are knitted into the fabric of life here, it also means there’s no room for complacency.
What is undeniable is that tensions remain extraordinarily high and the spectre of another war in Europe looms large, ringing alarm bells in Brussels and across the Atlantic in Washington DC.
The government in Kosovo claims that the attack was orchestrated in Belgrade. They point to the heavy weapons the paramilitaries used – they could, they argued, only have been obtained through ties to the state.
The Kosovo prime minister, Albin Kurti, appears visibly outraged and frustrated during an interview with Sky News. He’s demanding the international community takes a harder line with his Serbian neighbour.
Kosovan Prime Minister Albin Kurti
“They deny because they are playing with Putin‘s playbook in Donbas. Little green men in northern part of Kosova. Not that little, but green men for sure, who wanted to start a war and divide Kosova,” he says.
The antecedents of this latest round of violence run deep. But the peace in Kosovo is undoubtedly fragile. It’s a complex patchwork of ethnicities and divided communities.
In Mitrovica, the closest city to Banjske, the splits are visible.
Read more:
Why have tensions flared up between Kosovo and Serbia and why are British troops being sent there?
The divided town of Mitrovica.
On one side of the river, Kosovan Albanians, and on the other, Serbs – both communities fly their flags proudly and both sides have very different views about what should happen. It’s like two nations living under one roof, in a microcosm.
They are united in their concern about where all this could be leading.
Milos Gvozdic, an ethnic Serb, is clear: “We don’t want war or something else, we just want to be calm here, we need peace or something like that.”
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Why British troops are going to Kosovo?
Biondina Muzliukaj, an ethnic Albanian, is also fearful.
“For us it’s not easy to know that we cannot freely go to the north side, work there, we know that it’s our place, we know that it’s our city, but because of the tensions and because we are afraid that something can happen to us we cannot really freely move in that area.”
Mitrovica. Pic: Alex Rossi
In Serbia, there’s also frustration at events. The government denies it had any role in the violence. It claims that it was an act of resistance to hardline nationalist policies which they claim are causing fear amongst the minority ethnic Serb population.
But President Aleksandar Vucic says he knows why this is happening.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic
“Everybody can understand, because those people were mainly expelled from their thresholds. Many of them were shot by Kosovo police, even kids, 11 years old, and no one was held accountable for that.”
It is hard to see a way out at the moment. Mediation talks by the EU have broken down and they’re unlikely to resume during this present period of crisis.
Mitrovica. Pic: Alex Rossi
Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008 after a bloody war in the late 1990s.
But Serbia and most ethnic Serbs living here have never recognised its independence. And that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
For the moment though, more British peacekeepers have been drafted in under the NATO umbrella to stop another eruption of violence.
World
Thai prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra sacked for ethics violation after leaked phone call
Thailand’s prime minister has been sacked after a leaked phone call with a senior Cambodian politician caused outrage.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who was Thailand’s youngest PM, has been dismissed from office by the country’s Constitutional Court after only a year in power.
The court found Ms Shinawatra, 39, violated ethics in a leaked June telephone call, during which she appeared to kowtow to Cambodia’s former leader Hun Sen as the bordering countries were on the verge of an armed conflict.
She also criticised a Thai army commander – a taboo move in a country where the military is extremely influential.
Fighting erupted weeks later and lasted five days. At least 35 people were killed and more than 260,000 were displaced.
Ms Shinawatra, who was new to politics when she took office in August last year, apologised over the call and said she was trying to avert a war. She was suspended in July.
Ms Shinawatra arriving at Government House in Bangkok ahead of the verdict on Friday. Pic: Reuters
She is now the fifth Thai PM from, or backed by, the billionaire Shinawatra family to be removed by the military or the judiciary in 17 years, amid a battle for power between the country’s warring elites.
The ruling thrusts Thailand into more political uncertainty at a time of public unease over stalled reforms and a stuttering economy.
Speaking after the court’s decision, the exiting PM said “all sides” in Thai politics now “have to work together to build political stability and to ensure that there won’t be another turning point again”.
The focus will now shift to who will replace Ms Shinawatra.
Her influential, billionaire father, Thaksin Shinawatra, who also once served as Thailand’s PM, is expected to be at the heart of a flurry of bargaining to keep the ruling Pheu Thai party in power.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
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The leader of the main opposition People’s Party has called for the next prime minister to dissolve parliament once they are installed.
The deputy PM, Phumtham Wechayachai, and the current cabinet will act as government caretakers until a new leader is elected by parliament. There is no time limit on when that must take place.
After all those raised hopes of peace, Ukraine has been hit by the second-worst night of Russian air attacks since the war began.
So much for diplomacy, despite the Alaska summit, then the Washington DC meeting.
The Kremlin says it was aiming at military targets, but yet again, the pictures tell a very different story.
Follow latest: UK summons Putin’s ambassador
Firefighters work at the site of a burning building after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine. Pic: AP
One civilian building after another was hit, more than a dozen people were killed, and British Council and EU buildings were also damaged.
So what’s going on? Why is Vladimir Putin doing it?
Because he can.
The Russian president thinks he’s winning this war, and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that he’s using diplomacy to play for time while he carries on beating down the Ukrainians’ will to win.
And at the moment, no one is stopping him
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At least 14 killed in Kyiv attack
Ukraine is hitting back, particularly at Russia‘s oil installations, more of them going up in thick black smoke, after being hit by long-range Ukrainian drones.
It is taking a heavy toll on Putin’s ‘Achilles heel’, but on its own, analysts don’t expect it will be enough to persuade him to end this war.
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British Council building hit in Kyiv
The West can wring its hands in condemnation.
But it’s divided between Europe that wants a ceasefire and much more severe sanctions, and Donald Trump, who, it seems, does not – strangely always willing to sympathise with the Russians more than Ukraine.
He’s back to blaming Ukraine for starting the war, saying earlier in the week that Kyiv should not have got into a war it had no chance of winning.
It is a grotesque perversion of history. Ukraine, of course, had no choice but to fight to defend itself when it was invaded in an act of unprovoked aggression.
Every time the US president has condemned Russia for these kinds of attacks, he has never followed through and done nothing to punish them.
Rescue workers carry an injured woman after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine. Pic: AP
More worryingly for the Ukrainians, the Russians are getting the upper hand in the drones war, taking Iranian technology and souping it up into faster-moving drones that the Ukrainians are having increasing difficulty bringing down.
They expect as many as a thousand drones a night coming their way by the winter, and many, many more innocents to die.
Next week, Putin will join Chinese and North Korean leaders in a summit in Beijing, both supporting his war in Ukraine.
(L-R) Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un. Pics: Reuters
Read more from Dominic Waghorn:
Ukrainians warn they’re in danger of losing drone arms race
We are further away from peace now than we were two weeks ago
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
A war that began as one man’s mad idea has, in three and a half years, metastasised into a titanic struggle between east and west, fought increasingly with machines in a dystopian evolution of war.
If Mr Trump is not prepared to use his power to bring this war to an end, what will another three and a half years of his presidency bring?
It is a chilling question.
World
Boy, 8, and girl, 10, killed in US Catholic school shooting named – as father brands attacker ‘a coward’
The families of two children killed in the US Catholic school shooting have said their “hearts are broken” and branded the attacker a “coward”.
Fletcher Merkel who was eight and 10-year-old Harper Moyski were killed during mass at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
Eighteen other people were injured, including children aged between six and 15 and three adults in their 80s.
Police said Robin Westman, a male born as Robert Westman, opened fire with a rifle through the windows of the school’s church as children sat in pews.
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New details released of US school shooting
‘Our hearts are broken’
Harper’s parents, Michael Moyski and Jackie Flavin, remembered her as “a bright, joyful, and deeply loved 10-year-old whose laughter, kindness, and spirit touched everyone who knew her”.
“Our hearts are broken not only as parents, but also for Harper’s sister, who adored her big sister and is grieving an unimaginable loss. As a family, we are shattered, and words cannot capture the depth of our pain,” their statement said.
They urged leaders and communities to “take meaningful steps to address gun violence and the mental health crisis in this country.”
“Change is possible, and it is necessary – so that Harper’s story does not become yet another in a long line of tragedies,” the statement added.
The family of Fletcher Merkel said there was a ‘hole in our hearts’. Pic: Family handout/AP
‘Fletcher loved his family’
In a statement reported by Sky’s US partner network NBC News, Fletcher’s father Jesse Merkel blamed the “coward” killer for why the boy’s family can’t “hold him, talk to him, play with him, and watch him grow into the wonderful young man he was on the path to becoming”.
He said: “Fletcher loved his family, friends, fishing, cooking, and any sports that he was allowed to play.
“While the hole in our hearts and lives will never be filled, I hope that in time, our family can find healing.”
Mr Merkel also praised “the swift and heroic actions of children and adults alike from inside the church”.
“Without these people and their selfless actions, this could have been a tragedy of many magnitudes more. For these people, I am thankful,” he added.
Families and loved ones reunite at the scene after the shooting. Pic: Reuters
Mayor calls for assault weapon ban
It comes after Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey called for a statewide and federal ban on assault weapons, a day after the deadly school shooting.
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Minneapolis mayor urges assault weapons ban
“Thoughts and prayers are not going to cut it. It’s on all of us to see this through,” the mayor said at a news conference. “We need a statewide and a federal ban on assault weapons.
“We need a statewide and a federal ban on high-capacity magazines. There is no reason that someone should be able to reel off 30 shots before they even have to reload.
“We’re not talking about your father’s hunting rifle gear. We’re talking about guns that are built to pierce armour and kill people.”
Meanwhile, Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara gave an update on the investigation, saying the suspect had fired 116 rifle rounds into the church.
“It is very clear that this shooter had the intention to terrorise those innocent children,” he added, before saying the killer “fantasised” about the plans of other mass shooting attackers and wanted to “obtain notoriety”.
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Thomas Klemond, interim CEO of Minneapolis’s main trauma hospital Hennepin Healthcare, said at an earlier news conference that the hospital was treating nine patients injured in the shooting.
One child at the hospital was in a critical condition, he added.
Children’s Minnesota Hospital also said that three children remain in its care as of Thursday morning.
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