Month: July 2022

Kosovo Political Prisoners Recall Brutal Internment on ‘Barren Island’

A new book tells the rarely-heard stories of Kosovo Albanians who were detained in grim conditions on the Croatian island of Goli Otok (Barren Island), a prison camp for political dissidents in the former Yugoslavia.

“When I arrived there, it was a very cold day and I was taken immediately to solitary confinement in a dark and frozen cell,” said Fadil Bajraktari, recalling the day in 1984 when he was sent to a detention camp on an isolated island off the coast of Croatia.

Sunny Refuge: Ukrainian Refugees Find ‘Second Home’ on Albanian Seaside

Hundreds of women and children who escaped war in Ukraine have found a welcoming place to stay on the coast of a country they knew little about before the war.

All that remains of Olha Yatsenko’s home in Irpin, a town north of Kyiv with a pre-war population of 60,000 inhabitants, are some photos of her brown-coloured furniture and white cups.

Unemployment, Prejudice Await Kosovo Returnees from Syria, Iraq

Returnees to Kosovo from former Islamic State territory in Syria and Iraq face slim prospects of finding work and only limited support from the state.

Within days of returning to her native Kosovo, N was racked by fear of the challenges that awaited her and her son – fear of financial uncertainty and of how her community would greet her.

Soaring Gas Prices Fuel June Inflation

It is hard to feel good about this report, but with wage growth slowing sharply in the last six months to around 4.0 percent (compared to 3.4 percent in 2019), it’s hard to see how an inflation rate north of 9.0 percent can be sustained. The overall CPI was up 1.3 percent in June, core rose 0.7 percent; 9.1 percent and 5.9 percent year-over-year, respectively.

Reflections On The Mediterranean Region – Analysis

The Mediterranean region in question

The Mediterranean is etymologically the “sea in the middle of the land“. (1) The Romans called it Mare Magnum (‘Great Sea’) or Mare Internum (‘Internal Sea’) and, starting with the Roman Empire, Mare Nostrum (‘Our Sea’). The term Mare Mediterrāneum appears later in the work of Gaius Julius Solinus in the 3rd century, (2) but the earliest extant witness to it is in the 6th century, in Isidore of Seville. (3)

US And Israel Concede Iran Will Go Nuclear – OpEd

Iran getting the Bomb is not necessarily a bad thing, though in a perverse way.

An Israeli physicist who worked at Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor, which produces the plutonium for the country’s nuclear warheads, published a Haaretz article declaring the the US and Israeli policy of “maximum pressure,” has utterly failed. Instead of preventing an Iranian bomb, Trump’s abandonment of the nuclear deal has permitted Iran to pursue one.

The Rise of Multimodal Transportation Among Russia, Iran and India

As the Ukraine war has entered its fifth month, and two decades after Iran, Russia and India signed the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) in 2002, Dariush Jamali, head of the Iranian-Russian Port of Solyanka in Astrakhan Oblast, announced that the first transit shipment from Russia to India had been sent through Iran by way of the INSTC (Mehr News Agency, June 11). This shipment passed on a multimodal route through Astrakhan Port, specifically the Solyanka part (Russia); Bandar Abbas and Chabahar ports (Iran); and Nhava Sheva Port (India).

The G7 is playing catch-up with China in Africa

This past June, the leaders of the world’s largest IMF economies and wealthiest liberal democracies gathered at Elmau castle in Germany’s picturesque Bavarian Alps for the annual G7 summit. Besides discussing obvious topics such as the Ukrainian war and global economic recovery, the gathering was an opportunity to unveil a major infrastructure development program—the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII).

Gambian court sentences five former spies to death for Jammeh-era murder

A Gambian court has sentenced five former members of the intelligence service to death for the murder of a political activist during the rule of ex-dictator Yahya Jammeh.

High Court Justice Kumba Sillah-Camara pronounced the sentence against the former head of the National Intelligence Agency, Yankuba Badjie, after finding him guilty of murdering Ebrima Solo Sandeng, an important figure in the opposition United Democratic Party, in 2016.