BELGRADE, Feb 13 (Reuters) – The European Union could withhold funds from a 1.6 billion euro allocation of loans and grants to Serbia, after Belgrade passed laws that are “eroding trust” in its commitment to the rule of law, the bloc’s enlargement commissioner said.
Reforms to centralise the judiciary that came into force this week brought criticism from judges and prosecutors who see them as bolstering President Aleksandar Vucic’s hold on power, weakening the fight against organised crime and undermining Serbia’s bid to join the EU.
“These amendments are eroding trust. It is becoming harder for those in Brussels who are willing to advance with Serbia to make their case,” EU enlargement commissioner Marta Kos said in emailed comments to Reuters late on Thursday.
Kos said the commission was reviewing funding for Serbia under the EU Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, aimed at aligning the region to EU rules and ultimately bringing countries such as Serbia into the bloc. Serbia was allocated 1.6 billion euros of loans and grants under the programme.
“These (funds) contain preconditions linked to the rule of law,” she said.
Serbia began official talks to join the EU in 2014 but widespread corruption and weak institutions have slowed progress.
The judicial reforms include limiting the mandate of chief public prosecutors and granting court presidents – responsible for court administration – greater powers over judges. Critics fear the reforms will erode judges’ independence and jeopardise high-level corruption cases overseen by the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime.
The government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. The justice ministry has said that the new laws will make the judiciary more efficient by streamlining the decision-making process.
Since the backlash, Serbia has requested the opinion of the Venice Commission, a panel of constitutional law experts of the Council of Europe, a human rights body.
“Once that opinion is issued, we expect these laws to be revised accordingly and in an inclusive manner,” Kos said.
(Reporting by Edward McAllisterEditing by Peter Graff)
Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the managers of the bar where a fire at a New Year’s Eve party left 40 people dead and more than 100 injured, authorities said Saturday.
The two are suspected of involuntary homicide, involuntary bodily harm and involuntarily causing a fire, the Valais region’s chief prosecutor, Beatrice Pilloud, told reporters. She said the investigation was opened on Friday night and that it would help “explore all the leads.” The announcement of the investigation did not name the managers.
Investigators said Friday that the deadly fire was caused by sparklers on Champagne bottles, which ignited the ceiling of the crowded bar around 1:30 a.m. Authorities planned to look into whether sound-dampening material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles were permitted for use in the bar.
Officials said they also would look at other safety measures on the premises, including fire extinguishers and escape routes. Videos shared on social media showed people screaming as dozens raced to escape through narrow exits. Parisian tourist Axel Clavier, 16, told the Associated Press on Thursday that he forced a window open with a table. Another witness told the British newspaper The Daily Mail that bar patrons used chairs to break windows as the flames swirled.
“It was a real flame coming out. It was coming out and … in fact, people were running through these flames,” he said.
The Valais region’s top security official, Stéphane Ganzer, told SRF public radio Saturday that “such a huge accident with a fire in Switzerland means that something didn’t work — maybe the material, maybe the organization on the spot.” He added: “Something didn’t work and someone made a mistake, I am sure of that.”
A flower with a note is laid after a fire broke out overnight at Le Constellation bar on Jan. 1, 2026, in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
Harold Cunningham/Getty
Nicolas Féraud, who heads the Crans-Montana municipality, told RTS radio he was “convinced” checks on the bar hadn’t been lax, the broadcaster reported.
Asked whether the tragedy could have been avoided, Swiss Justice Minister Beat Jans replied that officials could not yet answer and “we know that the world needs an answer on this question.”
An “unbearable” wait for answers
The process of identifying the dead and injured continued on Saturday, leading to an agonizing wait for relatives. Many of the bar’s patrons were in their teens to mid-20s.
The severity of burns has made it difficult to identify the dead and injured, requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples. In some cases, wallets and any identification documents inside were turned to ash.
On Saturday, regional police said the bodies of four victims — a boy and a girl, both 16, an 18-year-old man and a 21-year-old woman, all of them Swiss — had been identified and handed over to their families.
Several injured people still haven’t been identified.
Laetitia Brodard, whose 16-year-old son, Arthur, went to Le Constellation to celebrate the New Year, held out hope that he might be one of them.
“I’m looking everywhere. The body of my son is somewhere,” Brodard told reporters Friday evening. “I want to know where my child is and be by his side. Wherever that may be, be it in the intensive care unit or the morgue.”
Mourners gather to leave flowers and candles at the scene after a fire broke out overnight at Le Constellation bar on Jan. 1, 2026 in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
Harold Cunningham / Getty Images
On Saturday, she told French broadcaster BFM TV that “we, parents, are starting to get tired … and anger is starting to rise.”
“It’s a wait that destroys people’s stability,” said Elvira Venturella, an Italian psychologist working with the families. “And the more time passes, the more difficult it becomes to accept the uncertainty, not having information.”
Swiss officials said Friday that 119 people were injured and 113 had been formally identified.
On Saturday, Italy’s ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, told reporters he had just been briefed by local authorities that the number of injured stood at 121, with five not yet identified. He said 14 Italians were being treated in hospitals. Swiss police have said the injured included more than 70 Swiss nationals and over 10 each from France and Italy, along with citizens of Serbia, Bosnia, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and Poland.
Cornado acknowledged “a lot of stress,” but said it was right for authorities to share information only when it is “accurate and 100% sure.”
Ganzer, visiting the site along with Jans, called the families’ wait “unbearable,” and said officials’ top priority was providing them the “legitimate answers they are waiting for.”
Mourners and well-wishers bearing flowers flowed to makeshift memorials outside Le Constellation, some consoling one another with hugs as they shed tears. “RIP you are all our children” one handwritten note said.
A 1,000-pound aerial bomb used by the United States and Allied forces during World War II was safely removed from a construction site in a central district of Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, on Sunday, police said.
The U.S.-made AN-M44 bomb was used during air raids on German positions during the liberation of Belgrade from Nazi occupation in 1944.
Ahead of the bomb’s removal, the site, which is near a residential area and a shopping mall, underwent detailed reconnaissance “to ensure safe conditions,” police said.
Residents were also told to leave their homes if possible.
After its removal, the bomb was taken to an army arms training ground about 110 miles from Belgrade, where it will be destroyed in the coming days.
Unexploded bombs dating back to past wars have been discovered in Serbia and around the world in recent years.
In September 2024, a century-old artillery shell weighing nearly 660 pounds was cleared from a construction site near the Serbian parliament in Belgrade.
Earlier that year, in April, a large bomb from the 1999 NATO bombing campaign was found in Nis, southern Serbia.
In 2021, a 530-pound World War II bomb was also removed from a construction site in a Belgrade suburb.
Earlier this year, in January, more than 170 bombs from WWII were discovered underneath a children’s playground in northern England. Officials said they believe that more ordinances would be discovered in Wooler, Northumberland.
In Slovakia’s capital of Bratislava, a 500-pound WWII bomb was discovered during construction work in September, sparking widespread evacuations. A few weeks later, a U.S.-made bomb was defused in Hong Kong after it was discovered at a construction site in Quarry Bay, a bustling residential and business district on the west side of Hong Kong island. The bomb was nearly five feet long.
SARAJEVO (Reuters) -Bosnia’s defence minister refused to let a military plane carrying Hungary’s foreign minister land in the Bosnian Serb Republic on Wednesday, saying Budapest had supported the Bosnian Serb leader in acts that undermined Bosnia’s sovereignty.
Defence Minister Zukan Helez said Hungary had failed to provide an explanation as to why Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto was on the plane that wanted to land in Banja Luka, the main city of the country’s autonomous Serb Republic.
Szijjarto visited neighbouring Serbia on Wednesday to discuss details of how Hungary can help Belgrade after crude oil shipments from Croatia stopped.
Helez said Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Szijjarto had openly supported Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik in acts that “undermine sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)”.
“As the Minister of Defence of BiH, my duty is to protect the constitutional order, laws and interest of BiH,” Helez said in a post on Facebook.
“That is why I have decided not to approve this flight until full transparency and respect of our state are ensured.”
The Hungarian foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Dodik, the former president of the Serb Republic who was stripped of duty after being convicted for defying the decisions of the international peace envoy and constitutional court, has boasted about Orban’s support for his policies.
Dodik and his ally Sinisa Karan, who won the region’s snap presidential vote at the weekend according to preliminary results, met with Orban in Budapest on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic, additonal reporting by Anita Komuves in Budapest; Editing by Ed Osmond)
BELGRADE (Reuters) -Thousands of anti-government protesters, led by students, marched peacefully through the Serbian capital Belgrade on Saturday, demanding accountability for those responsible for the deaths of 16 people when a railway station roof collapsed and an attack on a student protest a year ago.
The November 1, 2024 station tragedy in the northern city of Novi Sad triggered a largely peaceful, nationwide protest movement led by university students and professors that has shaken populist President Aleksandar Vucic’s 13-year grip on power.
Last year more than 30 supporters of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) loyal to Vucic, including local officials, clashed with students of the Faculty of Drama Arts who had blocked an intersection in Belgrade to mark the Novi Sad disaster.
Four were sentenced for assault after plea bargains. Students say they want criminal responsibility assigned for all identified attackers and an investigation into who orchestrated the attack.
Demonstrators also demanded a snap election, hoping to unseat Vucic and his party.
“They (SNS) were in power for too long … No one will give up on this,” said Vesna Petovic, 50, a protester from Belgrade.
Several large demonstrations over the summer in Belgrade and elsewhere in Serbia, a candidate for EU membership, were broken up by police using stun grenades and tear gas.
Protesters and rights watchdogs accused police of using excessive force. Authorities said protesters attacked offices of the ruling party and its backers.
(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Toby Chopra)
BELGRADE (Reuters) -Hundreds of anti-government protesters clashed with supporters of Serb President Aleksandar Vucic late on Sunday, close to the anniversary of a deadly roof collapse that triggered a youth-led movement against alleged corruption and mismanagement.
Both sides threw flares at the culmination of a weekend of rallies in the capital and Serbia’s second city Novi Sad, where the disaster happened, after months of demonstrations stoked by anger over the failure to prosecute anyone.
The confrontations have shaken the government, and protesters have called for snap elections.
On Sunday, protesters had gathered near the parliament in Belgrade in support of a hunger strike launched by Dijana Hrka, whose son was among 16 killed when the roof on a renovated railway station came down.
Hrka and her supporters were kept outside a fence that separated off a tented area holding Vucic’s supporters who have been blocking the boulevard in front of the parliament building since March.
Police intervened and separated the crowds after flares were thrown both ways, Reuters video showed. Vucic’s supporters also played music on loud speakers, angering the protesters.
At least 37 people were arrested, the interior ministry said on Monday. Charges included “violating public order and peace and causing incidents during an unannounced public gathering,” police said.
(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
NOVI SAD, Serbia (Reuters) -Tens of thousands of protesters poured into Serbia’s second city on Saturday a year after a railway station roof collapse that killed 16 people, unleashing discontent over alleged corruption and a lack of accountability many blame for the disaster.
Months of protests across Serbia, stoked by anger over the failure so far to prosecute those responsible for the roof collapse have rattled President Aleksandar Vučić’s long grip on power and raised calls for early elections.
Protesters streamed into the northern city of Novi Sad, where the disaster occurred, in cars, buses or on foot, some having walked long distances, witnesses said. One of Novi Sad’s main boulevards was packed with people.
The protesters – many of them young people – observed 16 minutes of silence – one for every victim – from 11:52 a.m. (1052 GMT), when the roof caved in following renovation work on November 1, 2024.
Protesters held up large red hearts bearing the names of the collapse victims, clutched white flowers and laid wreaths in front of the railway station.
The tearful father of one of the victims, dressed in black, stood for hours staring at his daughter’s name affixed among others to the station’s perimeter fence.
There were no reports of violence, which had marred some protests during the summer when riot police used stun grenades and tear gas to break up rallies.
‘WE SAY THAT THIS IS ENOUGH’
“This is a major tragedy for the Serbian people. We cannot bring those people back but we can feel the pain with their families and say that this is enough,” said Sladjana Burmaz, a 51-year-old economist from the central town of Valjevo.
“These people were not killed by accident, their deaths were the result of a poor system, poor politics … Justice would be served if those responsible were held accountable,” she said.
Vučić, in an Instagram post, published a photo of himself in a church holding a candle at a commemoration ceremony in the capital Belgrade for the victims of the disaster.
“Let the names of those killed be a reminder that human life is above any divisions (in society),” Vučić wrote. The government, he added, had designated Saturday as a day of national mourning.
The protest movement, led by students, academics and opposition leaders, accuse Vucic and his populist nationalist party of presiding over corruption, shoddy public services, nepotism and curbs on media freedoms. They deny the accusations.
INDEPENDENT REPORT TO EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
An independent commission of professors, judges, and technical experts that investigated the disaster reported to the European Parliament last week that it had found high-level state graft that led to poor construction standards and the hiring of unqualified subcontractors.
Government officials have denied such accusations. Recently, Vučić and Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic said the roof collapse could have been an act of terrorism.
Prosecutors have indicted several senior state officials on charges of endangering public safety, but a court has yet to confirm the indictment, preventing a trial from going ahead.
(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; editing by Mark Heinrich)
BELGRADE (Reuters) -Dijana Hrka, 48, whose son was among 16 people killed when the roof of a renovated railway station in Serbia collapsed, is angry with authorities for having held no one accountable a year later.
“The roof didn’t collapse by itself,” she said, standing at her son’s grave in the capital Belgrade. “It collapsed because of corruption and human negligence. I want to know who killed my child.”
The tragedy touched off a largely peaceful, nationwide protest movement led by university students and professors that has shaken President Aleksandar Vučić’s 13-year grip on power. Demonstrators are demanding a snap election, hoping to unseat Vučić and his populist Serbian Progressive Party.
Hrka says she will join a rally planned for the anniversary of the roof collapse on Saturday in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad, where the disaster occurred.
“I can’t even describe my pain. But I am bitter and dissatisfied because our authorities are not doing their job.”
An independent commission of professors, judges, and technical experts presented the results of its informal investigation to the European Parliament last week.
“Our conclusion is that there is a high degree of corruption reaching the very top of the state,” retired Supreme Court judge Radmila Dičić Dragićević said.
“Corruption led to lowered construction standards and the hiring of unqualified subcontractors.”
Government officials have denied such accusations.
Recently, Vučić and parliament speaker Ana Brnabic, an ex-prime minister, said the roof collapse could have been an act of terrorism, a stance that infuriated critics of the government.
“I don’t think the roof fell by itself, nor was it an accident, a tragedy, or any product of some negligent act for that matter,” she had told Pink TV in August. “I think it was a planned diversion (marking) the start of another colour revolution,” she said, referring to past protest movements in formerly communist post-Soviet and east European states resisting democratic reform.
In September, a Novi Sad prosecutor indicted former construction, infrastructure and transport minister Goran Vesić and 12 others — including one of his aides and the head of the state railway company on charges of endangering public safety, including “irregular and improper construction works”.
But that indictment has yet to be confirmed by the court, preventing a trial from going ahead.
A special prosecutor for organised crime is also conducting an investigation but no details have emerged to date.
Last week, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for a transparent investigation into the deadly collapse. The resolution also proposed sending an EU fact-finding mission to Serbia to assess “the state of democracy, ongoing protests and repression against participants”.
Several large demonstrations in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Valjevo over the summer were broken up by police using stun grenades and tear gas. Protesters accused police of using excessive force. Reporters Without Borders reported that at least 89 journalists were assaulted during a year of protests.
Vučić’s supporters have set up tents in front of his office and parliament – traditional protest sites in Serbia – to prevent further anti-government rallies there, but in so doing have blocked one of the busiest boulevards in Belgrade.
Vučić, a nationalist turned pro-EU populist, has accused foreign security services of financing the movement against him and insisted his party’s support base remains strong.
However, a recent CRTA opinion poll showed that if elections were held now, Vučić’s party would win just 32% of the vote, while a student-led coalition would receive 44%.
Nikolina Sinđelić, a 22-year-old student, joined the protests at her university in early November 2024, shortly after the roof collapse. Since then, police have summoned her several times for what they describe as “informative talks”.
Nikolina said that in one case she was taken into a basement by police and roughed up by a police commander against whom she had filed a complaint.
“That has changed my life,” she said. “When you are being taken into a basement it is not easy to go out to another protests and say it will all be OK,” Nikolina said.
“Young people have a future. I do have hope that we can bring change.”
(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; editing by Mark Heinrich)
(Reuters) -Kosovo’s parliament on Sunday failed to elect Albin Kurti as prime minister, deepening the country’s political crisis with a snap election seen as the only solution to overcome a political deadlock after inconclusive polls in February.
(Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
SARAJEVO (Reuters) -The parliament of Bosnia’s Serb Republic appointed Ana Trisic Babic as an interim president on Saturday, acknowledging officially for the first time that former President Milorad Dodik is stepping aside after a state court banned him from politics.
Trisic Babic, Dodik’s close ally, will hold the position for one month until new presidential elections are held in the Serb Republic on November 23.
The parliament also annulled a series of separatist laws that were passed over the past year after Dodik had been indicted for defying decisions of the international envoy and the constitutional court.
Dodik, a pro-Russian nationalist who wants the Serb Republic to secede and join Serbia, had so far refused to step down and continued to perform duties and travel abroad in the capacity of president. He is appealing the state court’s verdict at the constitutional court.
The U.S. Treasury Department said on Friday it has removed four Dodik allies from a sanctions list, in a move praised by Dodik who has been campaigning to get U.S. sanctions against himself lifted.
He has been sanctioned by the U.S. and Britain for obstructing the terms of the Dayton peace deal that ended Bosnia’s war in the 1990s, as well as by several European countries that say his separatist policies endanger peace and stability in Bosnia.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Writing by Renee Maltezou, Editing by Franklin Paul)
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday praised the Serbian president for meeting her and other European Union leaders instead of attending a Russia-organized summit of developing economies held earlier this week.
Serbia has close ties to Russia and has refused to join international sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. In a telephone conversation Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, populist Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said EU candidate Serbia would maintain its stance on sanctions, notwithstanding EU and other Western pressure.
However, despite Putin’s invitation, Vucic did not attend a three-day summit of the BRICS group of nations, led by Russia and China, which took place in the Russian city of Kazan earlier this week. Leaders or representatives of 36 countries took part in the summit, highlighting the failure of U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia over its actions in Ukraine.
Vucic sent a high-level delegation to the meeting, but said he could not attend himself because he had scheduled meetings with von der Leyen and Polish and Greek leaders. There are fears in the West that Putin is plotting trouble in the volatile Balkans in part to shift some of the attention from its invasion of Ukraine.
“What I see is that the president of the Republic of Serbia is hosting me here today and just has hosted the prime minister of Greece and the prime minister of Poland. That speaks for itself, I think,” von der Leyen said at a joint press conference with Vucic.
“And for my part, I want to say that my presence here today, in the context of my now fourth trip to the Balkan region since I took office, is a very clear sign that I believe that Serbia’s future is in the European Union,” she said.
Vucic said he knows what the EU is demanding for eventual membership — including compliance with foreign policy goals — but did not pledge further coordination.
“Of course, Ursula asked for much greater compliance with EU’s foreign policy declaration,” he said. “We clearly know what the demands are, what the expectations are.”
Von der Leyen was in Serbia as part of a trip this week to aspiring EU member states in the Western Balkans to assure them that EU enlargement remains a priority for the 27-nation bloc. From Serbia, von der Leyen will travel to neighboring Kosovo and Montenegro.
Serbian media reported that von der Leyen refused to meet with Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic because of his talks Friday with a high-level Russian economic delegation, which was in Belgrade to discuss deepening ties with Serbia. Vucic will meet the Russian officials on Saturday.
In Bosnia on Friday, von der Leyen promised support for the deeply split Balkan country which is struggling with the reforms needed to advance toward EU membership.
The Western Balkan countries — Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia — are at different stages in their applications for EU membership. The countries have been frustrated by the slow pace of the process, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has propelled European leaders to push the six to join the bloc.
Bosnia gained candidate status in 2022. EU leaders in March agreed in principle to open membership negotiations, though Bosnia must still do a lot of work.
“We share the same vision for the future, a future where Bosnia-Herzegovina is a full-fledged member of the European Union,” said von der Leyen at a joint press conference with Bosnian Prime Minister Bojana Kristo. “So, I would say, let’s continue working on that. We’ve gone a long way already, we still have a way ahead of us, but I am confident that you’ll make it.”
Last year EU officials offered a 6-billion-euro (about $6.5 billion) growth plan to the Western Balkan countries in an effort to double the region’s economy over the next decade and accelerate their efforts to join the bloc. That aid is contingent on reforms that would bring their economies in line with EU rules.
The Commission on Wednesday approved the reform agendas of Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia following a green light from EU member states. That was a key step to allow payments under the growth plan upon completion of agreed reform steps.
However, Bosnia’s reform agenda has still not been signed off by the Commission.
“The accession process is, as you know, merit-based … we do not look at a rigid data but we look at the merits, the progress that a country is making,” said von der Leyen. “The important thing is that we have an ambitious reform agenda, like the other five Western Balkan countries also have. We stand ready to help you to move forward.”
Long after a 1992-95 ethnic war that killed more than 100,000 people and left millions homeless, Bosnia remains ethnically divided and politically deadlocked. An ethnic Serb entity — one of Bosnia’s two equal parts joined by a common government — has sought to gain as much independence as possible.
Upon arrival in Bosnia, von der Leyen on Thursday first went to Donja Jablanica, a village in central Bosnia that was devastated in recent floods and landslides. The disaster in early October claimed 27 lives and the small village was virtually buried in rocks from a quarry located on a hill above.
Von der Leyen said the EU is sending an immediate aid package of 20 million euros ($21 million) and will also provide support for reconstruction later on.
When Donald Trump launched his first presidential campaign nearly a decade ago, there was a deluge of concerns about his foreign financial entanglements. And rightfully so. Given the financial overlap between Trump, his family, his company, and a constellation of kleptocratic regimes, especially Russia, Trump presented an unprecedented opportunity for foreign regimes to directly access the White House and tilt American policy in the process.
Now, with Trump running for the presidency once more, those concerns have hardly disappeared. If anything, foreign governments — including brand-new regimes that weren’t involved in Trump’s first whirlwind in the White House — have only spied new opportunities to burrow into his pockets and into a second administration.
Many of these networks are already known, if forgotten. Trump’s financial links with regimes in places like China, Kazakhstan, or Indonesia were already reported in detail during his presidency. Even after Trump left the Oval Office, the revelations about his subterranean financial links as president with foreign regimes continued spilling out; it was only this year, for instance, that congressional investigators revealed that the first two years of Trump’s presidency included countries as far afield as Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey, and many more patronizing Trump businesses. Any of these details on their own would be exceptional — can you imagine how much any other presidential candidate’s secret Chinese bank account would dominate a news cycle? — but they’ve been subsumed in the broader morass of Trump’s scandals. They’ve become, to an almost shocking degree, normalized.
Look at Saudi Arabia. Years after Saudi tyrant Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) ordered the grisly killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi government has used an entire fleet of PR professionals and consultancy firms to launder its image, transforming the regime from a bastion of backwardness into one of progress and reform. (Saudi Arabia under MBS “almost feels like a start-up,” WeWork founder Adam Neumann purred last year at a Saudi-sponsored conference.) And part of that influence campaign has directly targeted — and directly used — Trump. Just last month, the New York Times revealed that the Trump Organization had inked a brand-new deal in the country, centered on Trump branding a new high-rise in Jeddah. The branding deal mirrors similar arrangements Trump has signed with foreign partners elsewhere, lending his name to developments in Azerbaijan and Panama. It’s unclear how much the new Saudi deal is worth, but as the Times noted, “Saudi Arabia has become one of the few reliable sources of growth for the Trump family’s business operations.”
Yet the deepening links between Trump and Riyadh don’t revolve only around a single, luxe new high-rise. Time and again in recent years, Saudi and its proxies have bankrolled Trump and his inner circle — and even expanded the network of authoritarian allies succoring Trump. For instance, a Saudi construction company recently helped Trump sign a separate deal in the dictatorship in Oman, where migrant laborers are currently building out yet another luxury building, including a hotel and golf course. We know a few more details on this new arrangement, such as the fact that the Trump Organization has already banked at least $5 million from the deal. As the organization itself revealed, the total compound will have a “combined value of $200 million” — and will, naturally, “represent an unprecedented level of luxury,” which is why sales agents are “targeting superrich buyers from around the world, including from Russia, Iran and India,” per the Times.
Again, any one of these deals would be a breathtaking breach of previous norms for a president. But the new links between Saudi and Trump go even deeper, stretching into Saudi Arabia’s latest foray into foreign investments: golf. Throwing billions of dollars into professional golf — all as a way of transforming Riyadh into a destination of global sports — Saudi backed the recent creation of LIV Golf, the rising competitor to PGA Golf. One of the kingdom’s key partners in the new league? Trump, naturally. In early 2024, Riyadh tapped Trump to host LIV Golf tournaments at his own courses — making it “another major source of new revenue for the Trump family.”
Indeed, calling all of these Saudi arrangements a major inflow for the Trump brood is an understatement. In one of the most sordid — or swampiest — arrangements seen since Trump departed the White House, Trump’s underqualified, underexperienced son-in-law, Jared Kushner, managed to land a $2 billion investment from the Saudis for his brand-new investment firm. Even Saudi officials were at first spooked by the deal, shying away from Kushner’s initial proposal. But as the Intercept reported, after officials recommended against the investment, MBS himself stepped in to approve the deal, keen to sink Saudi Arabia’s financial claws into Trump’s family that much further.
If anything, it’s Kushner who’s taken the lead on threading nascent links between the world of Trump and new strongmen suitors. In addition to his Saudi lucre, Kushner has recently been gallivanting around the Balkans, where he signed a new agreement earlier this year with the authoritarian regime in Serbia to land a luxury-hotel lease. The arrangement builds on years of Trump World cozying up with Serbia’s budding autocrat, Aleksandar Vucic; not only did Trump welcome lobbyists for Bosnia’s pro-Serbian separatists into his administration, but Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence, Ric Grenell, has become tight with Vucic, with the Serbian leader recently awarding Grenell with what the latter referred to as Serbia’s “highest honor.”
These are just the deals that we know about; given the financial opacity of everything from the American real-estate industry to things like the investment funds Kushner oversees — areas that Biden’s Treasury Department is specifically targeting for increased transparency, thankfully — it’s entirely possible that there’s a world of additional investments, purchases, and arrangements that we still don’t know about and that we’ll only learn about in years to come. This is, of course, an issue that is far broader than Trump or his inner circle — but given that Trump is a coin flip from the presidency, his sudden proximity to power is that much more reason a whole range of long-overdue counter-kleptocracy reforms must finally be passed by Congress.
If you need any more proof, just look at what we learned earlier this month. A bombshell exposé in the Washington Post revealed that the military dictatorship in Egypt may have secretly funneled some $10 million into Trump’s flagging 2016 campaign, without the American public having any idea. The Post’s details had all the makings for a scandal of historic proportions: The Egyptian security services suddenly pulling $10 million in cash from an Egyptian bank; classified intel indicating that Egypt’s ruling despot wanted to funnel $10 million to Trump; Trump himself announcing a surprise injection of $10 million into his campaign, tapping what he claimed was his own money. There was so much smoke you could choke on it. (All of this came alongside Egypt’s successful campaign to flip Senator Bob Menendez into its own foreign agent, a case you can read about in my new book, Foreign Agents.)
And yet, after Trump became president, his administration eventually dropped the investigation into the Egypt-to-Trump pipeline wholesale — and Americans never learned where that Egyptian money may have ended up, or what effect that might have had on Trump’s policies. Americans are still, to this day, in the dark about the links between Trump and Egypt. That’s just one investigation, and one financial link, among dozens and dozens more, some of which we still know next to nothing about. But if past is precedent, that may simply be a taste of what’s to come — and what is at stake, for both dictators and democracy alike.
Nikola Jokic isn’t just the best hoops player on the planet when it comes to dishing out dimes.
The Big Honey might be the best when it comes to dishing out bling, too.
Despite our crack staff being in the writing biz, Team Grading The Week believes actions speak louder than all the words on this page.
And GTW is firmly in the camp of backing up your brags.
Is anybody — certainly not anybody in the basketball sphere — conquering both fronts better than the Joker is, right here and now?
The NBA’s three-time MVP didn’t just help carry the Serbian hoops squad to a bronze medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics. According to the Blic newspaper in his native country, Jokic purchased Rolex watches for every one of his teammates on the national team.
Jokic’s Serbian gifts — A
The kicker? Those timepieces were reportedly worth $32,500 each. Which puts the Joker’s total purchase at an estimated $357,500 for 11 watches.
Jokic and Serbia won the men’s hoops bronze in Paris thanks to a 93-83 win over Germany in the tourney’s third-place game. The Nuggets star posted a very Jokic stat line, too — 19 points, 12 boards and 11 assists.
The Joker averaged 18.8 points, 10.7 rebounds and 8.7 assists for his homeland, which finished 4-2 at the tourney. He led all tournament players in points, boards and dimes — the first Olympian to ever top all three categories in one campaign.
Apparently, nobody gives like Jokic gives when it comes to the gift department, either. At least the fantastic gesture was one the Joker could afford: The Nuggets center, per Spotrac.com, is slated to take up $51.4 million in cap space in ’24-’25, and $55.2 million in ’25-’26.
If you’re like the GTW staff, you don’t just want Jokic as your franchise centerpiece now. You kind of want him as your secret Santa, too.
Big Russ’ debut — D
Russell Wilson’s Steelers stats after preseason Week 2: One appearance, five drives led, zero points, three sacks taken.
Bo Nix’s Broncos stats after preseason Week 2: Two appearances, seven drives led, 30 points, zero sacks taken.
It’s early, and we’ll know in a month whether Sean Payton won the Broncos-Steelers game, head-to-head. But the coach is off to a flying start in terms of winning the argument. And in justifying one hellaciously expensive football divorce.
Valor’s Friday — A
Love ’em or hate ’em, this past Friday was a pretty good day to be an Eagle.
Earlier in the day, Valor alum and PGA star Wyndham Clark pulled himself back into the BMW Championship title picture by shooting a 68 during his second round at Castle Pines — including five birdies. Later that evening, his alma mater’s football team opened its season with a 31-14 victory over Pine Creek. The latter had beaten Valor in last September’s meeting, 31-17.
PARIS (AP) — The U.S. women’s volleyball team had a bad enough start in its Olympic title defense. It managed to keep it from turning into a disaster.
The Americans lost the first two sets to China on Monday in a pool play format where total points and sets won can become playoff tiebreakers. So China’s eventual five-set victory – both teams scored the same number of points – left the reigning champions with a sense of relief.
“I’m really proud of our fight. You know, it’s not easy to go from being down 0-2 to fight neck-and-neck in the fifth like that,” setter Jordyn Poulter said. “You either win or you learn. So we have a lot of that we can learn from here, a lot that we can improve and get better at, and we don’t want to peak too early.”
They definitely didn’t have to worry about that.
“We obviously didn’t have the start that we wanted, but the third, fourth and fifth were really promising,” blocker Haleigh Washington said. “Going five with a team like China is incredible, and squeezing out any point we can get in the pool is going to be really important for us. And so I’m just happy the way that we just fought.”
The American women will play their second match of the preliminary round on Wednesday against Serbia, and then meet host France on Sunday in the pool play finale. The top two teams in each of the three pools and the top two third-place teams will advance to the knockout round, with wins, total points and set and point ratio used as tiebreakers.
“It just highlights how thin the margins are and how we have to take care of some of these little plays,” coach Karch Kiraly said. “And I want to give our team a huge amount of credit for fighting back. It is not easy to come back from down 2-0 against a really good China team.”
The Americans only lost one match in pool play in Tokyo and did not lose a set in the knockout stage en route to their first-ever gold medal. With eight holdovers from the 2021 champions, they arrived in Paris as the fifth-ranked team in the world.
But sixth-ranked China won the first two sets handily, 25-20 and 25-19, before the Americans came back to win the third 25-17 and rallied from a 13-10 deficit to tie it 13-all on a challenged ball that barely caught the Chinese end line.
For the first time, the crowd was engaged and chanting “U-S-A!” and at 17-14, China took a timeout to regroup. It was 21-20 for the Americans when they ran off the last four points, getting an ace from Washington to set up set point.
On the winner, Washington’s dig set up Andrew Drews’ spike.
But China again took the lead in the tiebreaker. The Americans staved off two match points before Zhu Ting’s spike went off blocker Andrea Drews for the victory.
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spain sweated under its first official heatwave of the year with temperatures expected to reach 40 degrees Celcius (104 Fahrenheit) in a large swathe of the country on Thursday, while Italy, Greece and other areas of southern Europe also struggled to stay cool.
After a relatively bearable spring compared to record heat in 2023 and 2022, millions of Spaniards will be sweltering at least through Saturday before feeling any relief. The nation’s weather authority said the only areas to be spared will be the northwest and northern Atlantic coasts.
Weather forecasters said a large mass of hot air travelling across the Mediterranean from northern Africa will settle over central and southern Spain. That, combined with the typical harsh summer sun, will make cities like the beautiful medieval cites of Sevilla, Toledo, and Granada bake.
The hottest area will be the southern Guadalquivir River basin where thermometers could reach 44C (111F). Six regions are under alerts for high temperatures.
2022 was the hottest year for Spain since it started keeping records in 1961. 2023 came in as the second hottest year. The first heatwave for last year arrived in June.
In Spain, a heat wave is a minimum of three consecutive days during which at least 10% of weather stations register highs above the 95% percentile of average maximum temperatures for July and August.
Hot, dry winds scorched Greece, where a prolonged heatwave was at its peak on Wednesday and Thursday. Temperatures touched 43C (109F) in several parts of the country, while night-time temperatures in parts of Athens remained above 30C (86F) for the past 10 days.
Firefighters were fighting two large blazes on Thursday, one near a village on the outskirts of the northern city of Thessaloniki, and a brush fire on the island of Kea, near Athens. Emergency services ordered the evacuation of two areas on Kea, while local media said the fire near Thessaloniki had damaged several homes.
“We appeal to the public to be particularly careful as over the next few days there is a very high risk of the outbreak of serious wildfires,” government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said. “Even one spark can cause a major catastrophe.”
Italy put 14 cities put under the highest level of alert and temperatures are expected to climb above 40C, especially in the central and southern regions. The health ministry said it will further extend the red alert to 17 Italian cities on Friday, as the intense heat was forecast to continue until Sunday.
On Tuesday, Serbia’s state power company reported record consumption due to the use of air conditioning.
___ Elena Becatoros in Athens and Giada Zampano in Rome contributed to this report.
The Denver Nuggets and Boston Celtics will play a pair of 2024-25 preseason games in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, the NBA announced Wednesday morning.
Part of an ongoing collaboration between the NBA and Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism, the games will take place Friday Oct. 4 and Sunday Oct. 6. The venue and ticket information will not be shared until a later date, according to a news release.
“There is incredible momentum around basketball in the UAE and across the Middle East,” NBA deputy commissioner and COO Mark Tatum said in a statement, “and we believe these games as well as our year-round grassroots development and fan engagement efforts will be a catalyst for the continued growth of the game in the region.”
The Nuggets (42-20) and Celtics (48-13) will face off Thursday (8 p.m. MT, TNT) at Ball Arena in their last meeting of the 2023-24 regular season. Boston holds the best record in the league, while Denver is the defending NBA champion.
Multiple Nuggets players might be featured abroad this summer at the 2024 Olympics as well. Jamal Murray has hopes to play for the Canadian national team if he is physically able. Nikola Jokic has not verbally committed to Serbia’s Olympic team, but he’ll have an automatic roster spot if he wishes to join the team in France. And Vlatko Cancar is hoping to have recovered from his ACL injury by late July so he can play for Slovenia. Aaron Gordon was also included on a list of finalists to make the U.S. team, though roster spots are tight considering the high interest level from an aging generation of American superstars.
“The Denver Nuggets organization couldn’t be more excited for the opportunity to visit and play NBA games in Abu Dhabi this coming preseason,” Nuggets team president Josh Kroenke said in a statement. “We look forward to this unique experience and being able to help expand the global reach of our great league.”
NATO said on Friday it is increasing its peacekeeping presence in northern Kosovo as a result of escalating tensions with neighboring Serbia, as the U.S. called on Serbia to withdraw a military buildup on the border with Kosovo.
The heightening of tensions comes after about 30 heavily armed Serbs stormed the northern Kosovo village of Banjska last Sunday. A Kosovo policeman and three of the attackers were killed in gun battles.
“We need NATO because the border with Serbia is very long and the Serbian army has been recently strengthening its capacities,” Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti told the Associated Press. “They have a lot of military equipment from both the Russian Federation and China,” he said.
“These people want to turn back time,” Kurti said. “They are in search of a time machine. They want to turn the clock back by 30 years. But that is not going to happen,” he said.
Kosovo declared independence in 2008, but Belgrade and Moscow have refused to recognize it.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby confirmed a “large military deployment” of Serbian tanks and artillery was on the border. He described the buildup as “a very destabilizing development” and called on Serbia to withdraw these forces.
The White House also “underscored the readiness of the United States to work with our allies to ensure KFOR [NATO’s Kosovo Force] remained appropriately resourced to fulfill its mission,” according to a readout of a call between the U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Kurti.
Kirby added that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had called Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to urge “immediate de-escalation” and a return to dialogue.
The U.K. also said it was sending troops to support NATO’s peacekeepers on the ground.
Milan Radoicic, the vice president of Serb List, the main Kosovo-Serb political party, resigned on Friday after admitting to setting up the armed group responsible for the attack.
The U.S. ambassador to Kosovo earlier said Washington had concluded that the weekend attack was intended to destabilize the region and warned of potential further escalation. “We know it was coordinated and sophisticated,” Ambassador Jeffrey M. Hovenier told POLITICO, adding the gunmen appeared to have had military training. “The quantity of weapons suggests this was serious, with a plan to destabilize security in the region,” he said.
The EU and the U.S. have pushed for years to broker a lasting peace between Kosovo and Serbia, but a deal has remained elusive amid continued divisions over the status of northern Kosovo, where a majority of the population is Serbian.
Three people died in Serbia during another deadly storm that ripped through the Balkans this week, local media said on Saturday.
The storm on Friday first swept through Slovenia, moving on to Croatia and then Serbia and Bosnia, with gusts of wind and heavy rain. Authorities reported power distribution issues and extensive damage — including fallen trees — that destroyed cars and rooftops.
On Wednesday, another storm killed six people in the region, four in Croatia, one in Slovenia and another in Bosnia.
Meteorologists said the storms were of such powerful magnitude because they followed a string of extremely hot days. Experts say extreme weather conditions are likely fueled by climate change.
People check the damage after a powerful storm, in Zagreb, Croatia, Wednesday, July 19, 2023. A powerful storm with strong winds and heavy rain hit Croatia and Slovenia on Wednesday, killing at least four people and injuring several others, police and local media outlets said. (AP Photo)
AP
In the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad, a 12-year-old was found dead in the street during the storm but it remains unclear whether he was struck by lightning or was electrocuted, said the official RTS television.
Local media say Novi Sad was hit the hardest, with the storm damaging the roof of the city’s exhibition hall. Some 30 people have sought medical help and many streets remain blocked on Saturday morning.
In the village of Kovacica, in northeastern Serbia, a woman died from smoke inhalation after a fire erupted when lightning hit a tree by her house, the RTS said.
Serbian police said on Saturday that a man died in the northwestern town of Backa Palanka after he tried to remove power cables that fell on his house gate.
In Croatia, the storm wreaked havoc in various parts of the country, as authorities were already scrambling to control the damage left by Wednesday’s storm.
“We work night and day, no stopping,” Nermin Brezovcanin, a construction worker in the capital Zagreb, told the official HRT TV.
Several people were injured in a tourist campsite in the northern Istria peninsula packed with visitors from abroad during summer. Croatia’s Adriatic Sea coastline and islands attract millions of tourists each summer.
Slovenia says storms have also hugely damaged forests in the Alpine nation and warned of potential flash floods.
Elsewhere in Europe, a continuing heat wave caused wildfires and public health warnings.
EU’s Josep Borrell has summoned Kosovo’s Kurti and Serbia’s Vucic for urgent talks in Brussels amid soaring tensions.
The European Union has summoned the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo for emergency talks to try to bring an end to a series of violent clashes near their border that is fueling fears of a return to open conflict.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday that urgent meetings with Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic were under way in Brussels.
“The parties are expected to defuse tensions and deliver on their obligations without preconditions,” Borrell said on Twitter before the meetings.
“Today, we aim to find solutions for immediate de-escalation and way forward.”
The situation in the north of #Kosovo continues to be very tense.
Today, we aim to find solutions for immediate de-escalation and way forward.
— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) June 22, 2023
Earlier, Borrell said: “We need immediate de-escalation and new elections in the north with participation of Kosovo Serbs. This is paramount for the region and [the] EU.”
The 27-nation bloc has for years been leading talks aimed at reconciling the two foes, but with little success.
Serbia and its former province Kosovo have been at odds for decades. Their 1998-99 conflict left more than 10,000 people dead, mostly Kosovo Albanians. Belgrade has refused to recognise Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence.
Tensions flared anew last month after Kosovo police seized local municipality buildings in northern Kosovo, where Serbs represent a majority, to install ethnic Albanian mayors who were elected in a local election that Serbs overwhelmingly boycotted.
The EU had threatened Kosovo with political consequences, such as suspending high-level visits and financial cooperation, if it does not reverse course on the elections.
‘Nothing to talk to him about’
Serbia has put its troops on the border on the highest state of alert amid a series of recent clashes between Kosovo Serbs on one side and Kosovo police and NATO-led peacekeepers on the other. In recent weeks, NATO has sent in reinforcements.
The tensions persisted last week with three stun grenades exploding near Kosovo police stations in the north of the country, while Kosovo Serbs staged protests in front of municipality buildings.
Borrell had been trying for several days get Kurti and Vucic to come to Brussels but they had refused until now.
Still, Vucic said that he will not be talking to Kurti in Brussels. “I have nothing to talk to him about,” he told the state RTS broadcaster. Vucic has said there can be no negotiations until Serbs who have been arrested by Kosovo police for attacks on Kosovo police and NATO-led peacekeepers are released.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Kurti said he “will insist on the urgent unconditional release of the three policemen held hostage by Serbia, de-escalation and normalisation of relations”.
Borrell’s spokeswoman, Nabila Massrali, refused to be drawn on how the talks would play out, saying only that the meetings are “an opportunity offered to both leaders to show readiness to be constructive and de-escalate”.
Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg vowed that its peacekeepers “will continue to act impartially. We have increased our presence and will continue to take all necessary measures to ensure a safe and secure environment and freedom of movement for all communities in Kosovo.”
Just four months ago, the EU’s Borrell had made things seem promising. He exited talks with Vucic and Kurti to announce that Serbia and Kosovo had given their tacit approval to an EU-sponsored plan to end months of political crises and help improve their ties longer-term.
But the “deal” unravelled almost immediately as both leaders appeared to renege on commitments that Borrell suggested they had made.
