News archive of June 2020

Aleksandar Vucic speech to the parliament in Belgrade, Serbia, 2016. Photo: EPA/KOCA SULEJMANOVIC

Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti on Thursday canceled an eagerly anticipated trip to Washington to meet Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic and resume stalled negotiations with Serbia over the future status of the former Serbian province whose independence Belgrade does not recognise.

A magnitude-5.4 earthquake hit Turkey's eastern province of Van, the country's disaster agency said.
The National Disaster Management Agency (AFAD) said the quake occurred at 1.03 p.m. local time in the Özalp district at 6.9 kilometers beneath the ground.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, DFRLab, which works to counter disinformation online, says its researchers have found dozens of Facebook pages linked to at least 10 Macedonian news outlets, demonstrating "several characteristics pointing to coordinated activity, including the near simultaneous publication of identical content".

The Turkish Central Bank on June 25 kept its one-week repo rate constant at 8.25%.

A statement from the bank's sixth of 12 Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meetings scheduled for 2020 said the bank decided to keep the one-week repo auction rate constant at 8.25%.

In May, the Central Bank cut its interest rate 50 basis points to 8.75% from 9.25%.

Namely, the President of the interim Kosovo institutions set the emblem of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army.
He posted the photo around 11 o'clock and it shows a black background with the emblem of the so-called KLA.

The Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, urged Moldova on Thursday to ratify the Istanbul Convention provisions "without further delay" on violence against women and domestic violence, children's rights, the human rights of persons with disabilities, the Roma, hate speech and the rights to housing and health.

Online book sales increased by 100 percent and children's book sales increased by 200 percent in Turkey during stay-at-home orders called for due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Kenan Kocatürk, the head of the Turkish Publishers Association, has said.

In the past year, Thaci has also tirelessly met with diplomats, powerful friends, politicians and lawyers in order to remove a potential problem overshadowing his agenda for the last five years - the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a Hague-based hybrid court set up to try former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, which Thaci led during the struggle against Serbia's oppressive rule.

She stated that most of the patients with COVID-19 are younger adults.
"What we definitely need to think about and what we've been talking about, what will follow in some future period is to limit the work of clubs, to reduce outings until the morning. This is unpopular, but it has to be done. It's the biggest hotbed of infection", Kisic said for TV Pink.