Serbia inks deal with breakaway Kosovo region to end spat
that featured jet flyovers and tanks at border
30 Sep, 2021 13:54
Chief negotiators for Serbia and Kosovo have formally reached agreement to conclude the latest round of escalation. “We have a deal,” tweeted EU special representative Miroslav Lajcak after two days of “intense negotiations.”
The recent disagreement had seen Kosovo order its police to force any cars attempting to cross the border to remove Serbian license plates, arguing that a 10-year-old deal between the nations had expired. Serbia had responded by sending military planes to fly near the border, while footage from the area showed tanks and military vehicles deployed to the area.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen had previously urged the two sides to work to “de-escalate” and “return to the negotiation table to find a sustainable solution.” The European bloc has been trying to facilitate talks between Serbia and its breakaway region for the past decade, as Kosovo unilaterally proclaimed independence in 2008.
The deal comes after the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, called on the European Union to “convey a clear message that Europe has an interest in a European Balkans” after the bloc warned it can’t guarantee “six countries” (as most of the EU recognize Kosovo’s independence) future membership, as had once been promised.
Speaking ahead of a summit next week, Schmidt urged the EU to work to bolster “closer cooperation” between the bloc and Balkan nations, working on improving economic and infrastructure ties. The countries had all previously been promised they would be ultimately admitted to the EU bloc, with officials promising 18 years ago to give their “unequivocal support for the European perspective of the Western Balkans.”
The High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina is a role that was established in the wake of the Dayton Agreement, signed at the end of the Bosnian War, to oversee the peace process in the region. Schmidt ascended to the role after his predecessor resigned despite some international opposition to his appointment, with Russia arguing he should have been approved by the UN Security Council.
Gas price keeps climbing in Europe as Brussels delays
Russian supplies via Nord Stream 2
30 Sep, 2021 08:20
© AP / Joerg Sarbach
The price of natural gas in Europe exceeded an all-time high of $1,100 per 1,000 cubic meters on Thursday, trading data from the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) shows.
The cost of November futures on the TTF hub in the Netherlands reached $1101 per 1,000 cubic meters in morning trading. This is nearly $106 per megawatt-hour in household terms. The overall rise in gas prices was about 5% by 8am GMT.
European gas prices exceeded $1,000 per 1,000 cubic meters for the first time in history on Monday. Analysts attribute rising costs to inadequate supplies held in Europe’s gas storage facilities to meet the post-pandemic increase in demand. The current energy crunch has already resulted in higher costs for consumers, while still far from the peak winter season, and forced some industries to curb production, threatening to stall the continent’s economic recovery.
Russian experts recently warned that gas prices could surge further due to a number of factors, including demand in Asia, the weather in Europe with winter on the way, as well as the timing of the launch of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Some view Nord Stream 2 as a means to stabilize the situation on the European energy market, with the pipeline capable of delivering the extra gas the continent needs. However, the project is still awaiting EU certification, which could take months due to bureaucratic setbacks and pressure from Washington and some Eastern European countries, which are opposed to increasing energy imports from Russia.
So, it appears some would rather freeze in the dark than buy gas from Russia.
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Emigration on the rise in crisis-ridden Lebanon
By Dalal Saoud
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Mounting economic hardships are pushing a growing number of Lebanon's population to seek a better life abroad in another mass exodus.
"We are planning to leave... We are working on an exit plan," Mira Mabsout, a landscape architect who is married with one daughter, told UPI.
It's a common refrain.
Mabsout and her husband are "lucky and blessed." They have good jobs and are well paid, mostly in U.S. "fresh dollars," worth 17,000 Lebanese pounds at the market trade, compared to 1,500 LL at the official exchange rate and 3,900 LL at the banks.
"But financial reasons are not everything... We don't feel safe," Mabsout said. She mostly fears for her 3-year-old daughter and the inability to secure proper medical care with the collapse of the health system.
Besides the dramatic economic and financial deterioration, the massive explosion at the Beirut port in August 2020 was a turning point. The blast killed more than 200, wounded 6,000 and damaged the homes of more than 300,000.
"We are looking anywhere outside [Lebanon]. We tried to go to Athens ... but it didn't work," Mabsout said. "We are not leaving just to leave ... without securing jobs outside."
However, she is longing to "live a normal life," and not to worry every day about electricity and gasoline. Lebanon has been facing crippling fuel and electricity shortages that increased power blackouts and led to hours-long queues at the gas stations.
"My daughter knows that there is a fuel crisis and that gasoline is a big problem to us... and this is something that kills me. Even if I want to hide it, she is living that," Mabsout said. "Also, I want to grow my family and have other children, but I cannot because I cannot find diapers, baby milk or basic needs."
"I don't feel like to be resilient, and I don't want to adapt.. I simply want normal things," she added.
Passport applications increase
Last month, Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, head of Lebanon's General Security Directorate, disclosed that his agency, which usually handles 3,000 passport applications per day, has been receiving 7,000 and 8,000 every day.
"But this does not mean that all [applicants] are actually leaving the country," said Dal Hitti, president of Moubadarat Wa Kararat (Initiatives and Decisions) Association, who has a doctorate in human resources.
Although no official statistics are available, Hitti estimated the number of those who left the country since the economic crisis broke out in 2019 to range between 400,000 and 500,000, including students, doctors and other highly skilled workers. They are now being followed by families heading mainly to Canada.
The 1975-90 civil war witnessed the largest exodus, with the emigration of nearly 980,000 people. Between 1990 and 2019, some 750,000 people have left, Hitti said.
"We have been living in a bubble since the 1990s, and we lost the feeling of belonging, contrary to the time of the civil war, when people remained steadfast and stayed in the country more than now, despite the difficult situation then," he said.
Dubai, an attractive but expensive spot, is hosting 70,000-75,000 Lebanese who left. But 50,000 of them haven't found jobs, and "some are accepting meager salaries barely reaching $1,000 a month just to help their parents or hoping to get a better job, while the minimum wage there is $4,000."
"This is no more about desperation. This is suicide," Hitti said.
The Crisis Observatory at the American University of Beirut recently warned that Lebanon is entering a third wave of mass emigration, citing three alarming indicators: the high percentage of Lebanese youth who want to leave (77% based on a survey last year, the highest percentage among Arab countries), the mass migration of medical and education staff and the expected chronicity of the current crisis.
"The last wave of emigration was not a reaction to a conflict, a war. It was genuinely because of the conditions that deteriorated so much," said Dr. Jasmin Diab, assistant professor of Migration Studies at the Lebanese American University.
'Intersection crisis'
Lebanon, Diab explained, always had "intersection crisis," and the current one was not just about the COVID-19 pandemic, constraints about the politics and economy but also the Beirut port blast, and people having lost their homes and not having access to their money frozen at the banks.
Moreover, the recent fuel crisis has "so much humiliated" the population to the point that "getting bread or gasoline becomes an achievement."
"There are so many intersections why people want to migrate in this period," Diab told UPI, adding that COVID-19 exasperated the situation further. Then came the port explosion, which "was definitely a major push factor ...that put the Lebanese on a high level of emergency."
Many countries, like Canada and across Europe, became more lenient in their emigration policies, facilitating migration of the Lebanese for a short time as a reaction to the explosion, Diab said.
"Our country is not in a state of conflict or violence. So, the Lebanese could not seek asylum like the Syrians, although interestingly, things are very similar on both ends," she said. "Lebanese want to leave, but the international community does not consider Lebanon in a state of emergency."
Eurozone inflation highest in 13 years, surging to 3.4% in September
By Zarrin Ahmed
File Photo by canadastock/UPI
Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Eurozone inflation surged to 3.4% in the month of September, hitting its highest level in 13 years.
German consumer prices hit their highest levels in 30 years, rising to 4.1% in that month and prompting protests from workers demanding higher pay.
Rising energy prices have driven the increase, which isn't expected to end until 2021 before easing next year. Economists are debating whether the central bank needs to change its monetary policy.
Of the 19 countries affected by rising energy prices, France is the latest to increase measures to mitigate costs. Prime Minister Jean Castex said Thursday that the government will block natural gas price increases and rises in electricity taxes. Italy, Greece, and Spain have also announced measures to counteract inflation.
Energy prices may continue to increase with the transition from fossil fuels to other sources of energy.
"Things have picked up faster and that is true for growth, that is true for inflation, and that is true for employment," European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde told CNBC last month. "So, in a way, it is a package of good news because it means that our economies are responding."
Gas prices have reached record highs (see story above) while Russia's Nordstream II pipeline has just been completed. The EU is resisting buying Russian gas even as they run out of it. Go figure!
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