BRUSSELS: The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo broke off talks on Thursday without signaling progress after European Union leaders weighed in to help them bridge their differences and start enacting an agreement they endorsed several months ago.
Shortly after a series of meetings in Brussels ended on Thursday evening – some involving the leaders of France, Germany and Italy – Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic began trading blame for the lack of progress, much as they have done for months.
The two men deeply distrust each other. Kurti said that Vucic had refused to sign their February agreement aimed at normalizing their bitter relations as well as an action plan for making the deal work.
“Acceptance entails a signature; only a signature entails acceptance and guarantees implementation,” Kurti said in a statement.
Vucic dismissed that claim as “tricks,” saying “there was no question of signing or not signing.”
“Someone is playing games to shift the blame on the other side,” he said.
The meetings in Brussels come on the sidelines of an EU summit. Fears are high of a resumption of the violence that has marked their relations since Kosovo unilaterally broke away from Serbia in 2008. Belgrade still considers Kosovo a Serbian province and has never recognized its independence.
Both Kosovo and Serbia want to join the EU, but they’ve been warned that they must sort out their differences first.
The Europeans have been spurred into action by a major gunbattle on Sept. 24, when about 30 Serb gunmen crossed into northern Kosovo, killed a police officer and set up barricades. Three gunmen were killed in the shootout with Kosovo police.
Kurti said that those who carried out the attack, notably their leader Milan Radoicic, had fled back into Serbia and should be extradited to Kosovo for trial. He said the trial would be fair, because the EU’s rule of law mission in Kosovo could monitor it.
Radoicic was briefly detained, questioned and released in Serbia earlier this month.
Thursday’s talks were chiefly aimed at putting into action the agreement that Vucic and Kurti reached in February, although the two have raised issues with it. The idea was to work in new “proposals and ideas” floated in exploratory talks last weekend.
The big problem is that neither Vucic nor Kurti wants to be the first to make concessions without guarantees that the other will reciprocate.
The EU and US are pressing Kosovo to allow the creation of an Association of the Serb-Majority Municipalities to coordinate work on education, health care, land planning and economic development in communities of northern Kosovo mostly populated by ethnic Serbs.
Kurti fears such an association would be a step toward creating a Serb mini-state with wide autonomy.
Vucic reiterated Thursday that Kurti is to blame, saying “it is completely clear who does not want to form the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities.”
The last thing the Europeans want is more conflict in their backyard. The war between Serbia and Kosovo in 1998-99 left more than 10,000 people dead, mostly Kosovo Albanians.
Even with both countries’ membership hopes in doubt over the deadlock, Kurti said that Kosovo deserves to be officially granted candidate status for joining the EU due to “its democratic and economic progress.”
Serbia and Kosovo leaders break off talks without result despite EU pressure
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Serbia and Kosovo leaders break off talks without result despite EU pressure
- Kosovo's PM Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic blame each other for the lack of progress
- Both Kosovo and Serbia want to join the EU, but they’ve been warned that they must sort out their differences first
Rubio meets China’s Wang in Malaysia amid trade tension
- Washington’s top diplomat is in Malaysia on his first trip to Asia since taking office
- Marco Rubio’s visit is part of an effort to renew US focus on the Indo-Pacific region
KUALA LUMPUR: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, their first in-person meeting at a time of simmering trade tensions between the two major powers.
Washington’s top diplomat is in Malaysia on his first trip to Asia since taking office, attending the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum alongside counterparts from Japan, China, South Korea, Russia, Australia, India, the European Union and Southeast Asian states.
His meeting with Wang comes amid escalating friction globally over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs offensive, with China this week warning the United States against reinstating hefty levies on its goods next month.
Beijing has also threatened to retaliate against nations that strike deals with the United States to cut China out of supply chains. Rubio’s visit is part of an effort to renew US focus on the Indo-Pacific region and look beyond conflicts in the Middle East and Europe that have consumed much of the Trump administration’s attention.
But that has been overshadowed by this week’s announcement of steep US tariffs on many Asian countries and US allies that include 25 percent on Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, 32 percent for Indonesia, 36 percent for Thailand and Cambodia and 40 percent on Myanmar and Laos.
Analysts said Rubio would be looking to press the case that the United States remains a better partner than China, Washington’s main strategic rival, during the visit. The State Department said Rubio met counterparts of Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia on Friday.
A day earlier, he told Southeast Asian foreign ministers the Indo-Pacific remained a focal point of US foreign policy.
China, initially singled out with tariffs exceeding 100 percent, has until August 12 to reach a deal with the White House to keep Trump from reinstating additional import curbs imposed during tit-for-tat tariff exchanges in April and May.
‘Bullying behavior’
China’s Wang has been fierce in his criticism of the United States in Kuala Lumpur and told Malaysia’s foreign minister the US tariffs were “typical unilateral bullying behavior” that no country should support or agree with, according to remarks released by Beijing on Friday.
He told Thailand’s foreign minister the tariffs had been abused and “undermined the free trade system, and interfered with the stability of the global production and supply chain.”
During a meeting with his Cambodian counterpart, he said the US levies were an attempt to deprive Southeast Asian countries of their legitimate right to development.
“We believe that Southeast Asian countries have the ability to cope with complex situations, adhere to principled positions, and safeguard their own interests,” Wang said, according to China’s foreign ministry.
The foreign secretary of US ally the Philippines said on Friday President Ferdinand Marcos Jr would meet Trump in Washington this month and discussions would include the increase in the US tariff on its former colony.
Rubio told reporters on Thursday he would also likely raise with Wang US concerns over China’s support for Russia in its war against Ukraine.
“The Chinese clearly have been supportive of the Russian effort and I think that generally, they’ve been willing to help them as much as they can without getting caught,” he said.
Rubio met together with Japanese foreign minister and South Korea’s first vice foreign minister in Malaysia on Friday, at a time of concerns about the tariffs.
According to a US State Department statement, they discussed regional security and a strengthening of their “indispensable trilateral partnership” including security and resilience of critical technologies and supply chains, energy, trusted digital infrastructure, and shipbuilding.
Pakistani father kills daughter over TikTok account: police
- TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels
- Pakistani women have found both audience and income on the app, which is rare in the country
RAWALPINDI: Pakistan police on Friday said a father shot dead his daughter after she refused to delete her account on popular video-sharing app TikTok.
In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces.
“The girl’s father had asked her to delete her TikTok account. On refusal, he killed her,” a police spokesperson said.
According to a police report shared with AFP, investigators said the father killed his 16-year-old daughter on Tuesday “for honor.” He was subsequently arrested.
The victim’s family initially tried to “portray the murder as a suicide” according to police in the city of Rawalpindi, where the attack happened, next to the capital Islamabad.
Last month, a 17-year-old girl and TikTok influencer with hundreds of thousands of online followers was killed at home by a man whose advances she had refused.
Sana Yousaf had racked up more than a million followers on social media accounts including TikTok, where she shared videos of her favorite cafes, skincare products, and traditional outfits.
TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels.
Women have found both audience and income on the app, which is rare in a country where fewer than a quarter of the women participate in the formal economy.
However, only 30 percent of women in Pakistan own a smartphone compared to twice as many men (58 percent), the largest gap in the world, according to the Mobile Gender Gap Report of 2025.
Pakistani telecommunications authorities have repeatedly blocked or threatened to block the app over what it calls “immoral behavior,” amid backlash against LGBTQ and sexual content.
In southwestern Balochistan, where tribal law governs many rural areas, a man confessed to orchestrating the murder of his 14-year-old daughter earlier this year over TikTok videos that he said compromised her “honor.”
Wildfires force evacuations at Grand Canyon’s North Rim and Colorado’s Black Canyon national park
- The Grand Canyon’s North Rim in Arizona also closed Thursday because of a wildfire on adjacent Bureau of Land Management land near Jacob Lake
JACOB LAKE, Ariz: Visitors and staff at two national parks in the US West have been evacuated because of wildfires.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, about 260 miles (418 kilometers) southwest of Denver, closed Thursday morning after lighting sparked blazes on both rims, the park said. The wildfire on the South Rim has burned 2.5 square miles (6.5 square kilometers), with no containment of the perimeter.
The conditions there have been ripe for wildfire with hot temperatures, low humidity, gusty winds and dry vegetation, the park said, adding that weather will remain a concern Friday.
The Grand Canyon’s North Rim in Arizona also closed Thursday because of a wildfire on adjacent Bureau of Land Management land near Jacob Lake. The Coconino County Sheriff’s Office said it helped evacuate people from an area north of Jacob Lake and campers in the Kaibab National Forest nearby.
The fire began Wednesday evening after a thunderstorm moved through the area, fire officials said. It has burned about 1.5 square miles (3.9 square kilometers) with zero containment.
Gunmen abduct and kill 9 passengers from 2 buses on a southwestern Pakistan highway
- Ashfaq Chaudhry, an administrator in Punjab’s Dera Ghazi Khan district, said the attackers appeared to target passengers from Punjab specifically
- Baluchistan has been the scene of a long-running insurgency in southwestern Pakistan with an array of separatist groups
Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan abducted and killed nine people after stopping two passenger buses on a highway Thursday night, officials said.
The overnight attacks occurred in the Zhob and Loralai districts of Balochistan province as the buses traveled from the provincial capital, Quetta, to Punjab province, district administrator Saadat Husain said Friday.
The attackers fled the scene and a search is underway to track down the assailants. Authorities recovered the bodies along the highway, Husain said.
Ashfaq Chaudhry, an administrator in Punjab’s Dera Ghazi Khan district, said the attackers appeared to target passengers from Punjab specifically.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the abduction and killings of the bus passengers.
Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari issued a statement condemning the “brutal killing of passengers” in Balochistan. He blamed the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army for the deaths and said the group wanted to “spread chaos and instability in Pakistan.”
The BLA killed 23 passengers in Balochistan in a similar attack last year. However, the militant group issued a statement saying on Thursday night it was engaged in an attack on a military camp in Balochistan’s Surab district, far away from the areas of the bus attacks.
Baluchistan has been the scene of a long-running insurgency in southwestern Pakistan with an array of separatist groups, including the BLA, demanding independence from Pakistan’s central government in Islamabad. The groups have staged attacks mainly targeting security forces and people from Punjab who travel to Balochistan for business or employment.
Although Pakistani authorities say they have quelled the insurgency, violence in the province has persisted.
The Pakistani government has routinely blamed India for backing the Pakistani Taliban and Baloch insurgents in Pakistan.
Russia and US hold ‘frank’ talks on Ukraine war
- The US secretary of state said Moscow’s top envoy Sergei Lavrov shared new ideas on resolving the conflict
- The Kremlin denied peace talks were stalled and said it was still open to contacts
KYIV: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US top diplomat Marco Rubio held “frank” talks on the Ukraine war during a meeting Thursday, both sides said, as Washington hit out at Moscow’s lack of “flexibility.”
The US secretary of state said Lavrov shared new ideas on resolving the conflict which he promised to present to US President Donald Trump, but played down the prospect of a breakthrough.
The pair met hours after Moscow pummeled Kyiv for a second straight night and as the United Nations said the number of victims from Russian attacks was at its highest level in three years.
Trump, who forced the warring countries to open negotiations for the first time in three years, this week accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of talking “bullshit” on Ukraine.
The US leader’s efforts to secure a ceasefire have failed to extract any concessions from the Kremlin, despite multiple calls with Putin.
Rubio told reporters Lavrov had floated something “new” on the conflict, but did not give details.
“It’s not a new approach. It’s a new idea or a new concept that I’ll take back to the president to discuss,” he said.
He added that it was not something that “automatically leads to peace, but it could potentially open the door to a path.”
The US diplomat said he had also conveyed Trump’s anger that the more than three-year war, triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion, was still ongoing, criticizing Moscow’s lack of “flexibility.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the United States would deliver more weapons to Kyiv and that he had “specific dates” on when they would arrive, in response to an AFP question.
Zelensky said in an X post that Ukraine was “ready” for different approaches to “scale up protection,” including by “purchasing a large defense package from the United States, jointly with Europe.”
Trump seemed to back up such an agreement. In an interview with American broadcaster NBC late on Thursday, he said NATO was “paying” the United States for weapons to send to Ukraine.
“We’re sending weapons to NATO, and NATO is paying for those weapons, 100 percent... And then NATO is going to be giving those weapons (to Ukraine),” Trump said.
Trump also said he would make a “major statement... on Russia” on Monday.
NATO secretary general Mark Rutte said he had spoken with Trump and was “working closely with allies to get Ukraine the help they need.”
The leaders of Britain and France meanwhile announced they had prepared plans for a peacekeeping force to be deployed to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire.
Ukraine said that two people – a 22-year-old policewoman on duty at a metro station and a 68-year-old woman – were killed in the latest assault on the capital.
Police described Maria Dziumaga as a “kind, cheerful, sincere, responsible, and dedicated police officer” who had joined in 2023.
AFP journalists heard loud detonations reverberating over Kyiv throughout the night and saw flashes from air defense systems illuminating the sky.
Resident Karyna Wolf said she could hear the growing buzz of a drone until a large explosion rocked the flats just two floors above in her building.
“I immediately jumped away from the wall, away from the windows and ran into the hallway, and in those seconds there was an explosion. There was a lot of glass shards flying at me,” the 25-year-old said.
As Rubio and Lavrov met in Kuala Lumpur, Zelensky was at a conference in Rome, where he called for more international political and military support.
Zelensky said Putin wanted “our people to suffer, to flee Ukraine and for homes, schools, for life itself to be destroyed,” urging Western leaders to boost defense investments.
The Kremlin denied peace talks were stalled and said it was still open to contacts.
Moscow has for months refused a ceasefire and two rounds of talks with Ukraine have produced no breakthrough.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 415 drones and missiles at the country while Zelensky urged allies to quickly roll out fresh sanctions against Moscow.
The fresh onslaught came just one night after Russia fired a record 741 long-range drones and missiles.
Officials said the nighttime attack on Kyiv also wounded 22 people.
AFP reporters saw firefighters putting out flames in a damaged residential building and people emerging from shelters, carrying sleeping mats and pets after the air alert was lifted.
Russia’s defense ministry said the strike targeted “military-industrial enterprises” in Kyiv as well as air bases.
The UN announced that attacks on Ukrainian cities in June had led to a three-year high in the number of civilians killed or wounded.
It said it had verified at least 232 people killed and 1,343 wounded during the month — the highest combined toll since April 2022.
