Croatian right wing singer Marko Perkovic and fans perform pro Nazi salute at massive concert

Drones create a national flag during a concert of Croatian nationalist singer Marko Perkovic Thompson at the Zagreb hippodrome in Zagreb, Croatia. (AFP)
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Updated 06 July 2025
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Croatian right wing singer Marko Perkovic and fans perform pro Nazi salute at massive concert

  • Organizers said that half a million people attended Perkovic’s concert in the Croatian capital
  • The Nazi salute is punishable by law in Croatia, but courts have ruled Perkovic can use it as part of his song, the Croatian state television HRT said

ZAGREB: A hugely popular right-wing Croatian singer and hundreds of thousands of his fans performed a pro-Nazi World War II salute at a massive concert in Zagreb, drawing criticism.
One of Marko Perkovic’s most popular songs, played in the late Staurday concert, starts with the dreaded “For the homeland — Ready!” salute, used by Croatia’s Nazi-era puppet Ustasha regime that ran concentration camps at the time.
Perkovic, whose stage name is Thompson after a US-made machine gun, had previously said both the song and the salute focus on the 1991-95 ethnic war in Croatia, in which he fought using the American firearm, after the country declared independence from the former Yugoslavia. He says his controversial song is “a witness of an era.”
The 1990s conflict erupted when rebel minority Serbs, backed by neighboring Serbia, took up guns, intending to split from Croatia and unite with Serbia.
Perkovic’s immense popularity in Croatia reflects prevailing nationalist sentiments in the country 30 years after the war ended.
The WWII Ustasha troops in Croatia brutally killed tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma and antifascist Croats in a string of concentration camps in the country. Despite documented atrocities, some nationalists still view the Ustasha regime leaders as founders of the independent Croatian state.
Organizers said that half a million people attended Perkovic’s concert in the Croatian capital. Video footage aired by Croatian media showed many fans displaying pro-Nazi salutes earlier in the day.
The salute is punishable by law in Croatia, but courts have ruled Perkovic can use it as part of his song, the Croatian state television HRT said.
Perkovic has been banned from performing in some European cities over frequent pro-Nazi references and displays at his gigs.
Croatia’s Vecernji List daily wrote that the concert’s “supreme organization” has been overshadowed by the use of the salute of a regime that signed off on “mass executions of people.”
Regional N1 television noted that whatever the modern interpretations of the salute may be its roots are “undoubtedly” in the Ustasha regime era.
N1 said that while “Germans have made a clear cut” from anything Nazi-related “to prevent crooked interpretations and the return to a dark past ... Croatia is nowhere near that in 2025.”
In neighboring Serbia, populist President Aleksandar Vucic criticized Perkovic’s concerts as a display “of support for pro-Nazi values.” Former Serbian liberal leader Boris Tadic said it was a “great shame for Croatia” and “the European Union” because the concert “glorifies the killing of members of one nation, in this case Serbian.”
Croatia joined the EU in 2013.
Croatian police said Perkovic’s concert was the biggest ever in the country and an unseen security challenge, deploying thousands of officers.
No major incidents were reported.


Talks underway between Thai and Cambodian leaders, Malaysian official says

Updated 8 sec ago
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Talks underway between Thai and Cambodian leaders, Malaysian official says

  • Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim invited leaders of the two feuding ASEAN members to a dialogue to resolve their dispute
  • Earlier, President Trump warned that the hostilities could hamper implementation of US trade pacts with either country

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia: The leaders of Cambodia and Thailand arrived in Malaysia on Monday for talks aimed at securing a ceasefire in their fierce border conflict, a Malaysian official said, amid an international effort to halt the fighting which entered a fifth day.

The ambassadors to Malaysia of the United States and China were also present at the meeting in Malaysia’s administrative capital of Putrajaya, the official said. It is being hosted at the residence of Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, the chair of the regional bloc ASEAN.

Both Thailand and Cambodia accuse the other of starting the fighting last week and then escalating the clashes with heavy artillery bombardment at multiple locations along their 817km land border, the deadliest conflict in more than a decade between the Southeast Asian neighbors.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet had earlier said the talks were co-organized by Malaysia and the United States, and that China would also take part in them.

“The purpose of this meeting is to achieve an immediate ‘ceasefire’, initiated by President Donald Trump and agreed to by the Prime Ministers of Cambodia and Thailand,” Hun Manet said in a post on X as he departed for the talks. Trump said on Sunday he believed both Thailand and Cambodia wanted to settle their differences after he told the leaders of both countries that he would not conclude trade deals with them unless they ended their fighting.

Thailand’s leader said there were doubts about Cambodia’s sincerity ahead of the negotiations in Malaysia.

“We are not confident in Cambodia, their actions so far have reflected insincerity in solving the problem,” acting Thai Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters ahead of his departure for Malaysia.

“Cambodia has violated international law, but everybody wants to see peace. Nobody wants to see violence that affects civilians.”

Cambodia has strongly denied Thai accusations it has fired at civilian targets, and has instead said that Thailand has put innocent lives at risk. It has called for the international community to condemn Thailand’s aggression against it. The tensions between Thailand and Cambodia have intensified since the killing in late May of a Cambodian soldier during a brief skirmish. Border troops on both sides were reinforced amid a full-blown diplomatic crisis that brought Thailand’s fragile coalition government to the brink of collapse. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had proposed ceasefire talks soon after the border dispute erupted into conflict on Thursday, and China and the United States also offered to assist in negotiations.


At least six killed in shooting incident in Bangkok

Updated 29 min 53 sec ago
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At least six killed in shooting incident in Bangkok

  • At least six killed in shooting incident in Bangkok

BANGKOK: At least six people were killed at a market in a shooting incident in the Thai capital Bangkok on Monday, a police official said, adding that the attacker had also taken his own life. 


Overflowing sewer tied to deadly Germany train derailment: authorities

Updated 51 min 32 sec ago
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Overflowing sewer tied to deadly Germany train derailment: authorities

  • A train derailment in a wooded area of southwestern Germany that killed three people on Sunday may have been caused by an overflowing sewer, local police and prosecutors said Monday

FRANKFURT: A train derailment in a wooded area of southwestern Germany that killed three people on Sunday may have been caused by an overflowing sewer, local police and prosecutors said Monday.
“It is believed that heavy rain in the area of the accident caused a sewage shaft to overflow,” Ulm police and Ravensburg prosecutors said in a joint statement.
“The water triggered a landslide on the embankment next to the tracks, which in turn caused the derailment,” they added.
About 100 passengers were aboard the train when the accident occurred at around 6:10 p.m. (1610 GMT) near the town of Riedlingen in Baden-Wuerttemberg state.
Severe storms swept through the region at the time of the accident, according to weather services.
Three people died in the accident, police and prosecutors said, including the train’s driver and a member of staff onboard.
At least 41 people were injured, some of them severely, they added.
Traffic is still suspended on the affected railway line and cleanup work will begin tomorrow, the statement said.
The investigation is still ongoing and there is no indication of any foul play or interference with the line, authorities said.


Colombian ex-president to learn fate in witness tampering case

Updated 55 min 48 sec ago
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Colombian ex-president to learn fate in witness tampering case

  • Alvaro Uribe, who was president from 2002 to 2010, is charged with ‘bribery of witnesses’ in a separate investigation against him
  • Uribe on Sunday gave an hourlong speech in his native Medellin in which he criticized the left-leaning Petro administration

BOGOTA: Colombian ex-president Alvaro Uribe will learn his fate Monday in a witness tampering case that saw him become the South American country’s first-ever former head of state to be put on trial.

The 73-year-old, who was president from 2002 to 2010, is charged with “bribery of witnesses” in a separate investigation against him, and risks a 12-year prison sentence in the highly politicized case.

The matter dates to 2012, when Uribe accused leftist senator Ivan Cepeda before the Supreme Court of hatching a plot to falsely link him to right-wing paramilitary groups involved in Colombia’s long-standing armed conflict.

The court decided against prosecuting Cepeda and turned its sights on his claims against Uribe instead.

Paramilitary groups emerged in the 1980s in Colombia to fight Marxist guerrillas that had taken up arms against the state two decades earlier with the stated goal of combating poverty and political marginalization, especially in rural areas.

The plethora of armed groups adopted cocaine as their main source of income, the genesis of a rivalry for resources and trafficking that continues to pit them against each other and the state.

Uribe was a politician on the right of the political spectrum – like all Colombian presidents before current leader Gustavo Petro, who unseated Uribe’s Centro Democratico party in 2022 elections.

Uribe on Sunday gave an hourlong speech in his native Medellin in which he criticized the left-leaning Petro administration.

“We need an enormous victory in the coming year,” Uribe said, in reference to presidential elections that will be held in 2026.

During his tenure, Uribe led a relentless military campaign against drug cartels and the FARC guerrilla army that signed a peace deal with his successor Juan Manuel Santos in 2016.

After Cepeda accused him of having had ties to paramilitary groups responsible for human rights violations, Uribe is alleged to have contacted jailed ex-fighters to lie for him.

He claims he only wanted to convince them to tell the truth.

In 2019, thousands protested in Bogota and Medellin when Uribe – who remains a prominent voice on the right – was indicted in the case.

More than 90 witnesses testified in his trial, which opened in May 2024.

The investigation against Uribe began in 2018 and has had numerous twists and turns, with several attorneys general seeking to close the case.

It gained new impetus under Attorney General Luz Camargo, picked by Petro – himself a former guerrilla and a political arch-foe of Uribe.

Prosecutors claim to have evidence from at least one paramilitary ex-fighter who claims to have been contacted by Uribe to change his story.

The former president is also under investigation in other matters.

He has testified before prosecutors in a preliminary probe into a 1997 paramilitary massacre of small-scale farmers when he was governor of the western Antioquia department.

A complaint has also been filed against him in Argentina, where universal jurisdiction allows for the prosecution of crimes committed anywhere in the world.

That complaint stems from Uribe’s alleged involvement in the more than 6,000 executions and forced disappearances of civilians by the military when he was president.

Uribe insists his trial is a product of “political vengeance.”


2 volunteers die fighting Turkiye wildfires, raising deaths to 17 since late June

Updated 28 July 2025
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2 volunteers die fighting Turkiye wildfires, raising deaths to 17 since late June

  • Turkiye battled at least 44 separate fires Sunday, Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said late Sunday
  • While firefighting teams have contained the damage to a limited number of homes, vast tracts of forest have been turned to ash

ISTANBUL: The death toll from wildfires outside the city of Bursa in northwest Turkiye rose to four late Sunday after two volunteer firefighters died.
The pair died in hospital after they were pulled from a water tanker that rolled while heading to a forest fire, news agency IHA reported. Another worker died earlier at the scene of the accident and a firefighter died Sunday after suffering a heart attack.
Their deaths raised Turkiye’s wildfire fatalities to 17 since late June, including 10 rescue volunteers and forestry workers killed Wednesday in a fire in Eskisehir, western Turkiye.
Huge fires around Bursa, Turkiye’s fourth-largest city, broke out over the weekend, leading to more than 3,500 people fleeing their homes. On Monday morning, fog-like smoke from ongoing fires and smoldering foliage hung over the city.
Unseasonably high temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds have been fueling the wildfires, with Turkiye and other parts of the eastern Mediterranean experiencing record-breaking heatwaves.
The fires around Bursa were among hundreds to have hit Turkiye over the past month. While firefighting teams have contained the damage to a limited number of homes, vast tracts of forest have been turned to ash.
The water tanker crew comprised volunteers from nearby Bolu province heading to the village of Aglasan, northeast of Bursa, to combat a blaze when the vehicle fell into a ditch while negotiating a rough forest track, IHA reported.
Turkiye battled at least 44 separate fires Sunday, Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said late Sunday. He identified two fires in Bursa province, as well as blazes in Karabuk, northwest Turkiye, and Kahramanmaras in the south, as the most serious.
The government declared disaster areas in two western provinces, Izmir and Bilecik. Prosecutions have been launched against 97 people in 33 of Turkiye’s 81 provinces in relation to the fires, Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said.
A crowd of people gathered Sunday evening outside a police station in the village of Harmancik, 57 kilometers (35 miles) south of Bursa, after learning a suspected arsonist was detained there. The angry crowd demanded for the suspect to be handed over to them. The crowd dispersed after police assured them a thorough investigation would be undertaken.