A shooter killed at least eight people and wounded 13 in a drive-by attack near a town close to Belgrade late Thursday, the second such mass killing in Serbia in two days, state television reported.

The attacker shot randomly at people near the town of Mladenovac, some 50 kilometers south of the capital, the RTS report said early Friday. Police were looking for a 21-year-old suspect who fled after the attack, the report said.

No other details were immediately available, and police had not issued any statements.

School shooting

On Wednesday in Belgrade, a 13-year-old boy allegedly used his father’s guns in a school shooting rampage that killed eight of his schoolmates and a school guard. The bloodshed sent shockwaves through the Balkan nation unused to such mass shootings.

Dozens of Serbian students, many wearing black and carrying flowers, paid silent homage Thursday to peers killed a day earlier.

The students filled the streets around the school in central Belgrade as they streamed in from all over the city. Earlier, thousands had lined up to lay flowers, light candles and leave toys to commemorate the eight children and a school guard who were killed on Wednesday morning.

The Balkan nation is struggling to come to terms with the school shooting. Though awash with weapons left over from the wars of the 1990s, mass shootings still have been extremely rare — and this is the first school shooting in Serbia’s modern history.

Authorities on Thursday moved to boost gun control, as police urged citizens to lock up their guns and keep them safe, away from children.

“The Ministry of Interior is appealing to all gun owners to store their guns with care, locked up in safes or closets so they are out of reach of others, particularly children,” police said in a statement that also announced tightened controls on gun owners in the future.

The shooting Wednesday morning in Vladislav Ribnikar primary school also left seven people hospitalized — six children and a teacher. One girl who was shot in the head remains in a life-threatening condition, and a boy is in serious condition with spinal injuries, doctors said on Thursday morning.

Serbians mourn, donate blood

To help people deal with the tragedy, authorities announced they were setting up a helpline. Hundreds answered a call to donate blood for the wounded victims. A three-day mourning period will begin Friday morning.

Serbian teachers’ unions announced protests and strikes to demand changes and warn about a crisis in the school system. Authorities shrugged off responsibility, with some officials blaming Western influence rather than a deep social crisis in the country.

The alleged shooter, whom the police identified as Kosta Kecmanovic, has not given any motive for his actions.

Authorities have said that Kecmanovic is too young to be charged and tried. He has been placed in a mental institution while his father has been detained on suspicion of endangering public security because his son allegedly got hold of the guns.

‘Too much violence’

Gun culture is widespread in Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans: The region is among the top in Europe in the number of guns per capita. Guns are often fired into the air at celebrations and the cult of the warrior is part of national identity. Still, the last mass shooting was in 2013 when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.

Experts have repeatedly warned of the danger posed by the number of weapons in a highly divided country like Serbia, where convicted war criminals are glorified and violence against minority groups often goes unpunished. They also note that decades of instability stemming from the conflicts of the 1990s as well as ongoing economic hardship could trigger such outbursts.

“We have had too much violence for too long,” psychologist Zarko Trebjesanin told N1 television. “Children copy models. We need to eliminate negative models … and create a different system of values.”
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Belgian police on Thursday arrested seven people suspected of supporting the Islamic State group and plotting a “terrorist attack,” prosecutors said. 

Almost all of the suspects are ethnic Chechens, and three of them possess Belgian nationality, prosecutors said in a statement.  

“The exact target of the planned attack has not yet been determined,” they said. 

Police, backed by elite units, raided nine addresses in several towns in western Belgium in an operation led by an investigating judge who specializes in terrorism cases. 

The judge will decide later if there is sufficient evidence to charge the suspects, the statement said. “Possible charges are attempted terrorist assassination, participation in the activities of a terrorist group and preparation of a terrorist attack,” it said. 

Prosecutors added that all seven arrested “are suspected of preparing a terrorist attack in Belgium.” They all “belong to a group of strong supporters of the IS.”  

A spokesman for the federal prosecutors office, Eric Van Duyse, told AFP that “they apparently intended to target an institution located in Belgium” and had been “actively searching for weapons.” 

The police raids took place in Ghent and the smaller towns of Roeselare, Menen, Ostend and Wevelgem. 

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Belgium on March 22, 2016, that targeted Brussels’ airport and the capital’s metro, killing 32 people and wounding hundreds. 

Those bombings occurred months after the November 2015 attacks in Paris that were planned by the same IS cell and that killed 130 people. 

Chechnya, a republic in Russia’s North Caucasus region, has a predominantly Muslim population.  

It is ruled by pro-Kremlin strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, who supports Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and who has sent his militia there to fight. 
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Italian conductor Riccardo Muti plans to visit Syrian musicians living in the vast Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan on the sidelines of his annual Roads of Friendship concert series that aims to use music to build bridges and help those affected by war.

Muti will conduct Italian and Jordanian musicians in concerts set in ancient Roman amphitheaters in Jerash, Jordan, on July 9 and the Pompeii archaeological site on July 11, for the 27th Roads of Friendship concert series.

The concerts will pay homage to the “generosity of the Jordanian people” for taking in millions of Syrian refugees fleeing civil war in the neighboring country, the Ravenna festival announced Thursday.

While in Jordan, Muti plans to visit the Zaatari camp, a symbol of the long-running Syrian refugee situation and home to about 80,000 refugees nearly 11 years after it was set up near the Syrian border.

He and a delegation from the Ravenna Festival will meet with musicians among the Syrian diaspora, bringing with them musical instruments as gifts.

This year’s Roads of Friendship concert series will launch on July 7 in Ravenna, and feature the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra founded by Muti, the Cremona Ancient Choir as well as Jordanian musicians.

The series was launched in 1997 in Sarajevo, just two years after the Bosnian civil war ended.

 
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New developments:

The Kremlin claims Ukraine launched two drones at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence overnight but that security services disabled them, and Putin wasn’t injured. The Russian claim couldn’t be immediately verified, and a Ukrainian official denied any involvement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives in The Hague to visit to the International Criminal Court.
Southern Russian refinery targeted by drone.
Kyiv, Odesa targeted by Russian missiles and drones.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday he is convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin would eventually face an international war crimes trial for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a speech at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Zelenskyy said, “Only one Russian crime led to all of these crimes: this is the crime of aggression, the start of evil, the primary crime. There should be responsibility for this crime.”

The ICC in March issued an arrest warrant for Putin on a war crimes charge involving the alleged deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia. Zelenskyy said Putin “deserves to be sentenced for these criminal actions right here in the capital of the international law.”

“And I’m sure we will see that happen when we win. And we will win,” he said.

The ICC cannot prosecute the crime of war aggression itself. But Zelenskyy appealed for a full-fledged tribunal to prosecute that overarching crime.

“If we want true justice, we should not look for excuses and should not refer to the shortcomings of the current international law but make bold decisions that will correct … shortcomings that unfortunately exist in international law,” he said.

Zelenskyy was welcomed outside the ICC building by the court’s president, Poland’s Piotr Hofmański. The court staff crowded at windows to watch Zelenskyy’s arrival and raised a Ukrainian flag next to the court’s own flag outside the building.

The ICC said in a March 18 statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of [children] and that of unlawful transfer of [children] from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”

But the chances of Putin standing trial in The Hague are remote. The court does not have a police force to execute its warrants, and the Russian leader is unlikely to travel to any of the ICC’s 123 member states that are under an obligation to arrest him if they can. Neither the U.S. nor Russia recognizes the authority of the court.

Zelenskyy’s speech came a day after he denied that Ukrainian forces were responsible for what the Russian government alleged was an attempt to assassinate Putin in a drone attack on the Kremlin. Moscow promised retaliation for what it termed a “terrorist” act.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday accused the United States of being behind the alleged attack. He said Russia was “well aware that the decision on such actions and terrorist attacks is not made in Kyiv, but in Washington.”

“And then Kyiv does what it’s told to do,” Peskov said, without offering evidence for his claim.

In Washington, U.S. national security spokesman John Kirby rejected the Russian accusation, telling MSNBC, “I can assure you that there was no involvement by the United States. … We had nothing to do with this, so Peskov is just lying there, pure and simple.”

U.S. officials also have voiced skepticism about the attack itself, including whether it was possibly staged by Moscow. “I would take anything coming out of the Kremlin with a very large shaker of salt,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.

On the battlefront, Ukraine’s military claimed three Russian drones that hit the southern city of Odesa early Thursday had “for Moscow” and “for the Kremlin” written on them, seemingly signaling the drone attacks were specifically retaliatory. Also, Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, was the target of an air attack for the third time in four days.

Ukraine’s Air Force said it intercepted 18 of the 24 Iranian-made drones launched by Russian forces in various regions. No casualties were reported.

Fuel depot fires

A product storage area at a refinery in southern Russia caught fire after a drone attack Thursday. However, the Russian Tass news agency said the fire at the Ilsky refinery, near the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk in the Krasnodar region was put out after two hours and the facility was now working normally.

Wednesday, Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of Russia’s southwestern Krasnodar region, said on the messaging app Telegram that a fuel depot in the village of Volna was targeted by a drone. He said there were no reports of casualties from the fire.

Volna is near the bridge spanning the Kerch Strait that separates mainland Russia from the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia forcibly annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The bridge, which is a vital link for Russia’s military to transport supplies to its soldiers in Ukraine, was partially destroyed by a truck bomb last October that Moscow blamed on Kyiv.

Wednesday’s fuel depot fire comes after a suspected drone attack last Saturday on an oil depot in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol.

The British Defense ministry in its daily intelligence update posted on Twitter said the attacks on Russian fuel depots in occupied Ukraine and the Russia Ukraine border area “will likely force adjustments to Russia’s military refueling operations to mitigate targeting.”

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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The coronation of Britain’s King Charles III takes place in London on Saturday. The king came to the throne after the September death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Charles is head of state not only in the United Kingdom, but in more than a dozen countries. In Australia, the death of Queen Elizabeth has reignited the debate about the country’s constitutional future.

As the coronation approaches, republican sentiment in Australia is again stirring. Campaigners argue that Australia’s constitutional monarchy, under which King Charles III is the head of state and is represented in Australia by a governor-general whose role is almost exclusively ceremonial, is outdated, although they have yet to settle on the type of republic they would favor. A poll in January showed support for a republic had risen from 36% to 39% among voters since the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The survey was carried out for The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

Charles first visited Australia as a teenager in 1966 and has developed a “special connection” to the country through several visits over the years.

Matt Thistlethwaite is the Australian government’s assistant minister for the republic – a position the Labor government created in the expectation that a referendum would be held in the next few years. He told the Australian Broadcasting Corp last month that change was well overdue.

“We woke up in September last year when the queen passed away, and all of a sudden, we had a new head of state,” he said. “The Australian people weren’t consulted about that. The Australian people didn’t get a choice in who should be their head of state, despite the fact that we govern by democratic means.”

Charles is the head of state in more than a dozen countries, including Canada, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, all members of the Commonwealth, a grouping of former British colonies.

Australia voted against severing its ties to the British crown in a referendum in 1999.

Supporters of the monarchy believe the system has made Australia’s democracy safe and secure.

Rachel Bailes, an official spokesperson for the Australian Monarchist League, told local media that it gives her country stability.

“I believe that a constitutional monarchy is a system that works,” she said. “It allows our government to get on with the business of serving the people of Australia through hard-nosed issues like the economy, energy crisis and housing affordability.”

Ultimately it will be up to about 18 million Australian voters to decide the country’s constitutional future.

Although enthusiastic for change, Australia’s Labor government says a vote on a republic won’t be held until its next term in office if it is reelected. Another referendum is taking priority. Later this year, Australians will decide whether to recognize Indigenous people in the constitution.

Constitutional change, though, in Australia is rare. Only eight out of 44 referendums have been passed since 1901.
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Ukrainian and Iranian women living in London are finding a common cause, joining in regular protests against Russian expansionism and the tyranny of the Iranian regime. Marcus Harton narrates this report from Umberto Aguiar in London.
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A senior Ukrainian presidential official said Wednesday that Kyiv had nothing to do with any drone attack on the Kremlin, and that such actions achieved nothing for Kyiv on the battlefield and would only provoke Russia to take more radical action.

Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in comments sent to Reuters that the allegation that Kyiv was behind the attack, and Russia’s arrest of alleged Ukrainian saboteurs, could indicate Moscow was preparing for a large-scale “terrorist” attack against Ukraine in coming days.

“Of course, Ukraine has nothing to do with drone attacks on the Kremlin. We do not attack the Kremlin because, first of all, it does not resolve any military tasks,” Podolyak said.  

Russia accused Ukraine on Wednesday of attacking the Kremlin with drones overnight in a failed attempt to kill President Vladimir Putin.

Podolyak said: “In my opinion, it is absolutely obvious that both ‘reports about an attack on the Kremlin’ and simultaneously the supposed detention of Ukrainian saboteurs in Crimea … clearly indicates the preparation of a large-scale terrorist provocation by Russia in the coming days.”
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German police arrested dozens of people across the country on Wednesday in an investigation of the Italian ‘Ndrangheta organized crime group, German public prosecutors and state police said. 

The ‘Ndrangheta is based in the southern region of Calabria, the toe of Italy’s boot, and has surpassed Cosa Nostra to become the most powerful mafia group in the country – and one of the largest crime networks in the world. 

The crackdown was part of a coordinated probe by investigators in Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain as well as Europol and Eurojust, they said. 

The suspects are accused of money laundering, criminal tax evasion, fraud and smuggling of drugs, they added. 

State police in Bavaria said the arrests were the result of more than three years of an investigation dubbed “Operation Eureka.” 

It said that Italian and Belgian investigators believe that the crime group smuggled close to 25 tons of cocaine between October 2019 and January 2022 and funneled more than $24.24 million from Calabria to Belgium, the Netherlands and South America. 

Among those arrested were four people in Bavaria, 15 in North Rhine-Westphalia, and 10 in the southwestern German state of Rhineland Palatinate, and police seized potential evidence at dozens of locations including homes and offices. 

Two suspects who were under investigation in the western state of Saarland, were arrested in Italy. Police did not identify them, saying only that one was 47 years old and the other 25. 
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Afghan protesters took to Paris streets this week, demanding the international community refuse to recognize the Taliban. The demonstration comes as a U.N.-convened conference is underway in Doha on how to engage with the Taliban. Jalal Mirzad has the story, narrated by Mary Alice Salinas. Roshan Noorzai contributed to this report.
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The sowing season is in full swing in Ukraine despite a series of significant challenges that farmers face as Russia continues its war on the country. The agricultural industry faces mined fields, instability with the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and a ban on the export of four key products to five European Union countries. Lesia Bakalets has more from Warsaw, Poland. VOA footage by Daniil Batushchak.
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People squeezed by inflation and demanding economic justice took to streets across Asia, Europe and the Americas on Monday to mark May Day, in an outpouring of worker discontent not seen since before the worldwide COVID-19 lockdowns.

Celebrations were forced indoors in Pakistan, tinged with political tensions as in Turkey, as both countries face high-stakes elections. Russia’s war in Ukraine overshadowed scaled-back events in Moscow, where Communist-led May Day celebrations were once massive affairs.

Across France, some 800,000 people marched, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. They mobilized against President Emmanuel Macron’s recent move to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Organizers see pension reform as a threat to hard-fought worker rights, while Macron argues it’s economically necessary as the population ages.

While marchers were largely peaceful, violence by radicals, an ever-present reality at French marches, marred the message, notably in Paris. A Paris police officer was seriously injured by a Molotov cocktail, among 108 officers injured around France, Darmanin said.

“Violence is increasingly strong in a society that is radicalizing,” the interior minister said on BFM-TV news station, blaming the ultra-left. He said some 2,000 radicals were at the Paris march.

Tear gas hung over the end point of the Paris march, Place de la Nation, where a huge black cloud lofted high above the trees after radicals set two fuel cans afire outside a building renovation site, police said.

French union members were joined by groups fighting for economic justice, or just expressing anger at what is seen as Macron’s out-of-touch, pro-business leadership.

In Northern Macedonia’s capital Skopje, thousands of trade union members protested a recent government decision granting ministers a 78% raise. The minimum monthly wage in one of Europe’s poorest countries is 320 euros ($350), while the hike will put ministers’ wages at around 2,300 euros ($2,530).

In Turkey, police prevented demonstrators from reaching Istanbul’s main square, Taksim, and detained around a dozen of them, independent television station Sozcu reported.

In Pakistan, authorities banned rallies in some cities because of a tense security and political atmosphere. In Peshawar, in the restive northwest, labor organizations and trade unions held indoor events to demand better workers’ rights amid high inflation.

Sri Lanka’s opposition political parties and trade unions held workers’ day rallies protesting austerity measures and economic reforms linked to a bailout agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Protesters demanded the government halt moves to privatize state-owned and semi-government businesses.

In South Korea, tens of thousands of people attended rallies in its biggest May Day gatherings since the pandemic began in early 2020.

“The price of everything has increased except for our wages. Increase our minimum wages!” an activist at a Seoul rally shouted at the podium.

In Tokyo, thousands of labor union members, opposition lawmakers and academics demanded wage increases to offset the impact of rising costs as they recover from damage from the pandemic. They criticized Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s plan to double the defense budget, saying the money should be spent on welfare, social security and improving people’s daily lives.

In Indonesia, demonstrators demanded the government repeal a job creation law they argue would only benefit business.

In Taiwan, thousands of workers protested what they call the inadequacies of the self-ruled island’s labor policies, putting pressure on the ruling party before the 2024 presidential election.

Protests in Germany kicked off with a “Take Back the Night” rally organized by feminist and queer groups on the eve of May Day to protest violence directed at women and LGBTQ+ people. On Monday, thousands more turned out in marches organized by Germany labor unions in Berlin, Cologne and other cities, rejecting recent calls by conservative politicians for restrictions on the right to strike.

More than 70 marches were held across Spain, and powerful unions warned of “social conflict” if low salaries compared to the EU average don’t rise in line with inflation. The Illustrious College of Lawyers of Madrid urged reforms of historic laws that require them to be on call 365 days of the year, regardless of the death of family members or medical emergencies. In recent years, lawyers have tweeted images of themselves working from hospital beds on IV drips to illustrate their plight.

Italy’s far-right premier, Giorgia Meloni, made a point of working Monday — as her Cabinet passed measures on Labor Day that it contends demonstrates concern for workers. But opposition lawmakers and union leaders said the measures do nothing to increase salaries or combat the widespread practice of hiring workers on temporary contracts.

In war-ravaged Ukraine, May Day is associated with Soviet-era celebrations when the country was ruled from Moscow — an era that many want forgotten.

“It is good that we don’t celebrate this holiday like it was done during the Bolshevik times. It was something truly awful,” said Anatolii Borsiuk, a 77-year-old in Kyiv.

In Venezuela, which has suffered rampant inflation for years, thousands of workers demonstrated to demand a minimum wage increase at a time when the majority cannot meet basic needs despite their last increase 14 months ago. “Decent wages and pensions now!” protesters chanted in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

In Bolivia, leftist President Luis Arce led a Labor Day march in La Paz with a major union and announced a 5% increase in the minimum wage. Arce said his government “is strong because the unions are strong.”

In Brazil, the focus was not only on traditional labor unions but on part-time workers and those in the informal sector, with the government of new leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announcing a group on proposals to regulate that sector after the president recently described those workers as “almost like slaves.”
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Ukrainian judokas will not take part in this month’s world championships in Qatar following the International Judo Federation’s  decision to readmit Russians and Belarusians as neutrals, the Ukrainian Judo Federation said on Monday.

The International Olympic Committee last month recommended that athletes from the two countries be allowed to return to international competition as neutrals.

The IJF last week announced that it would allow judoka from Russia and Belarus to participate in the May 7-14 championships, saying its decision would allow Russians and Belarusians to participate in qualifying for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

The IOC’s recommendations exclude athletes who support the war or are contracted to military or national security agencies. The IJF has said it has enlisted an independent company to perform background checks and identify any such athletes.

However, the Ukrainian federation alleged that a number of Russian judoka registered for the championships are “active servicemen.”

“We do not see here neutrality, equal conditions and a ‘bridge to peace,’ as stated in the IJF Resolution on the participation of Russian and Belarusian teams in the World Championships in Doha,” the UJF said.

“We see here a decision that contradicts the latest recommendations of the International Olympic Committee … We are disappointed with the decision of the International Judo Federation. Therefore, we have decided not to participate in the World Championships in Doha.”

Ukraine has barred its national sports teams from competing in events that include competitors from Russia and Belarus.

The IJF and the Judo Federation of Russia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

After Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, for which Belarus was a staging area for Russian troops, the IJF removed Russian President Vladimir Putin from his position as honorary president and cancelled a Grand Slam event in Kazan, Russia.
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