BELGRADE, SERBIA — Thousands of people rallied in Serbia’s capital Saturday, chanting “Thieves!” and accusing the populist authorities of President Aleksandar Vucic of orchestrating a fraud during a recent general election.

The rally in central Belgrade capped nearly two weeks of street protests over reported widespread irregularities during the December 17 parliamentary and local ballot — irregularities that were also noted by international election observers.

The ruling Serbian Progressive Party was declared the election winner, but the main opposition alliance, Serbia Against Violence, has claimed the election was stolen, particularly in the vote for the Belgrade city authorities.

Serbia Against Violence has led daily protests since December 17 demanding that the vote be annulled and rerun. Tensions have soared following violent incidents and arrests of opposition supporters at a protest last weekend.

The crowd at the rally Saturday roared in approval at the appearance of Marinika Tepic, a leading opposition politician who has been on a hunger strike since the ballot. Tepic’s health reportedly has been jeopardized, and she was expected to be hospitalized after appearing at the rally.

“These elections must be rerun,” a frail-looking Tepic told the crowd, waving feebly from the stage and saying she doesn’t have the strength to make a longer speech.

Another opposition politician, Radomir Lazovic, urged the international community “not to stay silent” and set up a commission to investigate the irregularities and pressure authorities to hold a new election that’s free and fair.

After the speeches, participants marched by the headquarters of the state electoral commission toward Serbia’s Constitutional Court, which will ultimately rule on electoral complaints.

A protester from Belgrade, Rajko Dimitrijevic, said he came to the rally because he felt “humiliation” and the “doctoring of the people’s will.”

Ivana Grobic, also from Belgrade, said she had always joined protests “because I want a better life, I want the institutions of this country to do their job.”

It was not immediately clear if or when opposition protests would resume. The rally Saturday was organized by an independent civic initiative, ProGlas, or pro-vote, that had campaigned for high turnout ahead of the ballot.

Ruling party leader Milos Vucevic said the “small number of demonstrators” at the rally Saturday showed that “people don’t want them [the opposition].”

The opposition has urged an international probe of the vote after representatives of several global watchdogs reported multiple irregularities, including cases of vote-buying and ballot box stuffing.

Local election monitors also alleged that voters from across Serbia and neighboring countries were registered and bused in to cast ballots in Belgrade.

Vucic and his party have rejected the reports as “fabricated.”

Saturday’s gathering symbolically was organized at a central area in Belgrade that in the early 1990s was the scene of demonstrations against strongman Slobodan Milosevic’s warmongering and undemocratic policies.

Critics nowadays say that Vucic, who was an ultranationalist ally of Milosevic in the 1990s, has reinstated that autocracy in Serbia since coming to power in 2012, by taking full control over the media and all state institutions.

Vucic has said the elections were fair. He accused the opposition of inciting violence at protests with the aim of overthrowing the government under instructions from abroad, which opposition leaders have denied.

On Sunday evening, protesters tried to enter Belgrade city hall, breaking windows, before riot police pushed them back using tear gas, pepper spray and batons. Police detained at least 38 people.

Serbia is formally seeking membership in the European Union, but the Balkan nation has maintained close ties with Moscow and has refused to join Western sanctions imposed on Russia over the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russian officials have extended full support to Vucic in the crackdown against the protesters and backed his claims that the vote was free and fair.
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LONDON — Eurostar services to and from London were canceled Saturday after a tunnel under the River Thames became flooded due to heavy rain, disrupting festive travel plans.

Hundreds of travelers trying to get across the English Channel were stranded at London’s St. Pancras International station and the Gare du Nord station in Paris. Eurostar, which runs services from London to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, said it would be running no high-speed train services throughout Saturday because of the flooding.

The U.K. has been battered by strong, gusty winds and heavy rain brought by Storm Gerrit throughout the festive period. More stormy weather and travel disruption is expected during the last weekend of the year.

Chris Dillashaw, from San Antonio, Texas, was among many whose plans for New Year’s Eve were ruined by the travel chaos.

“Our entire family is here. … We were celebrating Christmas in Paris and then headed to London for our New Year’s Eve plans,” he told The Associated Press while waiting at Gare du Nord. “It’s pretty disappointing to find out via an email what happened.”

Christina David, 25, and Georgina Benyamin, 26, of Sydney said they have nowhere to stay after finding out that their train from London to Paris — their final stop in a weekslong European tour — was canceled.

“We paid for an expensive hotel with an Eiffel Tower view,” Benyamin said. “Now we have to book a hotel to stay for the night here. We don’t know where to go; we have nowhere to stay.”

The U.K.’s weather forecaster, the Met Office, said more high winds and rain are expected to hit London and southern England on Saturday. Gusts of up to 80 kilometers per hour (50 miles per hour) are expected, with the strongest winds likely near coastal areas.
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The reelection of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2023 allowed him to further his plans to place Turkey as a leader in the region and in the Islamic world while engaging in rapprochement efforts with historic foes. Domestically, critics accuse Erdogan of using his mandate to silence domestic dissent. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA — Argentina formally announced Friday that it won’t join the BRICS bloc of developing economies, the latest in a dramatic shift in foreign and economic policy by Argentina’s new far-right populist president, Javier Milei. 

In a letter addressed to the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — the founding members of the alliance — Milei said the moment was not “opportune” for Argentina to join as a full member. The letter was dated a week ago, December 22, but released by the Argentine government on Friday, the last working day of 2023. 

Argentina was among six countries invited in August to join the group to make an 11-nation bloc. Argentina was set to join January 1. 

The move comes as Argentina has been left reeling by deepening economic crisis. 

Milei’s predecessor, former center-left President Alberto Fernandez, endorsed joining the alliance as an opportunity to reach new markets. The BRICS countries account for about 40% of the world’s population and more than a quarter of the world’s GDP. 

But economic turmoil left many in Argentina eager for change, ushering chainsaw-wielding political outsider Milei into the presidency. 

Milei, who defines himself as an “anarcho-capitalist” — a current within libertarianism that aspires to eliminate the state — has implemented a series of measures to deregulate the economy, which in recent decades has been marked by strong state interventionism. 

In foreign policy, he has proclaimed full alignment with the “free nations of the West,” especially the United States and Israel. 

Throughout the campaign for the presidency, Milei also disparaged countries ruled “by communism” and announced that he would not maintain diplomatic relations with them despite growing Chinese investment in South America. 

However, in the letter addressed to his counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva in neighboring Brazil and the rest of the leaders of BRICS members — Xi Jinping of China, Narendra Modi of India, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa — Milei proposed to “intensify bilateral ties” and increase “trade and investment flows.” 

Milei also expressed his readiness to hold meetings with each of the five leaders. 
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WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s defense forces said an unknown object entered the country’s airspace Friday morning from the direction of Ukraine and then vanished off radars, and that all indications pointed to it being a Russian missile.

“Everything indicates that a Russian missile intruded in Poland’s airspace. It was monitored by us on radars and left the airspace. We have confirmation of this on radars and from allies” in NATO, said Poland’s defense chief, Gen. Wiesław Kukuła.

Poland’s defense forces said the object penetrated about 40 kilometers (24 miles) into its airspace and left it after less than three minutes. The defense forces said both its radar and NATO radar confirmed that the object left Polish airspace.

Kukula said steps were being taken to verify those findings and eliminate the possibility of a technical error.

There was no comment from Russian officials.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on X, formerly Twitter, that he had spoken with Poland’s president about the “missile incident” and said NATO was vigilant and monitoring the situation “as the facts are established.”

It was not immediately clear where the object disappeared from radar or in which direction it had been going. Troops were mobilized to identify and find it. There were no immediate reports of any explosion or casualties.

The governor of Lublin province in eastern Poland, Krzysztof Komorski, told the Onet news portal that the object appeared on radars near the town of Hrubieszow, where a border crossing with Ukraine is located. Komorski said he had no information to indicate it landed in Lublin province.

Poland’s border with Ukraine is also the European Union and NATO border with Ukraine.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk convened a meeting with the defense minister, military commanders and heads of national security bodies, followed by a meeting of the National Security Bureau with President Andrzej Duda, the supreme commander of Poland’s armed forces.

Duda said through an aide that there was “no threat at the moment” and nothing to suggest that “anything bad” should be expected.

“The most important is that no one was hurt,” said the aide, Grazyna Ignaczak-Bandych.

On Friday, Ukrainian officials said Russia launched more than 100 missiles and dozens of drones against Ukrainian targets overnight in what an air force official called the biggest aerial barrage since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

It was not clear whether the object that Poland reported was related to the barrage.

“As a result of such massive attacks, this can happen. The enemy is attacking our border territories, including in the west. This is another signal for our partners to strengthen the Ukrainian air defense,” Yurii Ihnat, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force, said on national television about the incident.

Poland has been supporting Ukraine with military, humanitarian and political assistance.

This is not the first time an unauthorized object has entered Poland’s airspace from the direction of Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion. In November 2022, two men were killed when a missile struck the village of Przewodow, a few kilometers from the border. Western officials said they believed a Ukrainian air defense missile went astray.
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PARIS — France closes 2023 with a diminished presence in Africa’s restive Sahel region, after withdrawing troops from three once-staunch allied countries collectively fighting an Islamist insurgency, and seeing its influence increasingly replaced by other powers, including Russia.

The last French soldiers left Niger earlier this month, with Paris taking the unusual step of closing its embassy in Niamey as well. The troop withdrawal follows a pullout from Burkina Faso earlier this year and from Mali in 2022 — following coups in all three countries condemned by France, the former colonial power — and amid rising anti-French sentiment.

A five-country alliance, the G-5 Sahel, that partnered with France to fight terrorism across a swathe of desolate territory south of the Sahara, has all but collapsed. The remaining members, Chad and Mauritania, suggest its dissolution is near.

And on Sunday, Nigerien authorities announced they were suspending all cooperation with the Paris-based International Organization of Francophone Nations, aimed to promote the French language.

Now, as other countries and entities soften stances toward coup leaders they once condemned, Paris appears increasingly isolated in bucking the trend — a stance some observers believe must change.

“It’s time that France shows certain pragmatism,” the influential Le Monde newspaper wrote in a September editorial, as Paris remained locked in a standoff with coup leaders in Niger. “Although the reality of our institutional ties with the African continent is multiform, it’s not healthy that French influence appears almost completely within a military dimension.”

Bakery Sambe, director of the Dakar-based Timbuktu Institute-African Center for Peace, offered a similar take.

“France’s retreat from Niger signals a new era,” he said. “It underscores a broader trend of needing to rethink security cooperation — and of cooperation overall.”

Filling the void

France’s reduced influence in the Sahel contrasts sharply with a decade ago, when Paris launched its Barkhane counterinsurgency operation, aimed at working alongside the five most affected countries in pushing back jihadist threats. At its height, some 5,500 French troops were stationed in the region.

The cascade of coups, first in Mali, then in Burkina Faso last year and finally in Niger in July — all three countries at the heart of the Sahel insurgency — has sharply shrunk those numbers. Just 1,000 French troops now remain in Chad, where France currently bases its anti-jihadist operation in the region.

When coup generals toppled Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum in July, France remained staunchly behind the democratically elected leader. It initially refused the generals’ request to repatriate French Ambassador Sylvain Itte or to withdraw French forces.

While other nations and institutions adopted a similar tough approach, their positions have since softened. The Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, which once threatened a military intervention, has shelved its insistence that Bazoum be reinstated. It now calls for a short power transition and other conditions in return for lifting sanctions.

The United States, which dispatched a new ambassador to Niger in August, said this month it was willing to resume cooperation with Niger, if Niamey promised to swiftly restore civilian rule. In sharp contrast to its position on France, Niger’s new government has not called for the departure of the roughly 1,000 U.S. troops stationed on its territory.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who visited Niger earlier in the month, said Berlin was interested in resuming projects with the ruling military. Germany has a small military contingency in Niger.

“Germany is trying to fill a void left by France in the Sahel,” said analyst Sambe, summing up a broader European concern. “There needs to be a champion in the region.”

A new generation of Africans also views the U.S. favorably, Sambe said; it does not have the baggage carried by France as a former colonial power, and, it has adopted a low-key presence in the region.

“Africans want to diversify their partnerships with other countries,” he said. “There’s a new generation without the complexes of previous ones that demands respect.”

A broader Sahel vision

A succession of French leaders has promised to reboot French ties to Africa. That includes President Emmanuel Macron, who earlier this year also promised a sharply reduced and revamped military presence on the continent, even as he seeks new ties beyond France’s former colonial empire.

But a November report by France’s National Assembly calls for bigger changes: from creating more Africa specialists within the foreign ministry and appointing ambassadors with roots in the African diaspora, to rehauling French development aid and adopting a more transparent and pragmatic Africa policy.

“The deterioration of our ties to Africa is such that our relationship with the continent must be prioritized in order to renew it,” the report’s co-author, Bernard Fuchs, told Le Monde.

Meanwhile, the military governments in Mali and Burkina Faso have moved away from France and the West to strengthen ties with Russia and its Wagner paramilitary group. Early in December, Niger annulled two security deals with the European Union and held talks with Russian officials to strengthen security cooperation.

Despite Russia’s growing influence, insecurity in the Sahel has grown, analysts and officials say. Russia has also been accused of rights violations.

For his part, the Timbuktu Institute’s Sambe said he does not believe the Sahel’s new generation is necessarily moving toward Russia but rather away from France.

To offer an attractive alternative, he believes Paris and other Western governments need to consider policies that emphasize development along with security and consider coastal West African nations that are increasingly at risk of jihadist attacks.

“There has to be a vision of a broader Sahel,” he said, “that addresses the region’s weaknesses and especially fights against disinformation.”
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MOSCOW — A Soviet-era Antonov-24 aircraft carrying 30 passengers and 4 crewmembers landed on a frozen river near an airport in Russia’s far east on Thursday because of pilot error, transport prosecutors said.

The Polar Airlines An-24 landed safely on the Kolyma river near Zyryanka in the Yakutia region, the prosecutors said. “According to preliminary information, the cause of the aviation incident was an error by the crew in piloting the aircraft,” a spokesperson for the Eastern Siberian transport prosecutor said in a statement.

Prosecutors published pictures of the aircraft on a frozen river. The Izvestia newspaper published pictures of passengers disembarking.

“The An-24 aircraft landed outside of the runway of the Zyryanka airport,” Polar Airlines said in a short statement.

“There were no casualties,” it said. 
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WARSAW — Poland’s government is getting close to ending a blockade by truckers of several border crossings with Ukraine, the prime minister said on Wednesday. 

Polish drivers have been blocking several crossings with Ukraine since November 6, demanding the European Union reinstate a system whereby Ukrainian companies need permits to operate in the bloc and the same for European truckers to enter Ukraine. 

Farmers suspended a protest at one border crossing on Sunday, but truckers have continued to block three others. 

“We are close to the belief that our actions can bring results, both the talks in Kyiv and Brussels,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a news conference. “I do not think that we will achieve the maximum that the truckers want, but it seems that what can be achieved will allow us to relieve emotions and relieve blockades on the border.” 

The permit system for Ukrainian drivers was lifted after the EU and Kyiv signed an agreement on June 29, 2022, four months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

Tusk said that the current regulations concerning permits would be in force until June and that it was unlikely that they could be changed before then. However, he said other solutions could be found at the “operational level.” 

He said that he would discuss the issue with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during an upcoming visit to Kyiv.  

“I will do everything possible to make the life and fate of Polish truckers easier,” Tusk said. 

Poland’s deputy infrastructure minister said on Friday after a meeting in Kyiv that he hoped truckers’ protests on the border with Ukraine could be resolved before the end of the year. 
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