Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which border Russia and its Kaliningrad exclave, announced plans to close their airspace to the planes carrying Serbia’s and Slovakia’s leaders to Moscow this week for the celebrations out of safety concerns, officials there said.
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office, said Friday that U.N. concerns have not been addressed in multiple meetings with Israeli officials. He dismissed claims that theft of aid was significant in scale.“The problem is the blockage of hundreds of aid trucks that should go into the Gaza Strip every single day. That is the root cause of the humanitarian crisis.”
El Deeb reported from Beirut, and Keaten from Geneva.This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of the family name of the executive director of the aid group Medglobal to Belliveau instead of Belleveau.BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — As Romania braces for a high-stakes presidential runoff this weekend between two starkly different candidates, 25-year-old medical resident Alexandra Bejinariu is anxious about which direction her European Union nation will choose in the closely watched vote.
Like many voters, the young medic views Sunday’s ballot between hard-right nationalist frontrunner George Simion and pro-Western reformist and incumbent Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan as a choice for the country’s geopolitical future.It’s a choice between “East or West,” she told The Associated Press in Bucharest. “It has divided my family, my relatives, my friends,” she said.
Romania is gripped by a deep political crisis after a top court voided the previous election in which the far-right
topped the first round, following allegations ofShe told the AP she feels terrible that “our land is just a bargaining chip for the rest of the world and that we do not have our own full protection, but rely on someone.”
“My vision is that instead of strengthening ourselves, we continue to give it all away. I feel sorry for our land and for our people,” she said.Reaction to the signing was generally muted in Moscow on Wednesday, a holiday in Russia. But the deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said that Trump had forced Ukraine to effectively “pay” for American military aid with its mineral resources.
“Now military supplies will have to be paid for with the national wealth of a disappearing country,” he claimed in a post on Telegram.Vladimir Rogov, chairman of the Russian Civic Chamber’s commission on sovereignty, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that Zelenskyy had effectively handed Ukraine over to “legally prescribed slavery.”