The government of Poland has instituted a near-total ban on abortions, spurring protests across the country. The ban suddenly took effect nearly three months after the country’s constitutional court ruled abortions of congenitally damaged fetuses unconstitutional.
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With only two days remaining before its expiry date, the Biden administration officially extended the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) between the United States and the Russian Federation.
Read MoreMontenegro and Serbia engaged in a diplomatic dispute that led each country to dismiss their ambassador from the host country. The Serbian ambassador to Montenegro, Vladimir Bozovic, had supposedly made an inappropriate comment about Montenegro’s history.
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The Russian Ministry of Defense has announced the signing of an agreement between Russia’s Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and the Sudanese government to build Russia’s first naval base in Africa.
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On November 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a ceasefire agreement to end the recent fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
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The international community are raising concerns over the recent discovery of the use of cluster bomb weapons in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. On October 28, a strike over the Nagorno-Karabakh region was flagged by Azerbaijan, which accused Armenia of using cluster bombs in a civilian area. Wednesday’s attack killed 21 civilians and injured 70, The BBC estimates.
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resident Hashim Thaci of Kosovo stepped down on November 5 in response to charges of murder, torture, and persecution related to his involvement in Kosovo’s war for independence in 1998. NPR reports that Thaci stepped down in order “to protect the integrity of the state” of Kosovo. He also reportedly urged Kosovars to maintain “political and civic unity.” Thaci is scheduled to appear in court on November 9. He was flown to The Hague, along with Kadrim Veseli, leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, and Rexhep Selimi, a Kosovo Member of Parliament, reports the BBC.
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On Tuesday, October 20, the United States and Russia edged closer to renewing the last major nuclear arms control treaty between the two nations. According to POLITICO, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) is set to expire on February 5, 2021 and has been the subject of unpromising negotiations between the Trump administration and Putin government since the beginning of this year. This newfound cooperation and apparent will to renew New START is owed to a Russian verbal commitment to a one-year nuclear warhead freeze and a one-year extension of New START.
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The Russian Defense Ministry has announced the successful test of a new hypersonic cruise missile known as Tsirkon, a move hailed as a “great event” by Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Barron’s. The missile was fired from the Admiral Gorshkov frigate in the White Sea and hit its target 280 miles away in the Barents Sea in northern Russia. The chief of the Russian military’s general staff, Valery Gerasimov, told Putin that this was the first successful sea launch, Al Jazeera reports.
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On September 27, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh reached its highest level of violence since 2016. Reuters reports that the clashes have reignited concerns over stability in the South Caucasus, a popular corridor for oil and gas pipelines that supply the world market. The pipeline runs from the Shah Deniz gas field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea to Turkey.
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