Serbia votes in historic election as students seek to end Vucic’s long grip on power

By Mina PEJAKOVIC AFP | Posted by TOE Voting was under way in Serbia on Sunday in what is set to be its most fiercely contested parliamentary election in more than 14 years, as a student-led movement seeks to oust the party of veteran leader Aleksandar Vucic. The snap vote is the culmination of nearly two years of student-led protests sparked by the 2024 collapse of a canopy at Novi Sad railway station that killed 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on corruption. The disaster triggered some of Serbia’s largest protests since the fall of strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. The Students’ List, a selection of candidates backed by the largely leaderless movement, now poses the biggest challenge to Vucic’s right-wing populist Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which has dominated politics throughout its tenure. – High turnout – Eighteen electoral lists are vying for seats in Serbia’s 250-member parliament, but polls suggest ...

North Korea says its nuclear weapons state is irreversible

The permanent mission of North Korea to the United Nations said the country’s position as a nuclear weapons state was irreversible, denouncing U.S. “anachronistic” claims for denuclearisation, state media KCNA reported on Monday.

“The position of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as a nuclear weapons state which has been permanently specified in the supreme and basic law of the state has become irreversible,” the DPRK permanent mission to the UN Office and international organizations in Vienna was quoted as saying.

DPRK is short for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

While criticising the U.S. push for denuclearisation as a “provocative act” of interfering in its internal affairs, Pyongyang defended its nuclear weapons as an “inevitable option” of defending the country from U.S. nuclear threats.

SOURCE: REUTERS AND AGENCIES



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