Military

Albania's Defense Ministry says its ship in the Aegean Sea has rescued 36 Afghans trying to cross into Greece.
Defense Minister Olta Xhacka tweeted Wednesday that 19 Afghan children, eight women and nine men were rescued by the ship Oriku in cooperation with Frontex, the European Union's border control force. She says they have been handed over to local authorities.

A defence witness in the war crimes retrial of former Serbian state security officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic said on Tuesday that the State Security Service, SDB, that they led was not involved in establishing a training camp in a Serb breakaway statelet in Croatia in 1991.

The Ministry of National Defense is making every effort for the highly trained personnel of the Romanian Air Force to be equipped with modern hardware, said Defense Minister Gabriel Les, attending on Monday the departure ceremony of the 'Carpathian Pumas' airlift helicopter detachment for a UN mission to Mali.

The bicentennial of the start of the Greek War of Independence, which Greece will mark in 2021, is indeed important and we ought to celebrate it. It could also serve as a catalyst to bring Greeks of the diaspora closer to the homeland and an opportunity to rebuild the Greek brand, which has suffered tremendously as a result of the financial crisis.

Joint Bulgarian-American training with the participation of the Special Forces of the Bulgarian Army and the Army Air Force formed by the US Army in Europe will continue from August 19 to 25 in our country. This was reported by the Ministry of Defense's Public Relations Directorate.

Gotovina became a national icon when he was indicted in July 2001 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY for large-scale crimes against Serb civilians during and after Operation Storm. A broad section of the Croatian public supported his cause, seeing him as a victim of unfair treatment of the young Croatian state by the international community.

Without a consensus on the key point of NATO, experts and opposition politicians in Bosnia says this week's 'landmark' deal on forming a new state government is worth very little.

The failure of the international community to protect the so-called 'safe zone' of Srebrenica in July 1995 is a black mark in the history of peacekeeping operations across the world.

Much of the controversy that remains today surrounds the debate around the role of the UN and other state actors in not preventing the killings of over 8,000 Bosniak men and boys.

Bulgaria has sent a request to four European countries for proposals for 150 armored vehicles, the defense ministry said on Tuesday, reports Reuters.

The Balkan state, which joined NATO in 2004, has called for bids in a 1.46 billion levs ($836.24 million) tender from Germany, Finland, France, and Switzerland, the ministry said in a statement.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that NATO member states, New Zealand among others, are more often faced with security challenges on a global, rather than regional level. One of the main reasons for that is increased competition between great powers.