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EU Says No Place for Serbia’s ‘Glorification’ of War Criminal Mladic

A Bosnian woman looks at the names of victims at the memorial cemetery where the victims of the Srebrenica genocide are buried, following the death of Bosnian Serb Ratko Mladic, former general convicted of Bosnia genocide, in Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina, August 28, 2026. (Reuters)
A Bosnian woman looks at the names of victims at the memorial cemetery where the victims of the Srebrenica genocide are buried, following the death of Bosnian Serb Ratko Mladic, former general convicted of Bosnia genocide, in Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina, August 28, 2026. (Reuters)
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EU Says No Place for Serbia’s ‘Glorification’ of War Criminal Mladic

A Bosnian woman looks at the names of victims at the memorial cemetery where the victims of the Srebrenica genocide are buried, following the death of Bosnian Serb Ratko Mladic, former general convicted of Bosnia genocide, in Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina, August 28, 2026. (Reuters)
A Bosnian woman looks at the names of victims at the memorial cemetery where the victims of the Srebrenica genocide are buried, following the death of Bosnian Serb Ratko Mladic, former general convicted of Bosnia genocide, in Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina, August 28, 2026. (Reuters)

EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos on Monday criticized Serbia's plans to bury former Bosnian Serb military leader and convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic with state honors.

Mladic died on Thursday while serving a life jail term in The Hague for war crimes committed during the 1990s Bosnian war.

"Regarding Ratko Mladic, the glorification of war criminals is contrary to fundamental European values and has no place in the European Union or in countries that aspire to become members," Kos told reporters.

Serbia's justice minister Nenad Vujic said Friday that Mladic "will receive all the military and state honors to which he is entitled".

Serbian officials were awaiting details on when authorities in The Hague would release the body, he said.

Serbia is among Balkan countries seeking EU accession.

Kos said she would travel to Serbia on September 9.

"Ratko Mladic was a convicted war criminal, serving a life sentence for the genocide in Srebrenica and for crimes against humanity. And this will be the basis on which we will also assess developments," Kos added, speaking on the sidelines of the Bled Strategic Forum, a regional conference, taking place at the Bled lake resort in Slovenia.

Mladic, who had suffered several strokes in recent months, was serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity during the Bosnian war, including for his role in the Srebrenica massacre, Europe's worst act of bloodshed since World War II.

His conviction for the wartime killings as the former Yugoslavia descended into carnage after the fall of communism led the international press to dub him the "Butcher of Bosnia".

The 1992-1995 war left around 100,000 people dead and 2.2 million displaced.

Mladic was the military face of a brutal trio, led on the political side by ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.

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Trump Was Sending Message to Iran with Kharg Island Post, Says Vance

Vice President JD Vance speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force Two at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Aug. 31, 2026. (AP)
Vice President JD Vance speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force Two at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Aug. 31, 2026. (AP)
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Trump Was Sending Message to Iran with Kharg Island Post, Says Vance

Vice President JD Vance speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force Two at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Aug. 31, 2026. (AP)
Vice President JD Vance speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force Two at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Aug. 31, 2026. (AP)

US President Donald Trump was sending a message to Iran with his social media post about Iran's energy hub of Kharg Island being blown to smithereens, Vice President JD Vance said on Monday.

"The president likes to switch it up ‌on social ‌media a little bit. He ‌would ⁠be the first ⁠to say he doesn't make announcements about military actions on social media, but I think that he's sending a message to the Iranians," Vance said when asked ⁠about Trump's post.

Trump's one-line social ‌media post ‌on Sunday was accompanied by an AI-generated ‌video clip. A US official ‌said on Monday the military had not targeted Kharg Island in overnight strikes. An Iranian official dismissed Trump's post ‌as "laughable".

Attacking Kharg, which handled 90% of Iran's oil exports before the ⁠war ⁠launched by US and Israeli attacks on February 28, would severely disrupt its energy trade and put huge pressure on its economy.

In describing the first known US military strikes since late July, a US official said forces attacked two Iranian launchers on Larak Island.

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Iran Sentences Two Women to Death Over 2026 Protests, Say Rights Groups

A woman walks past a wall mural of Iran's slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei, along a street in downtown of Tehran on August 31, 2026. (AFP)
A woman walks past a wall mural of Iran's slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei, along a street in downtown of Tehran on August 31, 2026. (AFP)
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Iran Sentences Two Women to Death Over 2026 Protests, Say Rights Groups

A woman walks past a wall mural of Iran's slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei, along a street in downtown of Tehran on August 31, 2026. (AFP)
A woman walks past a wall mural of Iran's slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei, along a street in downtown of Tehran on August 31, 2026. (AFP)

Iranian courts have issued death sentences for two women charged over anti-government protests in January, rights groups said Monday, as Tehran ramps up executions of people arrested in the demonstrations.

The two women were sentenced in separate cases but both were related to incidents in the central city of Isfahan, which was a hub of the nationwide protest activity that peaked on the nights of January 8 and 9.

Against the backdrop of the war with the United States, Iran has already executed 29 men on charges related to the demonstrations, according to the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR).

So far, no woman has been executed over the unrest, although Iran has hanged at least 16 women this year on other charges, per IHR.

Taraneh Rahimi, 20, was sentenced to death along with nine men over incidents during the protests in a square in Isfahan that saw two people killed, including a member of the security forces, the Norway-based Hengaw group and US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said Monday.

Other defendants in the case were given sentences of up to 36 years in prison, including Taraneh's sister Romina, they added.

"Defendants' lawyers did not have access to a substantial portion of the case file and objected that they had not been given sufficient time to review the documents and evidence," HRANA said.

In the other case, Leila Abolhasani, a 43-year-old mother of two teenagers, was convicted by a court in Isfahan of setting fire to a store during the protests, the Dadban legal affairs monitor and HRANA said.

Her relatives have denied the accusation, saying she was only present at the scene and was filming the burning store, the groups said.

But she was convicted on the capital charge of "waging war against God". The case has been sent to the Supreme Court for review.

President Donald Trump in April re-posted a claim on X by a pro-Israel youth activist in the United States that eight Iranian women faced death by hanging, with the US leader urging them to be freed.

However, not all the women had been sentenced to death and some were no longer in custody.

One of the women, Bita Hemmati, had indeed been sentenced to death over the protests on charges of throwing concrete blocks from a building onto police. However, HRANA said in April that her death sentence had been overturned.

World

Russia Wants AI, Digital Cooperation with China, Putin Tells Xi

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, gestures while speaking to Chinese President Xi Jinping during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Sept. 16, 2022. (Sergei Bobylev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, gestures while speaking to Chinese President Xi Jinping during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Sept. 16, 2022. (Sergei Bobylev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
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Russia Wants AI, Digital Cooperation with China, Putin Tells Xi

FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, gestures while speaking to Chinese President Xi Jinping during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Sept. 16, 2022. (Sergei Bobylev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, gestures while speaking to Chinese President Xi Jinping during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Sept. 16, 2022. (Sergei Bobylev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

Moscow aims to cooperate with Beijing in the field of artificial intelligence and digital innovation, Russian President Vladimir Putin told China's Xi Jinping on Monday as the leaders met in Kyrgyzstan.

They arrived in the central Asian country for a two-day summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a regional bloc that seeks to serve as a counter-balance to the West.

Russia, with its troops bogged down in Ukraine, has deepened ties with its main oil customer China, which has never condemned Moscow for its four-and-a-half-year invasion.

"Cooperation is successfully developing on all fronts," Putin told Xi ahead of their talks.

They last met in May in Beijing.

"Digital innovations, including in artificial intelligence technologies, are also opening up new opportunities for the economic development of our countries," Putin said.

The Kremlin has in the past months sought to tighten its control over the online sphere, imposing intermittent mass internet shutdowns and restrictions on popular messaging apps.

Moscow is pushing Russians to embrace the state-backed Max messenger platform -- an unencrypted super-app similar to China's WeChat that critics say raises privacy and snooping concerns.

It has repeatedly threatened foreign-owned sites with bans, part of what rights advocates say is a broader attempt by authorities to control and monitor internet use.