PRISTINA: Voters in Kosovo cast ballots on Sunday in an early parliamentary election in hopes of breaking a political deadlock that has gripped the small Balkan nation for much of this year.
The snap vote was scheduled after Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s governing Vetevendosje, or Self-Determination, party failed to form a government despite winning the most votes in a Feb. 9 election.
The deadlock marked the first time Kosovo could not form a government since it declared independence from Serbia in 2008 following a 1998-99 war that ended in a NATO intervention.
The prime minister’s party is again the favorite in the race, but it is unclear whether it will manage to muster a majority this time in the 120-member parliament, after other mainstream parties refused an alliance.
According to Kosovo’s election laws, 20 parliamentary seats are automatically assigned to ethnic Serb representatives and other minority parties.
Another inconclusive vote would further deepen the crisis. Kosovo has already not approved a budget for next year, sparking fears of possible negative effects on the already poor economy in the country of 2 million people.
Lawmakers are set to elect a new president in March as current President Vjosa Osmani’s mandate expires in early April. If this fails too, another snap election must be held.
The main opposition parties are the Democratic League of Kosovo and the Democratic Party of Kosovo. They have accused Kurti of authoritarianism and of alienating Kosovo’s US and European Union allies since he came to power in 2021.
A former political prisoner during Serbia’s rule in Kosovo, the 50-year-old Kurti has taken a tough stand in talks mediated by the European Union on normalizing relations with Belgrade. In response, the EU and the United States imposed punitive measures.
Kurti has promised to buy military equipment to boost security.
No reliable pre-election polls have been published. Kurti’s party at the previous election won around 42 percent of the votes while the two main rival parties had together around 40 percent.
Analysts say that even the slightest changes in numbers on Sunday could prove decisive for the future distribution of power but that nothing is certain.
Tensions with restive ethnic Serbs in the north exploded in clashes in 2023 when scores of NATO-led peacekeepers were injured. In a positive step, ethnic Serb mayors this month took power peacefully there after a municipal vote.
Kurti has also agreed to accept third-country migrants deported from the United States as part of tough anti-immigration measures by the administration of President Donald Trump. One migrant has arrived so far, authorities have told The Associated Press.
Kosovo is one of the six Western Balkan countries striving to eventually join the EU, but both Kosovo and Serbia have been told they must first normalize relations.
Kosovo voters cast ballots in a second attempt this year to elect a government and avoid more crisis
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Kosovo voters cast ballots in a second attempt this year to elect a government and avoid more crisis
- The prime minister’s party is again the favorite in the race, but it is unclear whether it will manage to muster a majority this time in the 120-member parliament
NASA’s new moon rocket heads to the pad ahead of astronaut launch as early as February
- The 98-meter rocket began its 1.6 kph creep from Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building at daybreak
- The six-kilometer trek could take until nightfall
CAPE CANAVERAL, USA: NASA’s giant new moon rocket headed to the launch pad Saturday in preparation for astronauts’ first lunar fly-around in more than half a century.
The out-and-back trip could blast off as early as February.
The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket began its 1 mph (1.6 kph) creep from Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building at daybreak. The four-mile (six-kilometer) trek could take until nightfall.
Thousands of space center workers and their families gathered in the predawn chill to witness the long-awaited event, delayed for years. They huddled together ahead of the Space Launch System rocket’s exit from the building, built in the 1960s to accommodate the Saturn V rockets that sent 24 astronauts to the moon during the Apollo program. The cheering crowd was led by NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman and all four astronauts assigned to the mission.
Weighing in at 11 million pounds (5 million kilograms), the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule on top made the move aboard a massive transporter that was used during the Apollo and shuttle eras. It was upgraded for the SLS rocket’s extra heft.
The first and only other SLS launch — which sent an empty Orion capsule into orbit around the moon — took place back in November 2022.
“This one feels a lot different, putting crew on the rocket and taking the crew around the moon,” NASA’s John Honeycutt said on the eve of the rocket’s rollout.
Heat shield damage and other capsule problems during the initial test flight required extensive analyzes and tests, pushing back this first crew moonshot until now. The astronauts won’t orbit the moon or even land on it. That giant leap will take come on the third flight in the Artemis lineup a few years from now.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and Christina Koch — longtime NASA astronauts with spaceflight experience — will be joined on the 10-day mission by Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, a former fighter pilot awaiting his first rocket ride.
They will be the first people to fly to the moon since Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed out the triumphant lunar-landing program in 1972. Twelve astronauts strolled the lunar surface, beginning with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969.
NASA is waiting to conduct a fueling test of the SLS rocket on the pad in early February before confirming a launch date. Depending on how the demo goes, “that will ultimately lay out our path toward launch,” launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said on Friday.
The space agency has only five days to launch in the first half of February before bumping into March.
