My Substack where I go into why Kosovo Serbs are really facing the end - on Monday. I include comments from the EU and US as well as a policy brief I did on the issues. email.mg-d1.substack.com/c/eJxkksGunD...

USAID public servants lost our careers, pensions, and healthcare. Some lost their homes. Some lost their children’s tuition. Some colleagues died by suicide. Now we learn our Social Security numbers were stolen and exposed too.

♥️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Rhys Carré. But have you all noticed that once Taine Plumtree disappeared everything got better?

Me briefly on the EU Rapporteur’s draft report on Kosovo.

How Lihue 1 in France is advertising the weekend match ups as Le Crunch weekend (everyone going for the English).

Not saying the French are mad on rugby, but they’ve apparently sold 20,000 tickets in Bordeaux on Saturday for ‘Crunch Creator’: some dreadful sounding retired players + influencers game with a real whiff of the Baller League about the rules

They’re going to take over the women’s game.

Where The Telegraph discover the spirit of Sixmas archive.ph/tTQXb

If you haven’t seen I Swear do yourself a favor. I rarely get that emotional about a film but it’s a gorgeous film.

4-6, 7-6(5), 6-3: Siniakova upsets defending champ Andreeva. Wow. I talked to her about nearly leaving Top 100 to get back to Top 40, hoping for Top 20. She praised new mindset & work on FH. « I changed a few points of view. I’m trying to enjoy it more…» tennissweetspot.substack.com/p/the-sincar...

We go deep on the weekend, and what a weekend it was. w @joshgardner.bsky.social

Updates on Croatia and Kosovo from me. Kosovo on pause as the Constitutional Court orders everyone to their corners

It’s Monday, I’m tried, and Indian Wells is only in R3. 🫠

I updated the post with the archive link (1999-2012; rest coming later) which they sent after I wrote about it on the other site. I don’t think the spot understands why having a history of “just media links translated into English “ are important for understanding Kosovo’s history 🤷🏽‍♀️

On my Substack: they finally threw me out of Women’s Day. But more importantly UNMIK shutting down the Media Observer that covered Alb&Serb lang & Intl media twice daily. It ran for over 25 years & forms an incredible archive of postwar Kosovo. I tried to find out what would happen to the archive..

With Europe rapidly rearming in response to wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, countries in the Western Balkans are also gaining access to new weaponry – @bronwynjones.bsky.social reports www.euractiv.com/news/eu-rear...

Oh, good. "this is now starting to look like a potential combination of the 1973 post-Yom Kippur War oil shock, the 2022 Russia-Ukraine War commodity shock, and the 2020-21 Covid supply chain shock."

Also me twice (!) in the newsletter. This time on Croatia new draft & Kosovo political crisis update

My latest from @euractiv.com on the Balkans arms race

www.thetimes.com/world/middle... An amazing piece on Paul Bremer’s heretofore ca he if emails about what really happened in Iraq

There's a big movement on X, and a smaller one here, claiming that Israel is censoring the widespread death and destruction caused by Iran's missiles. And it's totally false. This video below, for example, is from 1 March, a week ago. It was on all the news channels.

Starting to see Nordic countries detaining and boarding more shadow fleet ships. There has been a hard to understand hesitancy to do this www.dn.se/direkt/2026-...

Years ago they stopped showing the coffins bc so many were coming in & they worried abt it turning ppl off the war in Iraq & AFG. It’s interesting they show these six now I doubt Trump understands etiquette but he does understand a show. And this is part of it for him now.

Ukraine has spent years developing cheap, effective ways to shoot down drones. And it doesn't appear we asked them about it before we started burning through million-dollar interceptors. www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

Regular readers will know I said weeks ago England are a bunch of haircuts with a few adults. Even the adults are negligible. I think the question today was whether Italy would finally finish them off. And they did. Btw that’s the same question for Wales now can you see it through the 3rd act.

England, thank you very much for your stay at the top table of rugby. We will always remember the 12 wins in a row, the Pom Squad 🙏🏾 and saying you’re in the 27 RWC final. But welcome back to the vibes and unserious table of Tier 1 rugby with your old friend Scotland, Argentina, Australia and Italy

Maybe the English Prem needs to go to 2 teams like Scotland and Italy? Just a thought.

This Six Nations Championship can be won by France, Scotland or Ireland next week. But not by England. Oh dear. What a shame. Never mind.

So Wales lose to Italy and everyone is saying "Lol replace them with Georgia". But Scotland and England lose to Italy and... Crickets? Help me out here

It’s certainly a day where the good triumphed over the forces of evil, and the really fucking boring.

It really looked like when England got 18-10 up and Nicotera went to the sin bin that the game was done. It was going to be the same old story. But this Italy team is made of sterner stuff - they got some returns with the kicking game, destroyed Eng in the rucks and converted pressure into points

Next weekend will be amazing; no matter what happens but France have to beat England, Scotland over Ireland and Rhys Carré is giving us a miracle.

Cette compétition, mes aïeux. 🤌

Italy did the business

I suspect, but I don’t know, that there won’t be one, or it will be a former Scottish Rugby luminary. I don’t think there was one before her; she is pretty much irreplaceable - loves the game; knows so much about it; not above a little bit of trolling …

This is neither here nor there but if Princess Anne dies who becomes the Scotland team patron? Especially as Princess Cathy and Wills are busy. Who else is there ? Edward?

Alright we are all Italians now. This is the moment.

We might have a classic Super Saturday on our hands lads

Horrible feeling France getting a bonus point and shaving the points difference down to -10 could be important next week.

I’m surprised they left DuPont on this long. He had an absolute shocker.

If that is Kyle Steyn out against Ireland that’s going to be decisive

Beautiful French try but the question is what they can do without space and Finn Russell is having his way? It appears not much

Tom English was joking on the BBC Scotland Rugby podcast that France have one great weakness: they don’t know how to come from behind. That, I thought, indirectly touched on the idea that they might not know how to respond if rattled.

DuPont did a forward pass and a doozy too

French look a hot mess. No defense , no discipline. It’s like they have no idea how to go to a plan B if there is a Plan B

If Italy do Gods work today and beat England a bonus point & deny them a bonus point, we could have a Saturday where all three matches actually matter…….

We have a decider next week! Wow what a performance from Scotland!

Well well well the worm turns for the French