The EU is starting the process of imposing sanctions on Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin following his speech in the European Parliament on Wednesday, where he commented on relations with Brussels and Moscow, a Serbian source told TASS.

"We have learned that after today's speech, the EU started the process of putting Mr. Vulin on the sanctions list. The procedure was started today, and it should be completed within a few days," the person said.

According to the source, it is yet unclear exactly what sanctions will be levied.

Earlier on Wednesday, Vulin told the European Parliament that Serbia will never go to war with Russia in exchange for EU membership, according to a copy of his speech obtained by TASS. He said Serbia for 20 years has been fulfilling "every wish and demand" of the EU but was told the bloc will admit Ukraine and Moldova as next members, even though they haven’t yet met a single condition to join.

He also rejected a chance of Serbia imposing sanctions on Russia. Serbia will not "do something so low as imposing sanctions on Russia because of a conflict that could have been avoided if you had just respected the Minsk Agreement."

He also told TASS that Brussels had devised a plan to overthrow Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic with the support of Western intelligence services.

#Canada offering millions in aid in response to Myanmar earthquake

Queen Camilla celebrates anniversary with Italian pizza and ice cream

South Korea will hold a presidential election June 3 to choose Yoon's successor

The #Yemeni Houthi rebels attacked the US air carrier Harry Truman and accompanying ships in the northern part of the Red Sea, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said.

"During the last several hours, rocket troops and unmanned aerial vehicles supported by the Navy started combat with a number of warships in the northern part of the Red Sea, including the US air carrier Harry Truman, with the use of cruise missiles and drones," Sarea said on the air with the Al Masirah TV channel.

Strikes against US warships "continued for several hours" and prevented US attacks against Yemen’s regions controlled by the rebels, the spokesman added.

U.S. starts collecting Trump’s new 10% tariff, smashing global trade norms

Trump claims China makes mistake following Beijing’s announcement of tariffs on US goods
The Tariff Commission of the State Council announced earlier that Chinese authorities would impose additional tariffs of 34% on all products imported from the United States

U.S. is negotiating a minerals deals with conflict-hit Congo, Trump official says.

#KINSHASA, Congo — A Trump administration official said Thursday the U.S. is in talks with conflict-plagued Congo on developing its mineral resources under a deal that the Congolese president has said could help make his country safer.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s senior advisor for Africa, Massad Boulos, did not provide details of the potential deal following talks with Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi in Kinshasa, but he said it could involve “multi-billion-dollar investments.”

“You have heard about a minerals agreement. We have reviewed” the Congo’s proposal, Boulos said. “I am pleased to announce that the president and I have agreed on a path forward for its development.”

American companies would be “operating transparently” and would “stimulate local economies,” Boulos said.

Congo is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, a mineral used to make lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and smartphones. It also has substantial gold, diamond and copper reserves.

Tshisekedi said last month that he was open to a deal on developing critical minerals with the United States if the American involvement could help quell insurgencies and boost security in the African country.

“I think that the U.S. is able to use either pressure or sanctions to make sure that armed groups ... can be kept at bay,” he said on U.S. TV broadcaster Fox.

The Trump administration also is negotiating with Ukraine over a minerals deal in that country, which originally was proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last fall in hopes of strengthening his country’s hand in its conflict with Russia by tying U.S. interests to Ukraine’s future.

Eastern Congo has been in conflict for decades with more than 100 armed groups, most of which are vying for territory in the mineral-rich region near the border with Rwanda. The conflict has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises with more than 7 million people displaced, including 100,000 who fled homes this year.

The M23 is the most potent armed group and is backed by Congo’s neighbor Rwanda. In a major escalation since January, the M23 rebels have captured the cities of Goma and Bukavu and several towns in eastern Congo, prompting fears of regional war.

On Thursday, M23 withdrew from Walikale, a key mining town in eastern Congo it captured last month, after weeks of fighting with Congolese forces and its allied Wazalendo militia.

M23 spokesman Lawrence Kanyuka said the group decided to “reposition its forces” from Walikale and its surrounding areas in line with a unilateral ceasefire it declared in February.

Willy Mishiki, a national deputy representing Walikale, said the rebels left under pressure from the Wazalendo. Walikale resident Faustin Kamala said it’s not clear where the rebels went.

The Walikale area is home to the largest tin deposits in Congo and to several significant gold mines. The Bisie tin mine, around 60 kilometers (35 miles) northwest of the town, accounts for the majority of tin exports from North Kivu province.

Secrets, spy tools and a 110-year-old lemon are on show in an exhibition from Britain's MI5.

A desiccated 110-year-old lemon that played a key role in espionage history is one of the star attractions of a London exhibition drawn from the files of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency.

Compact spy cameras, microdots in a talcum powder tin and a briefcase abandoned by fleeing Soviet spy Guy Burgess are also part of the show at Britain’s National Archives, which charts the history of a secretive agency that is -- slowly -- becoming more open.

MI5 Director General Ken McCallum told journalists at a preview on Tuesday that the organization’s work “is often different from fiction, whether that fiction is George Smiley or Jackson Lamb” -- the brilliant spymaster of John le Carre’s novels and the slovenly supervisor of MI5 rejects in Mick Herron’s “Slow Horses” series.

Many stories told in the exhibition, however, would not be out of place in a thriller.

The lemon, now black and shriveled, helped convict Karl Muller, a German spy in Britain during World War I. It was found by police in his dressing-table drawer, along with another in his overcoat pocket. Evidence at his secret trial showed their juice had been used to write invisible-ink letters detailing British troop movements.

Muller was executed by firing squad at the Tower of London in 1915.

In a coda that would not be out of place in “Slow Horses,” MI5 pretended Muller was still alive and wrote to his German handlers to ask for more money.

“The Germans duly sent more funds and MI5 used the funds to purchase a car,” exhibition curator Mark Dunton said. “And they christened the car `The Muller.’

“They then were reprimanded by the Treasury for unauthorized use of expenditure,” he added.

The show includes declassified records held by the National Archives and items loaned from the secret museum inside Thames House, MI5’s London headquarters.

It charts the changing role of an agency that was founded in 1909 as the Secret Service Bureau with an initial staff of two officers.

There are records of its World War II successes, when the agency used captured Nazi agents to send disinformation back to Germany, deceiving Adolf Hitler about the location of the looming Allied invasion in 1944.

Failures include the years-long betrayal of the upper-crust “Cambridge Spies,” whose members spilled secrets to the Soviet Union from the heart of the U.K. intelligence establishment. Recently declassified MI5 documents on display include the 1963 confession of Cambridge spy Kim Philby, who denied treachery for years before he was exposed and fled to Moscow.

The exhibition also reveals changing attitudes, not least to women. The exhibition includes a 1945 report by spymaster Maxwell Knight discussing whether women could make good agents

“It is frequently alleged that women are less discreet than men,” he noted, but declared that it was not so, saying that in “hundreds of cases of `loose talk”’ most of the offenders were men.

There are admissions of past mistakes. The exhibition notes that MI5 was slow to recognize the threat from fascism in the 1930s, and later spent too much time spying on the small Communist Party of Great Britain. MI5 didn’t need to break into the party’s offices -- it had a key, which is on display.

There are only a few items from the past few decades, showing how MI5’s focus has shifted from counterespionage to counterterrorism. Displays include a mortar shell fired by the Irish Republican Army at 10 Downing St. in 1991 while Prime Minister John Major was holding a Cabinet meeting.

MI5 only began releasing records to the U.K.’s public archives in 1997, generally 50 years after the events have passed. Even now, it controls what to release and what to keep secret.

“It would be a mistake to assume everything is in the exhibition,” said author Ben Macintyre, whose books on the history of intelligence include “Operation Mincemeat” and “Agent Zigzag.” But he said it still marks “a real sea-change in official secrecy.”

“A generation ago, this stuff was totally secret,” he said. “We weren’t even allowed to know that MI5 existed.”