Close this content

Kushner’s Affinity Gets Bombed Belgrade Site But Serbs Protest

Misha Savic

16 May 2024 at 1:42 pm·2-min read

(Bloomberg) -- Serbia’s real estate deal with a company linked to Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has triggered outrage among local groups opposed to US investors redeveloping a prime location in the capital that was bombed by NATO a quarter century ago.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The authorities signed a 99-year lease with Affinity Global Development, represented by Kushner’s partner Asher Abehsera on Wednesday, allowing the firm to proceed with plans to turn three blocks in downtown Belgrade into a luxury hotel with commercial space and more than 1,500 residences.

The site, across the street from the Serbian government headquarters, still features charred remains of the former Yugoslavia’s Defense Ministry, hit by missiles in US-led air raids during the war over Kosovo in 1999.

Under the contract with the government, Affinity’s project will include a “memorial complex dedicated to all victims of the NATO aggression,” Construction Minister Goran Vesic said in a statement. He called Affinity a “reputable American company” that will contribute to “development of Belgrade and Serbia,” without specifying value the of the contract.

Read more: Kushner’s Saudi-Backed Affinity Eyes Billion-Dollar Balkan Deals

The opposition New Democratic Party of Serbia denounced the plans to turn the emotionally charged location into “a hotel with a casinos, mocking Serbia’s culture, history and architecture.” It vowed to fight the perceived “fire sale to divest not only the most valuable and most beautiful lots but also the soul” of Belgrade.

NATO launched the air strikes in 1999, targeting government troops that were fighting ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo. The military alliance eventually forced then-President Slobodan Milosevic to relinquish control over Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008 with Western support.

Serbia is now trying to juggle aspirations of European Union membership with longstanding ties to Russia and ever-closer relations with China. Its president, Xi Jinping, visited Belgrade this month and has overseen a raft of investments in the Balkan nation in recent years as he seeks more sway in Europe.

During his trip, Xi vowed to “never forget” NATO’s deadly bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade 25 years ago — an incident the White House described as a mistake caused by faulty maps.

With resentment against NATO and the US still strong among many Serbs, opposition activist and leader of Environmental Uprising Aleksandar Jovanovic urged Belgraders to rally against the agreement with Affinity that would require clearing the site where the bombed-out buildings — declared national heritage in 2005 — have become part of sight-seeing tours by visitors.

“The moment bulldozers show up, we’ll be waiting for them,” Jovanovic told reporters in the capital. His organization is also spearheading an online petition to stop the project.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

HuffPost UK
Trevor Phillips Destroys Nigel Farage With One Devastating Question
The Reform UK leader rejected the accusation that his party is a home for racists.
HuffPost UK
Rishi Sunak Left Squirming As He's Confronted With Ordinary People's Lives In Tory Britain
The prime minister had insisted life was "better" now than when the party came to power in 2010.
The Telegraph
What are Marine Le Pen’s plans for France?
After Marine Le Pen’s National Rally walloped Emmanuel Macron in the first round of voting in the French elections, there is a real chance France could be governed by a hard-Right party for the first time since the Second World War.
The Telegraph
Old, rich and living on benefits: welcome to the state pension capital of Britain
East Preston feels an unlikely stronghold of benefits dependency. The genteel village on the West Sussex coast might be the closest thing that Britain has to a moneyed pensioner utopia.
The Independent
Led by Donkeys interrupt Nigel Farage speech by lowering huge Putin banner
Nigel Farage was initially unaware that the Russian president was on the poster, with the words ‘I heart Nigel’ written below
The Telegraph
Democrats creating path for Joe Biden to make ‘dignified’ exit
Democrats are laying the groundwork for Joe Biden to make a “dignified” exit from the presidential race.
The Telegraph
A Labour landslide would leave the UK unrecognisable
Until now, Sir Keir Starmer has carefully hidden the Labour Party’s radical, hard-Left agenda from the public. But on the brink of the largest majority in nearly a century, his mask has slipped.
The Guardian
‘Disbelief’ as US-UK trade deals under threat after Britain axes negotiators
Business community decries ‘act of arson’ as one-seventh of trade posts within British consulates in the US are scrapped
CNN
A year ago, she drank battery acid to escape life under the Taliban. Today, she has a message for other Afghan girls
Arzo survived a suicide attempt but now faces a new threat that could send her family – and millions like them – back to Afghanistan and a life that has become so intolerable for women and girls that some would rather die.
The Telegraph
Marine Le Pen’s surge is a warning to Sir Keir Starmer
In the upper-echelons of the Labour Party, as they consider a UK run by them (and such is their confidence, the urinal-equipped chancellor’s loo is being reassessed ready for the first female occupant of the role), a name is whispered with a worried nod of the head and a concerned furrowing of the brow.
The Telegraph
‘Trillion dollar trainwreck’: US super stealth fighter is eating the next generation
All of a sudden, the US Air Force is considering cancelling a multibillion-dollar effort to develop a new stealth fighter. Citing the high cost of the so-called “Next-Generation Air Dominance” programme and the competing demands of other projects, USAF leaders have warned they may have no choice but to cancel NGAD – and find other ways of winning control of the air in future wars.
The Telegraph
Tory Remainers are the authors of their party’s defeat
The oddity of European politics is that Britain is moving sharply to the Left while most of the Continent is moving even further to the Right. In Britain, young people and even the middle aged are abandoning Conservatism. Elsewhere in Europe, the young are the pillars of a radical Right-wing upsurge. On the Continent, the cause is largely frustration with the consequences of being in the EU. In Britain, it is largely a backlash against being out of it.
The Telegraph
Reform to lodge complaint against TikTok after Widdecombe ‘cut off’
Reform UK has said it will lodge a complaint against TikTok after the video-sharing app shut down a livestream of its campaign rally in Birmingham on Sunday.
Manchester Evening News
'My mortgage has doubled... the country's gone to pot': The Greater Manchester neighbourhood where people want change
'I was born and bred here... I've never known the place be as big of a dump as it is'
The Telegraph
The Conservatives are paying the terrible price for Britain’s lockdown amnesia
On Tuesday, the BBC led with a report about personal protective equipment (PPE) worth nearly £1.5 billion going unused. It was, we were told in scandalised tones, rotting away in warehouses.
PA Media: UK News
Rishi Sunak: I’ll still be Prime Minister on Friday
The Conservative leader defended his party’s record in government against what he described as a ‘declinist narrative’.
Evening Standard
Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally ahead after first round of French voting
The far right party are in the lead after the first round, according to exit polls.
Associated Press
A private call of top Democrats fuels more insider anger about Biden's debate performance
A sense of concern is growing inside the top ranks of the Democratic Party that leaders of Joe Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee are not taking seriously enough the impact of the president’s troubling debate performance earlier in the week. DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a Saturday afternoon call with dozens of committee members across the country, a group of some of the most influential members of the party.
HuffPost
Trump Uses 'Palestinian' As A Slur For The Second Time In A Week
The GOP presidential frontrunner referred to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is Jewish, as a "Palestinian" during a rally on Friday.
The Independent
John Redwood accuses Rishi Sunak of helping to deliver large Labour majority as Tory blame game escalates
Exclusive: Former Conservative cabinet minister hits out at his party’s leadership days before polls open