Balkans

Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic says Belgrade authorities are closing in on Hague war crime fugitives Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic each day, while especially Mladic’s arrest could come this year. In an interview with Serbian daily Danas, Vukcevic said authorities were checking every bit of information that came …

Serb inhabitants of the flashpoint town of Mitrovica have apparently reacted positively to partsof the “Ahtisaari Plan” that aim to create a multiethnic society in Kosovo, said David Slinn, Mitrovica representative of the International Civilian Office, ICO. The ICO’ brief is to support implementation of all status settlements that initiated …

Nobel Peace Prize winner Martti Ahtisaari would be ready to chair a working group aiming to settle an 18-year border dispute between Croatia and Slovenia, enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn confirmed. “Ahtisaari would be in principle ready to chair this group, but for the group to set up we need agreement …

After reaching record approval numbers late last year, Macedonia Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski is seeing his popularity fall drastically in the last one and a half month, shows a survey by the International Republican Institute. The survey shows he went from a 61 percent approval rating in December to 51 …

Kosovo will start within the year the construction of the “New Kosovo” power plant that will provide 24-hour power to Kosovo’s population and alleviate frequent power cuts, Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said on Thursday. “New Kosovo” is Thaci’s label for the “Kosovo C” project, a coal-based power plant with …

Heavy snow storms and icy winds across the Balkans over the last two days caused traffic jams and left thousands in mountainous areas cut off, but also delighted coastal cities that have not seen such snow in many years. At least five municipalities in northern Albania are cut off due …

A Kosovo-born pilot will next month start a fly-in campaign across the Americas to persuade governments to recognise Kosovo, which this week celebrated one year since its declaration of independence from Serbia Texas resident James Berisha, 37, will begin his Flying For Kosovo (www.flyingforkosovo.com ) campaign in March and has …

Kosovo is still using Serbia’s +381 international dialling code for its land lines, despite having no formal agreement or any talks on the issue since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia last year. The head of the parliamentary economic commission, Energy and Transport Minister Myzejene Selmani, said Kosovo should cut this …

A Serbian government package of economic measures to help local companies make it through the global financial crisis will not solve all the economy’s problems for good, but take the edge off the most acute issues, experts say. More than half of the 1.2 billion euro package, which comes into …

Fourteen high officials of the Ministry of Defence were charged on Wednesday with abuse of power and falsifying documents over the deadly blast at army depot outside Tirana last March. Ex-Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu and several former high officials from the ministry were charged last week with abuse of power, …