Balkans

The first hearing in the case of Macedonia versus Greece is due to start on Monday at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The hearing will cover procedural issues that should determine the future course of the case that is expected to last no less than three years. …

SOFIA (Reuters) – Bulgaria has received the first quantities of Russian gas on Tuesday and normal daily supplies to domestic consumers could resume in 24 hours, the Economy and Energy Ministry said. Sofia has requested at least 8.6 million cubic meters of gas a day, the ministry said in a …

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian and Serbian officials met in Belgrade earlier this week in a bid to improve ties between the two countries’ parliaments. At the meeting between Serbian Parliament Speaker Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic and Iranian Ambassador to Serbia Seyed Morteza Mir Heydari, the two sides discussed promotion of bilateral parliamentary cooperation. …

Close to half of Slovenians, some 47.5 percent, do not want to see their neighbour and fellow ex-Yugoslav Croatia join the European Union, according to a Median poll published in the Croatian weekly Globus. According to the telephone poll conducted from January 8 to 12 on a sample of 712 …

The United Nations mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, lied to Serbia when it was quizzed over an investigation into alleged trafficking of organs taken from ethnic Serbs during the Kosovo conflict, a spokesman for Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor said. Former U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte wrote in her memoirs, …

The European Parliament adopted a resolution calling all European Union member states to recognize July 11, the date of the start of the1995 Srebrenica massacre, as “a day of commemoration throughout the EU”. On July 11 1995, Bosnian Serb forces led by Ratko Mladic killed more than 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian …

A second day of protests by Bulgarian university students, environmental activists, farmers and pensioners ended peacefully outside the parliament building on Thursday, a day after demonstrators clashed with police and 158 people were detained. The January 15 protest, advertised by organisers as an outlet to express discontent at the way …

Panama has officially recognized Kosovo as an independent state, Kosovo’s ministry of foreign affairs said on Friday. This makes Panama the 54th country to recognize Kosovo, whose Albanian majority seceded from Serbia on February 17 last year. The United States and most European Union countries have already recognised it. Panama’s …

Greece’s ratification of Albania’s Stabilization and Association Agreement, SAA, with the European Union on Wednesday was the final step in the formal approval process of the key document by all EU member states, paving the way for Tirana’s application for EU candidate status. Prime Minister Sali Berisha said last week …

Skopje has officially protested at the European Commission in Brussels over comments by the Greek Culture Minister that Macedonia will soon dissolve and be carved up between a ‘Greater Albania’ and a ‘Greater Bulgaria’. Macedonia’s mission in Brussels condemned the statements by Antonis Samaras as “counterproductive” for bilateral relations, and …