Balkans

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Russian natural gas supplies to Romania remained at reduced levels on Monday as a result of the Russia-Ukraine gas row, the head of the Black Sea state’s state-controlled pipeline operator Transgaz said. “Gas inflows are still around 30 percent lower than contracted levels,” Transgaz director Ioan Rusu …

PRAGUE (Reuters) – Negotiations over disputed gas contracts cannot resume because there has been no relevant response from the Ukrainian side, Gazprom’s export head Alexander Medvedev said in Prague on Saturday. Gazprom cut off gas supplies to Ukraine on January 1, and the impact has been felt in some European …

Three months from a deadline for the completion of Macedonia’s new presidential residence, President Branko Crvenkovski’s cabinet is accusing the government of deliberate delays to the works. The president, who previously led the opposition Social Democrats, has in recent months clashed publicly with the current government led by the centre-right …

urkey will support Kosovo within the United Nations when it becomes a temporary member of the Security Council in January 2009, a senior Turkish official said. “From the beginning of 2009, Turkey will be a temporary member of the UN Security Council … and wishes that Kosovo become a member …

A United States court found the three brothers Dritan, Shain and Elvir Duka, ethnic Albanians born in western Macedonia, guilty of a conspiracy to kill U.S. soldiers at the Fort Dix military base in New Jersey last year, local media said on Tuesday. A Jordanian-born and a Turkish-born U.S. citizen …

The Czech Republic is considering withdrawing its troops from the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, due to opposition objections in Prague over the country’s presence in military missions abroad. The some 400 Czech soldiers serving in Kosovo play a major role in KFOR operations as they operate along the border …

n independent expert has disputed the conclusion of the official investigation, saying the mosque in the village of Fazlagica Kula was not razed by accident but in “professionally planed and executed” arson attack. “Our suspicions have been confirmed because the findings of this expert are completely different from the findings …

Two Serbian ministers cut the ribbon in a post office in the Kosovo town of Gracanica on Monday, a move meant to showcase Belgrade’s hold on Serb areas of its former province. Serbia’s Minister for Kosovo, Goran Bogdanovic, and minister for Local Government Milan Markovic, did not inform Kosovo’s Albanian …

MERDARE, Kosovo (Reuters) – Kosovo threatened on Tuesday to ban products coming from Serbia if Belgrade does not reverse its policy of blocking goods that carry a customs stamp from its former province. Since early December, Serbia has refused to allow in products with labels reading “Customs of Kosovo” because …

ATHENS (Reuters) – Hundreds of anarchists marched through Athens on Tuesday hours after a gunman opened fire at a riot police bus, in a third week of anti-government protests since police shot dead a teenager. Police said the unidentified gunman shot at the bus carrying 19 officers when it stopped …