Balkans

he European Union’s silence over Greece’ veto to Macedonia’s NATO membership bid echoes the complacency of Europe to the agressive policies of Nazi Germany before World War Two, Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski told local media. Speaking to local media on Sunday, Gruevki referred to Athens blocking Skopje’s NATO invitation …

The heavy snow fall across the Balkans during the New Year holiday has left mountainous areas of Macedonia and Albania cut off and running low on food, with traffic bottlenecks affecting the rest of the region. The Albanian government called up army engineers and police special forces to free up …

Two Kosovo Serbs were attacked by a group of Albanians in Mitrovica, local police say, the latest skirmish in the tense divided town. The town of Mitrovica has been a flashpoint since Kosovo’s Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia in February. Some 20,000 Serbs live in the north of the …

Kosovo’s ethnically-divided town of Mitrovica could face bloody conflict if inter-ethnic tensions continue unchecked, a local Serb politician says. The town of Mitrovica has been a flashpoint since Kosovo’s Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia in February. Some 20,000 Serbs who live in the north of the town reject the …

BOSANSKI BROD, Bosnia (Reuters) – A flare at the top of a 50-meter high tower in the Balkans shows Russia building political capital in a notoriously fractured part of Europe. The flame in late November marked the restart of operations in Brod, Bosnia’s sole oil refinery which had been out …

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 …