Balkans

A man has died in the floods that have swept eastern and central Macedonia, cutting off villages and damaging farms and infrastructure.A 51-year-old man from the northeastern town of Kumanovo drowned on Tuesday, trying to cross a river that had overspilled, the authorities reported. Torrential rain for three days has …

Serbs in the Croatian city are growing fearful amid threats of force to stop the official introduction of Cyrillic script and the Serbian language, a Belgrade official said.Serbs in Vukovar are feeling “growing insecurity”, the director of Serbia’s office for the diaspora, Slavka Draskovic, said during a visit to Zagreb …

The Bosnian prime minister said there was only one disputed piece of territory to be demarcated before the ex-Yugoslav states sign a crucial border agreement. Vjekoslav Bevanda and Milo Djukanovic, the prime ministers of Bosnia and Montenegro , said a deal was close after they met on Tuesday in Podgorica. “There …

As the EU-led dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia is set to resume on March 4, the two sides have made some advances on Serb-run northern Kosovo while areas of disagreement remain. In a meeting on Tuesday with the Kosovo President, Atifete Jahjaga, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said the two sides had …

Jail conditions are far better in Romania than what they were – but overcrowding and poor diet remain a problem, a new report says. The number of inmates in Romania’s prisons has risen constantly in recent years and the government spends over 41 million euro a year in supporting them, according …

Republika Srpska Prime Minister Aleksandar Dzomic and President Milorad Dodik on Monday agreed that the entity government will hand resignation on Wednesday, amid continuing economic woes and rising unemployment. Dodik will hold a government session on Wednesday where the name of a new prime minister will be announced, media reports …

A party representing war veterans has launched a campaign for a public vote to dismiss former ethnic Albanian fighter Talat Xhaferi from his new job as Macedonia’s defence chief.The small opposition party Dignity announced on Tuesday that it will start gathering the 150,000 signatures needed to support the referendum initiative …

Saudi Arabia has been supplying Syrian rebels with infantry weapons from Croatia in its drive to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad, The New York Times has reported.The New York Times reported on Monday that Saudi Arabia has paid for a “large purchase of infantry weapons” from Croatia to help …

War veterans associations have vowed to prevent the official introduction of Cyrillic script and the Serbian language into the Croatian city “by any means necessary”.“We will prevent the introduction of Cyrillic street signs, and the government should be held responsible for all possible undesirable events,” the Headquarters for the Defence …

A parliamentary committee has called a hearing with the interior minister and special prosecutor following an opposition daily’s claims that its journalists were secretly surveyed.Djurdjina Ivanovic, the special prosecutor, and Rasko Konjevic, the Interior Minister, will be summoned to appear before parliament’s Committee for Security and Defence, this body agreed …