Balkans

As the scrapping of visas for citizens traveling to the European Union is set to become official on Friday at midnight, Macedonians celebrate with a massive party in Skopje’s main square and a state lottery for a free trip to Paris. Friday night has been declared a “white night,” meaning …

Macedonian President Gjorgje Ivanov met briefly with Greek PM George Papandreou in Copenhagen on the sidelines of the Climate Change Summit. Ivanov said that the visa liberalization will bring to a better cooperation between the two countries. Macedonian President hopes that Greece will surpass the position of blockades.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Macedonia and Iceland are expected to start accession negotiations with EU in 2010. The German Chancellor urged parliamentarians to discuss subjects, which are of great

Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic announced that negotiations with Russia over some USD 200 million credit needed for the budget deficit have been finalized.

The District Court in Priština released three Serbs from the municipality of Novo Brdo from custody on Wednesday. Slobodan and Srećko Martinović and Svetlana Stojanović were arrested on September 24 and accused of committing war crimes. The charges against them state that the three “from April 17 until April 22, …

Russian Ambassador to Belgrade Aleksandr Konuzin was in Kosovo on Wednesday, in the northern, Serb-dominated part of the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica. Beta news agency reports that he stated that the Russian Federation and Serbia had good political and economic cooperation, but that it was necessary to expand it …

Minister for Kosovo Goran Bogdanović was on Wednesday touring several villages in the province’s Kosovsko Pomoravlje district. As he met with the local Serbs, he said that those of them who participated in the recently held Kosovo Albanian government-organized local elections, which Belgrade rejected, “did not lose faith in Belgrade …

Macedonia and Kosovo’s Ministers of Economy Fatmir Besimi and Ahmet Shala signed an agreement intended to boost economic cooperation. The document should make cooperation between the two countries in the energy, infrastructure, transport, agriculture, construction, tourism, environment and other sectors much easier, the two ministers said at the signing ceremony …

The UN Security Council has extended the mandate of the Hague Tribunal until the end of 2012. This was announced by the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.

Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dačić says Serbia is doing all in its power to arrest the remaining fugitives from the Hague Tribunal, Ratko Mladić and Goran Hadžić. However, speaking in Belgrade on Wednesday, he added that the time of their arrest was “a very relative category”.