Balkans

A  renegade former Macdedonian Orthodox Church, MPC, bishop, Jovan Vraniskovski, has been sentenced to two and a half years in jail for embezzlement by a Macedonian court. A court in the town of Veles found Vraniskowski guilty of embezzling 320,000 euros while in charge of three Macedonian dioceses. He was …

The UN General Assembly has elected Bosnia and Herzegovina a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, UNSC, to the delight of local officials. The country’s election is “The biggest achievement of Bosnia and Herzegovina foreign policy since independence in 1992,” boasted the main headline in Friday’s edition of Sarajevo …

Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov is paying an official visit to Turkey, media reported. Ivanov will meet today in Ankara with his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Ivanov today will lay a wreath at the mausoleum of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

BiH do kraja godine treba da napravi male korake u ustavnoj reformi, što je jedan od ciljeva butmirskog procesa, izjavio je juče Lars Vahland, zamjenik direktora za politička pitanja u Ministarstvu vanjskih poslova Švedske, zemlje koja trenutno predsjedava EU. “Bosna i Hercegovina mora imati efikasan sistem odlučivanja zato je potrebno …

BiH je postigla mali napredak u ispunjenju uslova za pridruživanje EU, a politička klima se pogoršala, navodi se u jučer objavljenom godišnjem izvještaju o napretku BiH ka EU. Izvještaj o napretku predsjedavajućem Vijeća ministara BiH Nikoli Špiriću uručio je šef Delegacije EK u BiH Dimitris Kurkulas.

The Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will be addressing the Serbian parliament during his visit to Belgrade. Medvedev will be highlighting some of the key messages of his visit to Belgrade in his address to MPs. Đukić-Dejanović, who is the president of the Serbo-Russian Friendship Group, said that Russian Ambassador to …

The campaign for the first Kosovo local elections since the province unilaterally declared independence in February last year will begin on November 15. 74 parties, coalitions and citizens’ movements are taking part in the ballot. They include 37 Kosovo Albanian and 21 Serb lists.

International High Representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina Valentin Inzko thinks it is time for further steps when it comes to the Dayton Accords. “Dayton is definitely the best Constitution that could have been written in an airport in the space of three weeks, because, above all, it put an end to the …

European Commission Director for the Western Balkans Pierre Mirel says that all EU member-states have agreed to begin visa liberalization dialogue with Kosovo. He submitted a progress report and feasibility study on Kosovo to senior officials in Priština yesterday.

Germany has decided to return 14,000 refugees from Kosovo to their homeland, 10 years after the war, writes Suddeutsche Zeitung. There are currently over 14,000 refugees from Kosovo, who have had their applications for permanent residency turned down, awaiting deportation. All individuals without permanent residency status in Germany, and who …