BiH Bosnian police arrested two Bosnian Serbs on Thursday, including a police officer, suspected of taking part in the massacre of about 200 Muslims and Croats in the 1992-95 Bosnian war, the state prosecutor’s office said. Branko Topola, 41, was arrested in a police station in the northwestern town of …
Read More »Serbia Suggests Public Sector Cuts
SERBIA The Serbian government has proposed a 10 per cent cut in the number of public sector employees in talks with an IMF delegation, daily Blic reports. The measure is intended to cover the budget deficit, which is now equivalent to 4.5 per cent of GDP Economy Minister Mladjan Dinkic …
Read More »Macedonia’s Economic Trends are “Catastrophic”
MACEDONIA Macedonia’s ongoing industrial output contraction plumbed new depths in July, the State Statistical Office revealed. A record near 20 per cent output plunge was registered, when compared to July 2008. This is the tenth month in a row that industrial output has shrunk. Macedonia’s flagship metal industry was the …
Read More »Planned Privatisations Shake Bosnia
BiH Bosnia’s Federation entity is preparing to privatise around 30 public companies over the next year, local media reported on Thursday. “Privatisation fever shakes the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” columnist Faruk Vele wrote in a piece published in influential Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz on Thursday. Authorities in the Croat-Bosniak …
Read More »Reconstruction Work Delayed in Mitrovica
KOSOVO The rebuilding of Kosovo Albanian homes in north Mitrovica was again delayed on Wednesday, when Serb members of Kosovo’s Police and EU rule of law mission, EULEX, officials prevented workers from entering the construction site. The Krou I Vitakut/Brdjani neighbourhood of Mitrovica has seen repeated violence since Kosovo Albanians …
Read More »Serb Pilgrims Visit Kosovo
SERBIA Around 100 Serb pilgrims and former residents of the Kosovo town of Gjakova will be visiting the country on Thursday and Friday to celebrate an Orthodox festival, Kosovo police spokesperson Arber Beka said. The group’s visit marks the festival of the Dormition of the Holy Mother of God. “This …
Read More »Speaker Guilty of Conflict of Interest
SERBIA A committee has found Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic, Serbia’s parliamentary speaker, in violation of the country’s conflict of interest regulations, daily Politika reports Thursday. The Committee for Preventing Conflicts of Interest says that she broke the law by simultaneously acting as speaker and as a paid adviser to the Galenika pharmaceutical …
Read More »Tadić condemns embassy incident
SERBIA President Boris Tadić condemned on Tuesday the throwing of Molotov cocktails at the building of the Greek embassy in Belgrade, saying it was “intolerable”. Tadić conferred with Greek Ambassador Demestenis Stoidis and promised that state institutions would do everything to find the perpetrators and take them to justice, the …
Read More »EULEX denies report on customs talks
KOSOVO EULEX denied on Wednesday a report in a Priština daily it sent a request to the Kosovo government “over negotiations with Serbia on customs”. According to Albanian language newspaper Koha Ditore, this had to do with trade and came following the negotiations on the signing of a protocol on …
Read More »Serbia eyes Montenegro’s largest port
SERBIA Infrastructure Minister Milutin Mrkonjić on Tuesday said that Serbia is very interested in buying the port of Bar in Montenegro. Mrkonjić told Podgorica television station Atlas that the Serbian industry is “very interested in the tender for the sale of the port”, adding that Serbia and Montenegro will also …
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