Balkans

GENEVA, March 6 – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday voiced their different positions over Kosovo. Speaking to a press conference after their first meeting in the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva, Clinton said she congratulated Kosovo leader over the “first year” of …

Sarajevo – Several thousand Bosnian nationals working abroad have returned to their homeland in the past few months, after losing a job due to the economic crisis and recession that hit the countries where they worked. According to the data of the B-H Unemployment Office, the total of 2,737 employees …

A special panel investigating Bulgaria’s communist-era police files said it will release the names of agents and collaborators who are running for a parliamentary seat in the upcoming general and European Parliament elections. “The commission will probe the past of some 4000 candidates for MPs and another 1000 MEP hopefuls,” …

Hungarian Defence Minister Imre Szekeres said Croatia and Albania will become full members of NATO at the upcoming NATO summit, and reaffirmed his full support for their integration. “In a month, Croatia and Albania will become full members of NATO and that is not only important for them, but for …

Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko, on his way back from a trip to the Serbian resort of Kapoanik, stopped to speak to journalists with some advice to Serbs beginning to feel the pinch of the current economic slowdown. “If you hope that people from Europe or America will come and give …

EU member Slovenia has blocked 12 chapters, or one-third, of Croatia`s entry negotiations. Croatia will accept the European Union’s offer to mediate in its border row with Slovenia, but it remains unclear if this will be enough to remove the Slovenian veto that has blocked Zagreb’s EU accession talks this …

Parliament gave the Socialist-led government a mandate in January to seek a permission from the EU to reopen the reactors. Bulgaria has backed down on plans to restart two Soviet-era nuclear reactors and will now focus on lobbying for more European Union compensation for the shut units, officials said on …

Serbia continues to gather fresh intelligence on its main war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic and will capture him, President Boris Tadic said on Thursday. “Every day we receive various information about Ratko Mladic and once we gather enough information we will arrest him,” Tadic told reporters. “Serbia is absolutely determined …

The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, has suggested that Bulgaria could receive EUR 500 M from preliminary payments through European Programs to help the country through the financial crisis, Bulgarian National Radio reported late Thursday. Barroso’s announcement came after a meeting with Bulgarian PM Sergey Stanishev who …

Zagreb,  – Turkey, Italy and Hungary reiterated Thursday their support of Macedonia’s accession to NATO at meetings with Defense Minister Zoran Konjanovski. At the sidelines of enlarged Southeast European Defence Ministerial of the countries from the US-Adriatic Charter in Zagreb, Konjanovski held bilateral talks with his Turkish, Hungarian counterparts Vecdi …