Eurasia

A second tranche of European Union funding worth 1 billion euros ($1.5 billion) will be paid to Romania providing conditions are met, the European Commission said on Friday. 

Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor has charged six former Serb fighters over their alleged roles in killing, rape and torture of Roma civilians in eastern Bosnia during the 1992-95 war, a statement said Friday.

This is the second day of KFOR regular military exercise organized in the north of Kosovo, media report. The exercise titled Strong Gate was organized together with EULEX and Kosovo Police. The goal is to establish cooperation between KFOR Tactical North and the Operative Reserve troops.

Moldova’s Parliament adopted an amendment to the Political Parties Act providing for financing of political parties from the state budget in proportion with the number of votes won at the latest election to be postponed till 2013. The move is reasoned by the country’s grave economic situation RBC reported. Earlier …

Turkey and the European Union (EU) agreed to intensify cooperation to overcome the common problem on migration flow and to fight irregular migration, said a joint statement on Thursday.

The International Monetary Fund, IMF, has delayed disbursing an aid tranche to Romania originally scheduled for next month and will resume talks on a standby loan agreement only when the country has a government. “The IMF will come to Bucharest again as soon as there will be a legitimate government …

In a surprise move, Romanian President Traian Basescu on Friday nominated the mayor of a Bucharest district, Liviu Negoita, for the office of prime minister, once again rejecting the candidate proposed by the opposition parties. Negoita, 47, is a politician and lawyer, member of center-right Democratic Liberal Party, PLD, and …

EU ambassadors proposed on Thursday to abolish the visa regime for citizens of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia as of 19 December this year instead of 1 January, 2010 as earlier proposed by the European Commission, media report. Serbia’s Beta news agency reports that this proposal, made by the EU’s permanent …

Macedonia and Kosovo will soon appoint ambassadors to their respective capitals, the foreign ministers of both countries said in a press conference in Skopje. “Today’s meeting opens a new page in Macedonia-Kosovo relations. I believe this will be of benefit not only for the two countries, but also for the …

Less than 24 hours after the visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Bosnia, his British counterpart David Miliband is expected to arrive and add his voice to the diplomatic efforts aimed at breaking the country’s political deadlock. The visits by Lavrov and Miliband on Thursday and Friday respectively …