Eurasia

Czech power company CEZ said it will pull out from a joint venture project with the power company of the Serb-dominated Bosnian entity of Republika Srpska, Elektroprivreda Republike Srpske, effectively putting the kiss of death on a 1.4 billion euro project to overhaul the existing power plant and build a …

Croatia is the most globalised country in the Balkans, and Serbia the least, according to the Index of Globalization 2009, that each year measures the economic, social and political scope of globalization in 208 countries and territories. The report is compiled by the Zurich-based KOF Economic Institute. The economic dimension …

A group of 42 Sudanese refugees has arrived in Timisoara, western Romania, after being evacuated from a makeshift camp in the desert in Iraq, according to UNHCR sources. The refugees, who have been provided with winter clothing, are staying in the new Emergency Transit Centre set up by the Romanian …

Kosovo is pushing ahead with decentralisation as envisaged by the Ahtisaari plan, but without the support of citizens across the ethnic spectrum the integration of all communities will remain a challenge, said Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci. Decentralization, a byword for allowing Kosovo’s minority Serbs to run their affairs separately …

Albania’s Prime Minister Sali Berisha on Tuesday fired the country’s highest tax official who is currently on trial on charges of torture and murder. Arben Sefgjini, head of the General Directorate of Taxes, previously served as the head of Tirana’s Secret Service Office, SHIK. Three of his former colleagues, Budion …

Macedonia’s two ethnic Albanian parties, the ruling Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, and the opposition Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA, picked their own presidential candidates for the March 22 elections, pushing the total number of presidential hopefulls to ten. DUI picked its vice president Agron Buxhaku as the party’s sole …

Albanian think-tanks that monitor the EU accession process disagree on whether the country’s application for EU candidate status should come during the Czech presidency or later. Greece’s ratification of Albania’s Stabilization and Association Agreement, SAA, with the European Union last week was the final step in the formal approval process …

WASHINGTON  – President Barack Obama will press Afghan President Hamid Karzai to extend government control beyond the capital and fight corruption in a new U.S. policy that will have a “significant non-military component,” a White House official said on Wednesday. The White House is conducting a review of all aspects …

BRUSSELS  – NATO-led forces killed nearly 100 civilians in operations against militants in Afghanistan last year, the alliance said on Wednesday, while blaming insurgents for the deaths of 10 times that number. Civilian casualties have eroded public support for President Hamid Karzai’s government and foreign troops backing it. It has …

PRAGUE  – The European Union said on Wednesday it would invite Iran to a conference on Afghanistan. Calls have grown in the international community to engage Iran in both regional diplomacy and in direct talks on Tehran’s nuclear program. EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the planned conference would …