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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

MOLDOVA The forthcoming two national holidays – the Independence Day of August 27 and the Limba Noastra [Our Language] of August 31 – will be celebrated particularly broadly and solemnly this year in Moldova. The Independence Day program will begin in the morning, when country leadership representatives will lay flowers …

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 …

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 …

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 …