Six hopefuls have so far confirmed they have raised enough support for formalizing their candidacy in Macedonia’s presidential election next month, local media said. The deadline for rising the required ten thousand signatures expires on Tuesday at midnight, the State Election Commission said. The candidates who already qualified are the …

Albania’s Muslim community has started a petition drive to appeal to all 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, OIC, to recognize Kosovo’s independence. Only 9 out off 57 IOC member states have recognized Kosovo as a sovereign state. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17 last …

Macedonian health authorities kicked off an emergency mass vaccination campaign on Tuesday to deal with an outbreak of mumps, a disease that affects mainly children. Mumps is a viral infectious disease that is spread from person to person through contact with respiratory secretions such as saliva, but can also be …

Relations between Serbia and Montenegro, that used to make up a joint state just three years ago, are on “an impermissibly low level”, Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic said. Montenegro’s ambassador had to leave Belgrade last October as a persona non grata after Podgorica recognised the independence of Kosovo, Serbia’s …

Athens is committed to finding a win-win way out in the row with Skopje over the name ‘Macedonia’, but Skopje’s provocative attitude is dimming chances of a UN-sponsored solution, Greece’s Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis said on Monday in Belgrade. Greece and Macedonia are due to attend a fresh round of …

The rapporteur of the European Parliament for Croatia Hannes Swoboda said that the next two weeks would be critical in the resolution of the Slovenia-Croatia border dispute that threatens to derail Zagreb’s EU bid. The border dispute between Croatia and Slovenia is a legal issue for which there are international …

PESHAWAR, Pakistan  – Suspected militants blew up a bridge in northwestern Pakistan’s Khyber Pass on Tuesday, cutting the main route for supplies bound for Western forces in Afghanistan, Pakistani government officials said. Separately, security forces killed at least 35 Taliban insurgents and wounded many others in an attack Monday night …

KABUL  – Afghan security forces have arrested a group of Taliban militants they say were behind a series of suicide bomb strikes in the capital, Kabul, including one outside the German embassy, an intelligence official said on Tuesday. The group of 17 men, led by a 23-year-old Pakistani national, had …

QUETTA, Pakistan  – Pakistani police said on Tuesday they had rounded up about a dozen people for questioning in the search for a senior U.N. refugee agency official abducted in the city of Quetta. American John Solecki, head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) office in the …

Suspected Islamist militants blew up a bridge in northwestern Pakistan’s Khyber Pass Tuesday, cutting the main route for supplies bound for Western forces in land-locked Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said. The easiest land route for supplies and military equipment into Afghanistan is by ship to the Pakistani port of Karachi, and …