Two months into the mandate of the European Union police and justice mission, officials and legal professionals in Kosovo say they find the EULEX-operated courts stricter, more procedural, but also more professional and effective compared to the judicial authorities run by the United Nations mission . The United Nations mission …

JERUSALEM – The Israeli navy intercepted and boarded a freighter trying to break the blockade of Gaza on Thursday and ordered it to make for Israel’s nearest Mediterranean port, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said. “The navy boarded the vessel, stopped it and it is now bringing it to Ashdod,” Barak …

BISHKEK  – Kyrgyzstan’s parliament will vote next week on whether to shut a U.S. air base, an important staging post for U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan, Kyrgyz officials said on Thursday. Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced closure of the Manas base in Moscow on Tuesday after securing financial aid from …

BAGHDAD  – A suicide bomber killed at least 15 people and wounded 15 others in Diyala province in northeast Iraq Thursday, police said, the bloodiest attack in the country in weeks. The attack comes a few days after Iraq held largely peaceful provincial elections. Results are due later Thursday.

CAIRO  – The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas is expected to give Egypt its response to proposals to reach a truce with Israel Saturday, Egypt’s state-run Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported Thursday. Talks between Egyptian intelligence officials and a Hamas delegation ended Wednesday without a deal. Hamas said Israeli proposals …

BASRA, Iraq – Iraq’s Shi’ite Muslim voters chose nationalism and security over religion in local polls, backing allies of the prime minister in a vote that could give them the upper hand in parliamentary elections later this year. Results from Saturday’s election are due later on Thursday, and early signs …

Kosovo named a former senior police officer as the chief of its new Intelligence Service on Wednesday, after months of delays blamed on clientelism and political horse-trading with foreign intelligence agencies. The Intelligence Agency is one of the central security institutions of the new country, that declared independence from Serbia …

Croatia and Iceland have a chance of joining the European Union in 2011, while Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia may enter all together as a bloc sometime between 2015 and 2020, the Financial Times says in an editorial this week. With the global economy in crisis, the bloc’s leaders …

The European Commission wants Croatia and Slovenia to find a negotiated solution to their border dispute so that Croatia could join the European Union, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in Brussels on Tuesday evening. “There is a Croatian-Slovene bilateral issue and we would like the two countries to …

JERUSALEM  – Israel admitted Wednesday that one of its tanks killed three girls whose father’s cries on live television shocked viewers in the final days of the Gaza offensive, but said the action was “reasonable.” An Israeli army (IDF) investigation found that two tank shells were fired at a building …