Eurasia Press & News

Macedonia’s cabinet faces a reshuffle this week, as several ethnic Albanian ministers quit to run as mayoral candidates in the March local elections.Macedonia’s junior ruling party, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, has confirmed the reshuffle and revealed the names of the new ministers and deputy ministers from its ranks. …

Three times as many Croatians have a positive view of the Hague Tribunal after Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac were acquitted of war crimes, an opinion poll suggested.Support for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY rose from 11 percent in December 2011 to 32 per cent in …

Bosniaks MPs in Bosnia’s Federation entity blocked confirmation of a no-confidence vote in the government, invoking the legal mechanism of claiming vital ethnic interests were at stake.The Bosniak [Muslim] caucus of MPs in the House of Peoples in the Bosniak-Croat Federation entity blocked a vote of no confidence in the …

Greek Cypriots will vote on Feb. 17 for a new president to guide them through a severe economic crisis as their country becomes the latest financially troubled European nation seeking international rescue money. For the first time in 40 years, the crisis has eclipsed efforts to reunify the divided island …

The Serbian security service said it had thwarted mafia-style plans to bring down a government plane with Prime Minister Ivica Dacic on board.The Serbian Police Directorate has informed Ivica Dacic, the Prime and Interior Minister, that “heads of certain criminal gangs were intending to cause a failure on a government …

The visiting Palestinians, due to take in a conference, were instead driven to airport and put on a plane to Turkey.Bulgarian security service agents “entered the hotel rooms of the three deputies early on Friday and drove them to the airport,” Mohd Abuasi, of the Centre for Middle East Studies, …

The European Parliament rapporteur on Macedonia, Richard Howitt, says he may have to seek postponement of the Parliament’s resolution on the country in the light of the ongoing crisis.Leaving the country, Howitt said that if the Macedonian political crisis continued, he would have no option but to ask the European …

A leaked US State Department memo condemns Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s nationalist rhetoric, calling it a danger to regional stability.The undated memo seems to have been sent to Prime Minister Sali Berisha after Serbia took down a memorial to ethnic Albanian fighters in the southern Serbian town of Presevo in …

Macedonia’s ruling VMRO DPMNE party has rubbished reports that the EU seeks a postponement of the March local elections.Macedonia’s ruling VMRO DPMNE party on Thursday denied that the Director-General of Enlargement at the European Commission, Stefano Sannino, is pushing for local elections to be postponed. “Sanino never asked for a …

Kosovo parliamentarians earn around eight times the average salary once their generous bonuses are thrown in, data reveal.Kosovo MPs earn an average of 25,000 euro per year, more than eight times the national average, according to Prishtina Insight’s analysis of data released by the Assembly. Members of Parliament also earn …