Balkans

PRISTINA, Serbia – Kosovo’s prime-minister designate Hashim Thaci sealed agreement on Monday on a governing coalition expected to lead the Albanian-majority province to independence from Serbia early this year.

Вильнюсская газета «Vilniaus diena» сообщила, что главари  России сейчас обсуждают, какую провокацию организовать против Литвы, которая, якобы, превратилась в штаб-квартиру «антироссийского экстремизма».

Even though Vladimir Putin’s designated successor says few senior officials even know what demography is, changes in the number of 18-year-olds over the next few years will impose severe constraints on the Russian government and may force it to reduce the size of its armed forces.

The Russian Far East is “drifting away” from the rest of the country, according to an investigation carried out by Nezavisimaya gazeta – Regiony, and the Kremlin’s much-ballyhooed program intended to reverse that process may in fact be making it worse.

Russia’s Muslims are beginning to change the way they talk about the relationship between their religious community and their country, a shift that reflects their own growing self-confidence but one that frightens many ethnic Russians who see it as a threat to their own status.

Serbia is telling Serbs in Kosovo to ignore an Albanian declaration of independence early next year, raising the prospect of an ethnic partition of the breakaway province that the West has long ruled out.

Slovenia, the first country to quit Yugoslavia in 1991, becomes EU president on January 1 and will play a lead role in maybe the last act of the old Balkan federation’s demise when Kosovo secedes from Serbia.

Serbia said on Wednesday it would shun any offer of membership of the European Union or NATO if they recognized the breakaway province of Kosovo as an independent state.

A Russian opposition activist was committed to a psychiatric hospital before government protests, supporters said Friday – the latest in a series of incidents suggesting a punitive Soviet-era practice is being revived.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Belarus’ leader late Thursday, starting a visit that was closely watched for signs the two ex-Soviet neighbors were advancing toward a merger.