Eurasia

Turkey has some 12-14 million Kurds out of a total population of 70 million, but public use of the Kurdish language is still banned. Islam’s holy book the Koran is to be translated into Kurdish as part of Turkey’s efforts to boost the rights of Kurds and to meet European …

A tiny sliver of land on the Dniester river, Transdniestria declared its independence from Moldova in September 1990. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was on Wednesday brokering peace talks between the Moldovan president and the leader of the ex-Soviet state’s separatist Transdniestria region. For a story on the talks, click on. …

Smirnov and Voronin met in Moldova last year for the first time in seven years. Moldova, its breakaway Transdniestria region and Russia agreed after talks on Wednesday that an international mission may replace Moscow’s peacekeepers in the conflict zone once a peace deal is concluded. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev invited …

Members of the leftist PAME group waved red flags and chanted slogans on their way to parliament. More than 1,000 leftist unionists marched through Athens on Tuesday to demand protection of workers’ rights as the global crisis hits Greece. Members of the leftist PAME group waved red flags and chanted …

Still reeling from the worst riots in decades following the police killing of a 15-year-old, Britain is being asked for help. British police will help Greek authorities investigate a wave of violent attacks against banks and businesses, on the rise since riots shook the government in December, officials said on …

Sergeant Alexander Glukhov disappeared in January from his unit in breakaway South Ossetia and said he wanted asylum in Georgia. A Russian soldier who upset Moscow by leaving his unit and turning up in Georgia has been charged with desertion, Russian prosecutors said on Tuesday, while Tbilisi said it had …

Olli Rehn said prospects to join the bloc helped to anchor political stability and economic reform in the Western Balkans. The European Union should not freeze plans to admit Western Balkan countries as members, the bloc’s enlargement chief said on Tuesday, responding to German doubts about the pace of expansion. …

The appeals chamber of the United Nations war crimes tribunal set up after the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s today upheld earlier convictions of a former top Bosnian Serb official and sentenced him to 20 years in prison for deportations, forcible transfer and persecution of non-Serb civilians during the conflict …

MOSCOW – Relations between Russia and Moldova are in good shape and Russia will not slow down the pace of development despite the current hard times, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday during a meeting with his Moldovan counterpart Vladimir Voronin. Relations between the two countries “have recently been …

MOSCOW – Russia’s new Angara carrier rocket will start test flights in 2011, the rocket’s developer said on Wednesday. The Angara, designed to place heavy payloads into orbit, is currently under development at the Khrunichev State Space Science and Production Center. “The work is going according to schedule. A light-class …