RUSSIA Nato’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has called for a new strategic partnership with Russia. In his first major foreign policy address as Nato chief, Mr Rasmussen called for a “joint review” with Moscow of global security challenges. He was speaking in Brussels the day after the US announced …

ALBANIA Albania should take extra measures to stop the politicization of the elections process in the country, says a statement of the Swedish EU presidency, DPA reports. The statement acknowledges that the Balkan country has registered serious progress in its elections system but local authorities should carefully study the final …

ROMANIA Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc said Friday he asked Education Minister Ecaterina Andronescu to cancel the order she passed recently entitling her to replace and appoint school principals, and said he would dismiss her if the act is applied.

MACEDONIA Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki commented on the talks with Greece and remarked that Macedonia has a constructive approach and expressing country’s position on the issue will not hamper the work of name dispute mediator Matthew Nimetz.

MACEDONIA Macedonian Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki leaves Friday on an official visit to the Vatican, local media report. The minister will make an official invitation to Pope Benedict XVI to visit Macedonia. The invitation is sent by Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov and under the protocol it has to be handed …

MACEDONIA Although political parties deny it, the atmosphere in the country indicates that Macedonians could be heading to the polls soon, political analysts say. The ruling centre-right VMRO-DPMNE, which instigated and won the 2008 snap election, could again catch the opposition Social Democrats, who are is in the midst of …

BiH NATO has successfully completed its Joint Endeavour 2009 exercise, conducted in north-western Bosnia and Herzegovina over the past fortnight. “Joint Endeavour brings Bosnia and Herzegovina closer to NATO,” Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz reported on Friday. Speaking at the closing ceremony in the town of Banja Luka on Thursday afternoon, …

MACEDONIA Macedonia’s position in the ongoing Athens-Skopje name talks allows a positive step to be taken towards a solution, Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki said Thursday. Milososki was answering a journalist’s question on whether a statement made by President Gjorge Ivanov in Berlin, two days earlier, that Macedonia remains committed to …

MACEDONIA The five-pointed red star on Macedonia’s official coat of arms, could soon be consigned to history. The government has already decided to remove the star, which dates back to the period when the country was part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, local Dnevnik daily reveals on Friday.

SERBIA Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić says that Serbia could submit its EU membership application before the end of the year, during the Swedish EU presidency. Jeremić said that, for Serbia, submitting the application was “strategically important, vital and crucial, and that it would draw a line under the international debate …