News archive of December 2016

BANJALUKA - The results of the Republika Srpska Day referendum cannot be annulled, Chairman of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency Mladen Ivanic said in Banjaluka Friday.

Only the consequences of the referendum can be annulled, Ivanic, the Serb member of the tripartite rotating presidency, told the Avaz.ba news portal.

ST PETERSBURG - Devastation of cultural monuments in Palmyra, Kosovo-Metohija, Sudan or anywhere else is an attack on the core of human civilisation that belongs to the entire world, irrespective of race, religion or cultural area, Serbian Minister of Culture and Information Vladan Vukosavljevic said at the 5th International Cultural Forum in St Petersburg on Friday.

Soon after assuming charge as the chief of Pakistani Army, General Qamar Javed Bajwa has made clear that his top priority will be to ease tensions on the border with neighbouring India.

Demark announced on Dec. 2 that it would not extend a six-month mission for seven F-16 jets deployed at the İncirlik Air Base in the southern Turkish province of Adana, currently participating in the U.S.-led coalition's fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Romania and Hungary faced fresh diplomatic tension on Friday after Hungary's Foreign Minister told its diplomats to boycott Romanian national day events on December 1.

A prosecutor's office in Istanbul, which ordered the detention of Doğan Group's Ankara representative, Barbaros Muratoğlu, has cited articles published in two pro-government newspapers as evidence, daily Hürriyet has learned. 

For the fourth consecutive year, the City of Thessaloniki will be open on weekends from 11:00 to 17:00 through the holidays with a Christmas market featuring artisanal food products made by local Thessaloniki producers.

Mistreatment is widespread in post-coup attempt detentions in Turkey, U.N. human rights expert Nils Melzer has said, referring to numerous testimonies from inmates, their lawyers and civil society organizations he met last week in the country. 

The first session of Srebrenica's new municipal assembly since the October local elections brought a Serb to power as mayor was broken off on Thursday, when members of the mainly Bosniak [Muslim] Party for Democratic Action, SDA, walked out.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic will meet with EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn on Monday, December 5, the government announced on Friday.

At the EU Info Center, Vucic will attend the signing ceremony of an 80 mln euro financial contract aimed at backing a comprehensive transformation of the Serbian public administration.