Dan

Pro-Russian separatists vowed Feb. 2 to mobilise up to 100,000 fighters for their latest east Ukraine offensive as the US mulled sending weapons to Kiev's out-gunned forces after the latest truce bid collapsed.
      

Opposition Democratic Front leader Miodrag Lekic will next week start consultations with various parties on an initiative to form a technical temporary government because of what he termed the "serious political and economic crisis" in Montenegro.

Lekic said he would seek the support of all opposition NGOs and parties as well as parties representing ethnic minorities in parliament.

The new, third consecutive trial for the murder of the journalist Dusko Jovanovic began on Tuesday in the High Court in Podgorica, with the only defendant, Damir Mandic, pleading innocence and accusing the police of "planting evidence".

Mandic said he had been kept in prison for 10 years although he was innocent, and his human rights had been violated.

The investigation into the deaths of the three airmen in 2011 has concluded that no one should be prosecuted over the incident, the High State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica said on Wednesday.

Montenegro's Prime Minister faces an imminent grilling by the judicial authorities after the Supreme State Prosecutor on Tuesday said Milo Djukanovic would "soon" be questioned as part of a reopened investigation into the 2004 murder of a journalist.

Media community urged to raise ethical standards

VIENNA -- The OSCE representative on media freedom welcomed the readiness of the media community in Montenegro to launch a process to improve media self-regulation.

Dunja Mijatović also welcomed their readiness to start the process of confidence-building between media actors.

Mijatovic on Wednesday expressed disgust about the tabloid’s allegations that Calovic, the director of an influential Montenegrin NGO and a prominent government critic, had sexual relations with her two dogs.

"I hope we will hear the condemnation of such journalism, if we can call it journalism. As a person, as a woman, I am appalled," Mijatovic said.

Months of verbal warfare between local watchdog MANS and Montenegro's ruling party Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS, ahead of May’s local elections in the capital, peaked on Wednesday with mutual accusations about scandals, abuse of state resources and corruption.

Montenegrin police said they had detained six men on Thursday, suspected of being involved in the attack on Lidija Jovanovic, a journalist from the opposition daily newspaper Dan.  

"We have a contractor and financier, motive, organizers, helpers and the direct perpetrator of the attack," police said on Friday.