Bosnia and Herzegovina

BELGRADE - Positive economic growth is expected this year throughout the region, with the exception of Serbia, whose gross domestic product is projected to drop by 0.5%, according to the World Bank's latest South East Europe Regular Economic Report.

Wartime general and former right-wing Croatian politician Branimir Glavas was released from jail in Bosnia, where he was serving his sentence, after Zagreb overturned his war crimes conviction.

An international alliance of conservative parties, the International Democratic Union, IDU, held the meeting of its Executive Committee and Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs in Bosnia on Monday, in a sign of support to its local member parties and to the new EU plan for the country.

"Trepca should not be condition for dialogue"

BELGRADE -- The EP rapporteur for Serbia has said he "hopes the first chapters in the EU-Serbia negotiating process would be opened during the first six months of 2015."

BRUSSELS - European Parliament Raporteur for Serbia David McAllister expressed the hope in Brussels Monday that the first chapters in the negotiating process between Serbia and the EU would be opened during the first six months of 2015.

More than 100 houses were inundated by water across central Bosnia on Sunday and Monday after several days of heavy rains and melting snow, sparking public concerns about a possible repeat of last year's flood disaster in the country.

Officials however urged calm, stressing that although most of Bosnia's rivers were on the rise, they were still far from critical levels.

Rajko Vasic, former general secretary of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, rocked Bosnia's political scene over the weekend with a blog post that urged the party's leader Milorad Dodik to step down.

The assault rifles used by the Kouachi brothers, who killed 12 people in an attack on Chalie Hebdo's offices in Paris, could have come from Bulgaria and Romania, media reports suggest.

Cherif and Said Kouachi used the AKS-74 Kalashnikov, which have been produced only by these two countries since 1989.

The Montenegrin Army's air force does not have adequate equipment or enough capacity to control the country's skies, even though airspace protection is one of the priorities Podgorica's NATO integration process, the Centre for Democratic Transition watchdog claimed.

ZAGREB - Croatia's new president Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic has asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to take any action necessary, including calling a meeting of the UN Security Council, to make sure that head of the Serbian Radical Party Vojislav Seselj was taken back into the custody of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and sentenced as soon as possible.