News archive of September 2017

BRUSSELS - The EU on Wednesday granted 27.4 mln euros to Serbia to support the reform of the country's education system.

"Serbian children deserve the same opportunities like children in the EU," EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said after the signing of a grant agreement in Brussels.

Police in Thessaloniki said on Saturday they arrested a member of a people trafficking gang with 10 migrants packed in his car.

The suspect - a 34-year-old foreign national - was arrested following a car chase along the Egnatia Highway, near the Analipsi toll station, after he ignored a police signal to stop late Friday night.

Two armed men threatened a plainclothes police officer with a gun and stole his car at midnight on Friday in southern Athens. The incident occurred while the policeman was sitting inside his parked Skoda Fabia outside Village Cinemas in Palaio Faliro.

The first direct Air China flight between Athens and Beijing landed at Athens International Airport on Saturday morning. The Air China Airbus A330-200 had more than 200 passengers on board, including the Greek premier's wife.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement on Friday that the United States Government does not recognize the referendum for independence held earlier in the week by the Kurdistan Regional Government.

He also urged all groups with a stake in referendum on Iraqi Kurdistan's independence to reject the use of force.

A Serbian minister has denied media reports in the Balkan nation that the government is muzzling the free press through intimidation, threats and financial pressure.

Vladan Vukosavljevic, Serbia's culture and information minister, told The Associated Press on Friday that his agency "strongly objects" to any form of pressure on journalists and believes in media freedom.

Kosovo's president, Hashim Thaci, says U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has pledged that the United States will be directly involved in reaching a final agreement to normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia.

The White House says U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has encouraged Kosovo to ratify a border-demarcation deal with Montenegro, RFE/RL reports.

Serbia is under huge pressure from the West regarding the Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center (RSHC) in the City of Nis; the U.S. calls the idea of granting an official status to the center an "anti-American act," Serbia's Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic told reporters late on Friday after a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.

About 30 ambassadors representing Serbia abroad should be replaced in the next few months, the daily Politika writes on Friday.

They are currently among those serving in the country's 69 embassies and seven diplomatic missions - to the EU, NATO, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, UNESCO and the UN in New York and Geneva.