Norway

Russia has decided to exclude some of the food products on which it imposed a ban earlier in August, a decree published on the government's website shows.

Lactose-free milk, potatoes, small salmons and trouts for breeding-pools, potato and onion seedlings, hybrid sugar corn and peas, and also biologically active supplements.

The Cypriot government confirmed on Wednesday that it has consented to former Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide being appointed special adviser to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Cyprus issue.

BELGRADE - Literary historian and critic and member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Predrag Palavestra died in Belgrade on Tuesday, aged 85.

The news of his death was announced by the Crown Council, whose member he was.

Harvard and Koç University’s summer school hosts local and foreign students for Ottoman Turkish classes every year on Turkey’s Cunda Island, off the Aegean coast Since 1997, an institute on Ayvalık’s Cunda Island affiliated with Harvard University has drawn great interest from foreigners and locals who want to learn Ottoman Turkish during the summer.

The European Commission on Aug. 18 announced a series of exceptional measures to help growers hit by a Russian ban on fruit and vegetable imports.
      
The products in question are in full harvesting season, with little hope of finding alternative markets to replace demand from Russia in time, the Commission said.
      

The most popular destinations among Bulgarian online users this summer are London, Barcelona and Istanbul, a survey of trivago.bg shows.

Although it is the most expensive destination in the top ten list with average prices of EUR 209 per night, London has been the most popular search on the platform, Dnevnik notes.

A coalition of activists said on Aug. 12 they would send a flotilla of ships to break Israel's siege of Gaza by the end of 2014, fours years after a similar campaign ended in a deadly raid by Israeli commandos.
      
"We plan to send the flotilla during 2014," the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which includes activists from at least 10 countries, said in Istanbul.        

Serbia among countries Russia intends to buy food from

MOSCOW -- Serbia is one of the countries on the "priority list" from which Russia intends to import food products after imposing sanctions on previous, western suppliers.

Greek farmers are likely to be compensated for any losses they suffer as a result of a Russian embargo on imports from the European Union, the government has indicated.

“Greek producers will have the state’s full support,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement late on Saturday as it sought to play down the impact of the temporary ban by Russian authorities.

“I fully understand the reasons that prompted you to take the decision to impose an embargo on EU agricultural products. However, on behalf of the Greek people, who are going through a period of extreme hardship, I appeal to your humane feelings to think again over your decision toward the Greek farmers.”