Dubrovnik

Fifteen EU and Energy Community countries in Central Eastern Europe and Southeastern Europe agreed on Friday to join forces to speed up the creation of missing gas infrastructure links, the European Commission said.

By Jasmina Kuzmanovic

The Greek government and its creditors should focus on the overhaul of its economy in order to escape the distracting ?blame game? over its finances, the World Bank?s chief economist for the region said on Monday.

In a coordinated operation codenamed "Mask," police raided several locations in Bosnia and neighbouring Croatia on Thursday and arrested more than 20 people - including four policemen - believed to be involved in organized crime, as well as drug and weapons trafficking between those two countries.

The results of Sunday's elections reflected the current balance in support between the two strongest Croatian parties, the centre-left SDP and opposition centre-right HDZ.

A total of 71,000 voters went to the polls in five Croatian towns and five municipalities, in the second round of early elections for town and municipality mayors.

The fifth season of the hit series Game of Thrones kicks off on April 12 and promises another 10 episodes full of fantasy, intrigue, sex and violence in the mythical kingdom of the Westeros and Essos.

DUBROVNIK - Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said that he will not attend the summit of the prime ministers of and Central and Eastern European countries and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, adding that a visit to Belgrade would be ridiculous given the recent temporary release of indictee Vojislav Seselj from the detention unit of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslav

Torrential rains and gale force winds, thunderstorms and in some places hail, have hit the Balkans in the beginning of September, local media outlets reported, Tuesday.

Code Orange and Code Red warnings have been issued in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Croatia due to the potentially dangerous weather.

Ahead of an important German-hosted meeting in Berlin on Thursday, the Prime Ministers of Croatia, Albania, Bosnia and Montenegro met on Monday in Cavtat, Croatia, to discuss the planned construction of an Adriatic-Ionian highway.

The highway will connect Central and Western Europe with Greece through the Western Balkans, running down the coast.

Croatia is to offer a tender to a private company to run the country's 1,017 kilometres of highways, currently managed by indebted state company Croatian Highways, HAC.

The concession will be offered to lease the highways for 30 to 50 years for an estimated price of 2.5 to 3 billion euro.

The Croatian news website Index.hr on Thursday published a video of police pepper spraying a well-known human rights activist in Dubrovnik during his arrest in late July.

The video shows police using pepper spray while struggling unsuccessfully to handcuff Antun Zeravica, 37, in the old town area on July 31, after he refused to show police his ID card.