United States

Former Bosnian Croat fighter Zdenko Jakisa was arrested in the US state of Minnesota on suspicion of committing a series of violent crimes against civilians during the 1990s war.

Maternal deaths have fallen by 45% worldwide since 1990, statistics of the UN and the World Health Organization (WHO) show.

Over half a million women died during childbirth in 1990, while in 2013 the figure was 289,000.

BUJANOVAC - The state will do its utmost to improve the economic status of members of the Serbian military throughout the country, Serbian Defence Minister Bratislav Gasic said on Wednesday after inspecting the activities of the 4th Land Forces Brigade of the Serbian Armed Forces.

A nationalist deputy in the Russian Duma, Mikhail Degtyarev, has warned Montenegro not to join NATO, saying the country could potentially be targeted by Russian missiles.

A Podgorica-based website, IN4S, quoted the member of the Liberal Democrat Party as saying that Montenegro would become “a legitimate target of Russian missiles” if it joined the alliance.

Five months after starting work on its drill, the US oil and gas company Chevron on Tuesday announced the start of actual exploration activities in Pungesti, eastern Romania.

“Drilling activities have commenced at the exploration well site. The drilling rig is expected to run until the well reaches a target depth of approximately 4,000 metres,” the company said.

Russian lawmakers have adopted regulations which oblige US-based credit card companies Visa and Mastercard to pay billions of USD if they wish to operate in Russia.Under the new legislation, a Russian-based system will also take charge of cashless transactions from this year.

Construction of Safe House begins in southeastern district

BELGRADE -- Construction works were launched on Monday in Vranjska Banja to build a safe house for women who are victims of domestic violence.

The works will be completed by the end of this year.

The military exercise, codenamed “Vector 2014”, is to end later this week and will involve some 1,600 naval personnel, the Romanian Defence Ministry confirmed on Monday.

“The exercise is organized annually and aims at training naval structures for their missions. It was planned around one year ago,” the ministry said.

The vote on transforming the Kosovo Security Forces into the new Kosovo Armed Forces was expected on Monday but MPs decided to postpone it amid continuing disagreements between political parties over the Serb minority’s demands.

Party leaders met on Monday at the US embassy in Pristina to try to forge a consensus but local media reported that no agreement was reached.

BELGRADE - Hundreads of people from all over the former Yugoslavia marked the 35th anniversary of the death of former president of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito by visiting the House of Flowers in Belgrade on Sunday, where Tito and his wife Jovanka Broz are buried.