civil society

Former US President Barack Obama is in Athens on Wednesday where he will meet 105 members of the Barack Obama Foundation Leaders program. 

The meeting will take place without the presence of the public and marks the completion of the six-month journey of the participants for 2023.

Hundreds of local in Serb-majority nothern Kosovo, led by medical workers, marched from North Mitrovica to Zvecan - where workers from the Trepca mine joined them - in protest against recent arrests of people suspected of attacks against Kosovo journalists, Serbian-language Kosovo media outlet Kossev reported.

The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's constitutional law experts, and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, ODIHR, have warned that the new draft law in Bosnia's Republika Srpska entity on the "Special Registry and Publicity of the Work of Non-Profit Organisation", dubbed the "foreign agents law", "contains serious deficiencies".

A group of 20 civil society organisations from Bosnia and Herzegovina, gathered in the Initiative for Monitoring European Integration, has issued a warning on "the shortcomings of the Draft Law on Freedom of Access to Information of Bosnia and Herzegovina," which Bosnia's state-level government, the Council of Ministers, adopted on April 12. 

Nearly 3,800 people died on migration routes within and from the Middle East and North Africa last year, the highest number recorded there since 2017, according to data published by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Bulgaria's Chief Public Prosecutor Ivan Geshev (R) walks before the meeting of the Supreme Judicial Council in Sofia, Bulgaria, 08 June 2023. Bulgaria's Supreme Judicial Council will consider two requests for early termination of the mandate of the Prosecutor General.

"We started with the idea that we need a safe space and that we could do something for the community that's open weekly, to have cultural activities and be activists through a cultural perspective," said Lorelei Grigorita, Queer Café's 24-year-old administrator.

He spoke after the meetings he had last week together with US emissary Gabriel Escobar in Belgrade and Pristina with the aim of de-escalating the situation in the north of Kosovo and pointed out that despite the hopes they had, tensions are still growing.

More than 30 people accused of a coup plot have been arrested in Kyrgyzstan, the national security service said Tuesday.

The impoverished Central Asian country with ties to Russia and China has seen three presidents resign over political crises fuelled by corruption, nepotism and disputed votes since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Main opposition chairman Republican People's Party (CHP) Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has announced the new top executive board following the defeat in the parliamentary and presidential polls.