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Cyprus police say 65 people — including 24 children and 18 women — believed to be Syrian migrants are receiving medical check-ups after arriving aboard a boat spotted southeast of the east Mediterranean island nation.

Police said their vessel is believed to have set sail from Lebanon and was escorted by patrol boats into a harbor along Cyprus' eastern coast Thursday.

Government officials are very pleased because they no longer feel the tight grip of the fiscal straitjacket imposed on them by Greece's creditors. They can comfortably spend, appoint civil servants and revoke painful reforms. They are fully focused on the next general elections.

The Turkish government is set to hold this year's second Reform Action Group meeting on Dec. 11, resuming the talks after a three-year pause in a move signaling its determination to join the European Union.

The Macedonian Foreign Ministry has come up with a serious reaction following the threat of Bulgaria's Defense Minister Krasimir Karakachanov that Bulgaria will prevent Macedonia from entering NATO and the European Union if our neighbor does not recognize our common history until 1944.

Premier Viorica Dancila said in an interview aired on Saturday by private broadcaster Antena 3 that the complete documentation for the construction of the planned regional hospitals will be submitted by the end of this year, but that financing solutions still need to be identified.

More than half of Bulgarian municipalities will receive vouchers for free internet in public places in the European Union (EU). This was announced by the Bulgarian commissioner for digital technologies Mariya Gabriel.

According to her, the Bulgarian municipalities rank among the top EU winners in the WIFI4EU initiative.

Haradinaj, the prime minister of the provisional Pristina institutions, told the Insajderi website that "Kosovo has those who will defend it."

"One American soldier here will be enough," he explained, and stressed that Pristina "would be supported by the US in that situation."

"We have received a note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Madagascar, informing us that the decision was made on December 5," First Deputy PM and Foreign Minister of Serbia Ivica Dacic told Tanjug on Friday.

Dacic pointed out that Madagascar is the 12th country to withdraw recognition of the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo.

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Human rights and migrant welfare groups are urging Greece to scrap its part of a deal between the European Union and Turkey, designed to reduce unchecked migration to Europe from the east.

/TASS/. Moscow is concerned about attempts by NATO and the European Union to strengthen their presence in the Balkan region, which leads to new dividing lines and destabilizes the situation in Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the Greek Efimerida ton Syntakton newspaper.