Afro-Eurasia

Dacic and Lavrov are in Vienna, Austria today for the 24th OSCE Ministerial Council.

Tanjug reported that Dacic took the opportunity to speak with Lavrov for a few minutes before the start of the Council's plenary session.

The number of HIV infections in Greece appears to be on the way down after a spike earlier in the country's economic crisis.

TIRANA - The Regional Cooperation Council's (RCC) Roma Integration 2020 Action Team will organise a conference in Tirana on Friday to address the needs and priorities in the Western Balkans and Turkey concerning filling in the budget gaps in Roma integration policies, with a specific focus on employment and housing for Roma.

The European Commission says Sunday's independence referendum in Catalonia was "not legal" but also called on the Spanish government to open dialogue.

A spokesman for the commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation EU, said Monday that "violence can never be an instrument in politics."

Media watchdog organisations have expressed dismay and concern after a journalist in Montenegro, Vladimir Otasevic, reported that the Prime Minister's brother had threatened his safety.

Azerbaijan's ruling elite ran a secret 2.5 billion euro ($2.9 billion) slush fund to pay off European politicians and launder money, according to an investigation by a group of European newspapers published on Sept. 5.

"How dare you consider vacationing in Turkey with my children?" said a wife to her husband in the back of a Berlin taxi. At least that's what the driver—who was of Turkish origin—told me afterwards. This driver was anxious; eager to talk about what he and many others feel is a growing anxiety between the Turks and the Germans in that country. 

Over the past three years, courts and prosecutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina have processed more cases involving wartime sexual violence than before, but more needs to be done, a new OSCE report says.

In a joint press conference on Friday, five ministers heralded a comprehensive plan aimed at cracking down on crime in Menidi, northwestern Athens, where an 11-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet last week, and improving the education and social integration of the area's significant Roma population.

OSCE mission in Serbia chief Andrea Orizio says that institutions in Serbia must send a clear signal that attacks on journalists would not be tolerated.