Slavic

BELGRADE - The New Democratic Party, the youngest party on Serbia's political scene, has been renamed the Social Democratic Party (SDS), and Boris Tadic was elected its president.

The party leadership will be known after the party assembly election on October 26, and in the meantime, a request for the name change will be filed to the Ministry of Public Administration.

BELGRADE - The Serbian parliament continued its work on Tuesday, debating amendments to a bill on the import and export of arms and military equipment.

In the reasoning behind the proposal, the Serbian government noted that the law is aimed at establishing control of the export and import of arms and military equipment.

BELGRADE - United States Vice President Joseph Biden has spoken over the phone to Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and expressed the US respect and support for the reforms that Serbia has begun to implement, the Serbian government's media relations office has said in a release.

Ministers "make arrangements for safe gas supply"

MOSCOW -- The Russian side will do everything to ensure the necessary quantities of gas as previously arranged and provide Serbia with a stable supply during the winter.

BELGRADE - Serbian Minister of Mining and Energy Aleksandar Antic and Russian Minister of Energy Alexander Novak agreed in Moscow on Monday that the Russian side should ensure the necessary quantities of gas as previously arranged to ensure stable gas supply for Serbia during the heating season.

BELGRADE - Serbian Parliament Deputy Speaker Veroljub Arsic on Monday met with a delegation of Czech MPs, who expressed confidence that the European Commission report on Serbia, which is due to be adopted this week, will be positive and that it will contribute to Serbia's further accession to the European Union.

BELGRADE - When it comes to Ukraine, Serbia is neither non-aligned nor neutral, since Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has said several times that he supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine and sees Crimea as part of Ukraine, Karen Donfried, president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), has said.

Boyko Borisov, leader of the centre-right party GERB, which gets the most votes at Bulgaria's early elections, said he was afraid the country might face another early elections and added he was ready for offers from the other parliamentary represented parties.

Residents of the western Bulgarian town of Radomir are voting Sunday in a referendum on gold mining in the region.

Locals are to answer the question of "Do you agree that the Radomir Municipality should not approve development plans for the extraction of sub-surface resources?" and the options are "yes" or "no," according to reports of TV channel News7.

Serbia offered for sale its national news agency Tanjug without setting a minimum price on Friday as part of a privatization drive aimed at cutting budget deficit.

Several other loss-making state-owned media outlets, including radio stations and press centres were also put up for sale.