EAST EUROPE: Healthcare Ails as Doctors, Nurses Emigrate

Senior medical figures in Eastern Europe have issued stark warnings that the region's healthcare sector is both unstable and unsustainable as health workers continue to leave in droves for jobs abroad.

Q&A: Laying to Rest the Ghosts of the Past – With Truth

This year marks 15 years since the bloody war in Bosnia - Herzegovina (BH) ended. Apart from the 44-month siege of the capital of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces there was the massacre of some 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys after the United Nations-protected enclave of Srebrenica fell into their hands.

Teenage Pregnancies Soar as Church Looks the Other Way

Pressure from the Catholic Church to effectively stop sex education in schools is threatening the health of tens of thousands of teenagers who fall pregnant every year because they have little or no knowledge of safe sex, education groups in Poland have warned.

ROMANIA: Trade Unions Warn Against Unjustified Pay Cuts

Romania’s trade unions have warned that a series of protests against drastic cuts in pensions and salaries would turn into full-fledged general strikes by month-end unless the government heeded to the needs of ordinary people.

Eastern Europe Resists Disarmament

Despite the U.S. and Russia signing what was widely hailed as a landmark deal on nuclear arms reduction in Eastern Europe last month, the region remains hesitant to back full disarmament.

Conflict Stirs Over Hungarians

Calls have been made for Slovakia and Hungary to start "open and sincere" dialogue amid fears that Slovakia's ethnic Hungarian minority will "suffer" following the election of a new government in Hungary and as Slovakia's nationalist coalition government looks for re-election.

Q&A: Albanians Press Democracy With Hunger Strike

Since May 1 over 200 people have been on hunger strike in a tent in the centre of the Albanian capital of Tirana supported by rallies of 200,000 protestors and road blocks across the country to press for a recount of last year’s parliamentary vote.

ECONOMY-BALKANS: ‘How Did We Become So Poor?’

Almost two decades after Yugoslavia fell apart, the majority of the defunct socialist country’s people are insecure and uncertain for their future with the booming economy and rapid development that capitalism promised remaining a pipe dream.

BULGARIA: Blue Danube Meanders Into Road Building

The European Union Danube Strategy (DS), unfolding this year, is proving to be a litmus test for the viability of the concept of ‘green growth’ in Eastern Europe.

BIODIVERSITY: Developers Stalk the Carpathians

When the Slovakian government moved to open Tatra National Park to developers, last month, it did not consult experts or the public. Other protected sites across Central and Eastern Europe are said to be equally vulnerable.

Mediterranean Bailout – German Virtue or Necessity?

Under pressure from its European Union (EU) peers and confronted with the undeniable realities of the Greek financial collapse, the German government has finally given up its resistance to a multinational bailout programme for the Mediterranean EU member states.

RIGHTS-FINLAND: Tough Asylum Policy Opposed by Civil Disobedience

Juha Suoranta had until recently been a professor of sociology, pursuing a quiet academic career in the University of Tampere, unconcerned with issues surrounding asylum for foreigners in trouble.

ECONOMY-GREECE: Convulsions Follow EU Shock Therapy

The firebombing of a bank by demonstrators protesting against severe austerity measures, which killed two women and a man, appears to Greeks as a sign of social deterioration arising from their country’s financial crisis.

Torture – Live and Well in Turkey

Six years after the ruling Justice and Development Party government declared ‘zero tolerance’ for torture, the practice prevails in Turkey, human rights monitors in the country’s predominantly Kurdish southeastern region say.

Like Unemployed Mum and Dad

A generation of children growing up in Eastern Europe face poverty when they reach working age because of the effect their own parents' long-term unemployment will have on them, sociologists and economists have warned.

BALKANS: ‘Tito-nostalgia’ Reigns 30 Years After His Death

For many former Yugoslavs, May 4 will be a day to reflect on the 30 years since their charismatic but controversial leader, Josip Broz Tito, died.

ROMANIA: Slow Food – Opportunity for Small Farmers

Mari Cat, an economist by profession, thinks nothing of selling meat, bread and apple juice at a stall in the ‘Slow Food’ market in this central Romanian town.

RIGHTS: Europe Imports Torture From US

A U.S. company has admitted for the first time that it exports equipment designed to inflict pain on prisoners to Europe.

POLAND: Many Causes Lose Their Leaders

The plane crash which claimed the lives of 95 Polish officials and public figures, including President Lech Kaczynski, has dealt a blow to minority rights movements in the country, activists say.

EAST EUROPE: Organic Farming Blossoms

Eastern Europe's organic food industry is mushrooming as it brushes off the effects of the global recession, and more consumers in the region turn to healthier foods.

BULGARIA: Inhuman Life Sentences Replace Death Penalty

The death penalty was outlawed in Bulgaria in 1998. But restrictive legislation on conditional release, and the overcrowding and precariousness of the Bulgarian prison system makes life hardly livable for some lifers.