EUROPE: Waste in East Going Waste

Environment groups have warned that Eastern Europe is plagued with serious and potentially dangerous waste disposal problems as new figures reveal the region has Europe's lowest recycling rates.

DEVELOPMENT: EU Playing Aid Politics With Aid Policy

The world's poor appear to have become pawns in a political battle over the European Union's (EU) new diplomatic corps.

EAST EUROPE: “Inevitable” Budget Cuts Anger Unions

Trade unions in Romania and Bulgaria are embarking on a spring of protests in response to the governments’ anti-crisis measures involving considerable cuts in budget expenditure.

BELARUS: Crackdown on Dissent Feared Ahead of Elections

Civil rights leaders in Belarus are facing a campaign of persecution and harassment as autocratic President Aleksandr Lukashenko looks to crack down on the opposition ahead of local and presidential elections over the next year, rights activists warn.

ECONOMY: Greek Crisis Impacts the Balkans

Serious concerns are being raised about the impact of the ongoing recession in Greece on the political and economic situation in the neighbouring Balkans.

RIGHTS: EU Selling Torture Equipment

Equipment designed for torturing prisoners is still being exported from European Union (EU) countries despite a four-year-old ban on such trade, according to a new report by Amnesty International.

EUROPE: Economists Blame Germany for Mediterranean Crisis

Germany’s obsession with maintaining a trade surplus, in line with its mercantilist traditions, is one cause for the severe economic crisis that has gripped several Euro-Mediterranean countries, say economists.

EAST EUROPE: Taxing Fast Foods for Health

Health experts have called on European governments to use a pioneering tax on fast foods to be introduced in Romania as a model for the entire continent as the battle with obesity spreads to the former communist bloc.

ECONOMY-GREECE: Austerity Measures Unsettle Public

Xristos Kiriakou, 30, joined the Feb. 24 strike against the austerity measures announced by the Panhellenic Socialist Party (Pasok), although he has never been involved in public protests before.

BULGARIA: Govt Forced Down on Genetically Modifed Crops

Campaigning by environmental groups and the general public has weakened the determination of the Bulgarian government to allow the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops in this country.

DEVELOPMENT: EU Countries Set to Break Promises

Promises made by the European Union (EU) on increasing aid to poor countries will be broken this year, according to new data.

ECONOMY-EUROPE: Fear of Mediterranean Contagion Grows

The deep economic, fiscal, and trade crises of several Mediterranean countries in the euro zone that is threatening monetary stability in Europe with the possibility of contagion spreading to developing countries, say studies.

RELIGION-TURKEY: Alevi Future Bleak Despite Equality Moves

A political initiative to eliminate discrimination against the Alevi, Turkey’s main religious minority, risks being stymied by the Diyanet, the country’s powerful religious body that does not recognise anything but Sunni Islam.

/CORRECTED REPEAT*/ICELAND: Questions Hang Over EU Membership

Views within Iceland towards membership of the European Union (EU) are mixed. Though Iceland has officially decided to apply for EU membership this does not mean that it will join, even if invited to do so.

RIGHTS: Chinese Dissident Wins More Backing for Nobel

Politicians in the Czech and Slovak republics have won wide support for a public campaign backing a Chinese dissident for the Nobel Peace Prize.

GREECE: New Migrant Law Tough But Respects Rights

The newly elected Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) government's plans to move legislation, that will greatly affect migrants and refugees, have been both welcomed and criticised by rights organisations and activists.

UKRAINE: Back Full Circle

The 2004 'Orange revolution' saw a pro-Western leadership emerge victorious in a Presidential vote that opposed them to a pro-Russian candidate accused of vote rigging. After six years of political and economic chaos, the once villain Viktor Yanukovich has reclaimed the President's post.

EUROPE: Poland’s Pension Cuts – Cue for Former Eastern Bloc

Poland’s pension cuts on tens of thousands of former communist functionaries and secret police officers are adding fillip to campaigns in other East European states for similar legislation.

CLIMATE CHANGE: European Firms See Windfall in Renewable Energy

European governments failed to help along an international treaty to stop global warming at the United Nations climate change summit in December, but their engineering and power industries see business opportunities in renewable energy sources and their smart management.

BALKANS: Moderate Patriarch Sets New Course for Serb Church

The enthronement of a moderate as patriarch of the influential Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) has raised hopes for the planned integration of the country with the European Union (EU) and for Serbs coming to terms with the bloody Balkans wars of the 1990s.

MIGRATION: Fortress Europe Starts With Greece

When Michalis Chrisohoidis, Greek minister of citizens' protection announced that FRONTEX, the European Agency for Border Control and Protection, would double its representation in this country in spring, it was clear that Greece is being charged with special responsibilities to apprehend and repatriate illegal migrants into Europe.