ECONOMY-EUROPE: Czechs Bank on Cooperatives for Revival

The Czech Republic’s strong heritage of cooperative movements, dating from the interwar period, is serving as inspiration for new initiatives in the post-communist era and acting as "harbingers of a new global economic system".

MEDIA: Slovakia Tightens the Gag

Fears are growing for media freedom in Slovakia amid warnings that the country's public television station has become a propaganda tool for the government ahead of elections this year.

BALKANS: Seized Cars, Property Say Crime Does Not Pay

A rare fleet of 20 luxury cars and snazzy jeeps has remained parked in front of the heavily guarded special court in the capital for days now.

UKRAINE: Facing Hard Choices Again

Neither the voters nor the West hold great illusions about genuine change in crisis-ridden Ukraine through the elections this weekend.

BALKANS: ‘Econoslavia’ Makes Sense If Yugoslavia Does Not

Politicians from the former Yugoslavia often speak about integration with the European Union (EU) as their major goal in this decade and possible salvation from the economic hardships the region faces.

TURKEY: Peace May Come to Pass in 2010

With newfound liberties for the Kurdish minority and the government's ‘Democratic Opening' initiative the prospects for peace in 2010 are brighter than they have been in the last 25 years. The fly in the ointment is the ban in December of the pro-Kurd, Democratic Society Party (DTP).

BALKANS: Serbs Bank on EU Laws to Regain Seized Property

Prominent theatre actor Tanasije Uzunovic loves to take long walks in the large Kalemegdan Fortress Park but generally avoids the Dedinje neighbourhood, a more popular green zone in the Serbian capital.

RIGHTS: Gays Take Heart From Austrian Ruling

Landmark legislation on same-sex registered partnerships in Catholic Austria is an example that politicians in Eastern Europe's Catholic countries should now follow, gay rights groups in the region say.

POLITICS: Europe Sends New Year Cheer for Serbs

Serbs can look forward to better prospects in the New Year, having scored two major diplomatic victories in recent weeks that may help integrate their country with Europe.

BALKANS: Apologising to Sterilised Roma Women – Slovakia’s Turn

Rights activists are hoping a landmark announcement by the Czech government regretting forced sterilisation of Roma women in the past will push politicians in neighbouring Slovakia to follow suit.

SLOVAKIA: Velvet Touch Brings Communists Back

As Slovaks mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism this week, former dissidents have lashed out at top political figures, including the prime minister, who they say are trying to paint the totalitarian regime of old in a positive light.

BALKANS: War Crime Victims Stretch Wait for Justice

The postponement of the trial in the genocide cases in the 1992-95 Bosnia war is further indication that victims of war crimes may never get justice.

EASTERN EUROPE: Loans Make the Middle Class Poor

Low-income Eastern Europeans contracting easy consumer loans in the mid- 2000s are now falling below poverty lines.

BALKANS: Museum Speaks of Roma History, and Misery

The Balkans gets its first museum on the Roma, to tell a story about one of the most underprivileged ethnic groups in the region.

BULGARIA: Migrants Denied Even Medicine

Hasun Albaadzh, an asylum-seeker from Syria, died Oct. 6 at the Busmantsi detention centre on the outskirts of Bulgarian capital Sofia. He had been held at Busmantsi for 34 months - considerably more than the maximum legal period of detention - and had been denied proper medical care.

Q&A: Africans Won’t Just Be on Receiving End of Arts and Culture

Global initiatives have in recent years stressed the contribution that arts and culture can make to development. This has led African and European artists, bureaucrats and policy makers to increasingly confront the unequal relations in North-South cultural and artistic exchanges.

GERMANY: East Is East

Twenty years after the Berlin Wall came down, rifts between east and west Germany remain: east Germans vote differently, are earning less money, and are more pessimistic than west Germans.

ROMANIA: Government Collapse Deepens Economic Woes

Romania is heading for a week of massive protests by state employees. With the governing coalition collapsing last Friday, the new minority government will have a hard time navigating between the demands of the protesters and the austerity measures demanded by its international creditors.

BALKANS: Ultranationalists Face Ban

Ultranationalist groups behind the violence in Belgrade last month face ban by the Constitutional Court of Serbia.

RIGHTS: Castration for Polish Paedophiles Opposed

New legislation in Poland introducing compulsory castration of paedophiles has angered human rights groups, who claim its introduction is little more than populist posturing.

RIGHTS: Shelters Open for Battered Husbands

One in three women is ill-treated by someone or other in family homes, survey after survey shows. And so the total of three men living in shelter in a small home for battered husbands may seem unmentionably small in comparison.