GREECE: Riots Fed by Years of Anger

It is late at night. The city is quiet and strangely empty. Only some spooky figures appear here and there, police in civilian clothes, photojournalists looking for telling pictures.

ECONOMY-BALKANS: Just When Hope Was At Hand

The Balkans region, crippled by the wars of the 1990s and then pushed through painful transition to a market economy, has been hit hard by the global economic crisis just when everyone believed the time had come for promising new development.

RIGHTS: Europe Goes Slow on Gay Laws

European Union governments are in no hurry to widen the scope of the bloc's anti-discrimination rules so that gays and lesbians can enjoy greater rights.

ABKHAZIA: Troubled Region Prepares for Winter Olympics

The nomination of the Russian city Sochi to host the 2014 Winter Olympics is already affecting the sensitive geopolitical balance in the region.

ROMANIA: Two Decades of Democracy Brings Disappointment

The chaotic political programmes of the parties and a new electoral system discouraged more Romanians than usually from casting a vote in Sunday's parliamentary elections. The main opposition force, the Social-Democrats, obtained the best result, but with none of the parties achieving a clear majority, the centre-right forces might still coalesce to form the new government.

UKRAINE: War Brings Elections, Crisis Postpones Them

The Georgian-Russian war has detonated a political war in Ukraine. The governing coalition has collapsed, and new elections loom in a country struck by a grave economic crisis and facing accusations of trading illegal arms with Georgia.

EU-RUSSIA: Arms Overshadow Talks

Brinkmanship over weapons overshadowed a summit between the European Union and Russia held in the French city Nice Nov. 14.

BALKANS: Organised Crime Knows No Boundaries

Inter-ethnic hatred has remained alive among many Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs through the years since the wars of the disintegration of former Yugoslavia. But the 'brotherhood' imposed by communist rulers to keep people together remains alive in organised crime that knows no boundaries, or religious and ethnic divisions.

RIGHTS-EUROPE: New Fascism Hunts Roma

A political ideology based on the desire to exterminate Roma gypsies is emerging in parts of Europe, a Brussels conference has been told.

BULGARIA: Losing Billions to Corruption

Far from succeeding in pressuring Bulgaria to solve its problems with high-level corruption and organised crime, the European Union is forced to watch its aid money drain away into the coffers of shady businessmen well connected with the Bulgarian political class.

ROMANIA: Election Fever Sparks Labour Unrest

Just weeks before general elections, Romanian legislators have approved drastic increases in teachers' wages, causing massive protests from state employees around the country looking for similar benefits.

RIGHTS: EU Parliament Acts Against Child Trafficking

The European Union needs to develop a programme against child trafficking, the bloc's only directly elected institution has declared.

MEDIA-TURKEY: Messenger Comes Under Attack

Many sections of Turkish media critical of the government say Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is bent on silencing them through intimidation - or controlling them through purchase.

BELARUS: Still Out in the Cold

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has failed to win the support of European Union (EU) member states and the United States following elections last month, that international observers found largely incompatible with democratic standards.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Communism Alive, Despite Isolation

The government's frequent use of the 'communist card' against opponents is casting a shadow on its lustration attempts in a country where an isolated but strong communist party persists.

RIGHTS-CZECH REPUBLIC: Life on Perpetual Hold for ‘Lifers’

Eighteen years after the death penalty was abolished in the Czech lands, little has been done to prepare anyone convicted of the gravest crimes for their eventual return to society.

Q&A: 'Little Hope of Fair Election'

Opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich fears signs that the elections due in Belarus this Sunday will not be free and fair. President Alexander Lukashenko's government continues to stifle the media, he says.

EUROPE: Failing to Step Up Medical Support to Africa

Almost two years after the European Union resolved to step up its efforts to address the shortage of doctors and nurses in poor countries, its progress has been found unsatisfactory by the bloc's own officials.

BALKANS: Serbia’s Radical Party Cracks

"The curtain is coming down on one party...what used to be the SRS (Serbian Radical Party) does not exist any more...the life of the party I have helped build in the past 18 years has ended."

RIGHTS-ROMA: The Finger Now Points to Italy

White T-shirts with a designer smudge of a dark fingerprint were the most popular item of fashion among the 500 people attending the European Union's first-ever 'Roma summit' in Brussels this week. Carrying the slogan 'No Ethnic Profiling', the garments drew attention to highly controversial moves by the Italian authorities to carry out a census of the dilapidated camps in which members of Europe's largest minority are frequently condemned to live.

EUROPE: Turkey to be Pushed to Speed Up Reforms

Turkey will be told later this year that it should accelerate the pace of its reforms on freedom of expression in an official assessment of its efforts to join the European Union.