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Ljubljana, 11:00 European Union will not set Ratko Mladic's arrest as a precondition for resumption of stabilization and association negotiations with Serbia, Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said. In an interview with weekly newspaper European Voice, Rupel said the "tough terms" should be set out in the final stage of negotiations not at the start of the process. "Belgrade's cooperation with The Hague Tribunal does not necessarily mean that Mladic should be arrested and handed over to The Hague," Rupel said. Slovenian media say the EU countries have no common position as to the interpretation of the "constructive cooperation", which...

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Slovenia Monday became the first post-communist country to enter the euro zone when it replaced its tolar currency with the euro. Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa called the change the "biggest national achievement" since the country joined the European Union two years ago, Ljubljana's media said. Slovenia became the 13th EU member country to embrace the euro and the first of the 10 new EU members that joined the bloc in 2004. Financial transactions, at the exchange rate of 239.64 tolars to one euro, will be carried out both in tolars and euros through...

Officials celebrated as the EU flag was raised in Bucharest Huge celebrations have been held in Romania and Bulgaria to mark their accession to the European Union, 17 years after the fall of Communism. Tens of thousands attended concerts in the two capitals, Bucharest and Sofia. The Romanian president said EU entry was an "enormous chance for future generations", while Bulgaria's leader said it was a "heavenly moment". Their accession means the EU now has 27 members and half a billion people, and stretches as far east as the Black Sea. The day we are welcoming - 1 January...

By Carol Kaufmann Photographs by Arne Hodaliè Why did Romans, Celts, and even prehistoric settlers submerge their personal belongings, from swords to dishes, in a shallow river in Slovenia? Archaeologist Andrej Gaspari is haunted by pieces of the past. His hometown river, the Ljubljanica, has yielded thousands of them—Celtic coins, Roman luxuries, medieval swords—all from a shallow 12-mile (19 kilometers) stretch. Those who lived near and traveled along the stream that winds through Slovenia's capital of Ljubljana considered it sacred, Gaspari believes. That would explain why generations of Celts, Romans, and earlier inhabitants offered treasures—far too many to be...

THE nearest the cheerful, obsessively tidy former Yugoslav country of Slovenia comes to hell on earth these days is when a British stag party lands in the capital, Ljubljana. But since President Janez Drnovsek experienced a spiritual rebirth, baffled Slovenians have been warned that they are living on the edge of the apocalypse.Frequently dressed in Indian clothes and sometimes playing the flute with laurel leaves in his hair, the president has cast off the trappings of power. After he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, Drnovsek, 56, left his presidential palace in Ljubljana, sacked most of his staff and moved with...

The president of Slovenia has given up his palace for a mountain hut and habitually decks himself in leaves to celebrate nature.Adopting a New Age existence after being diagnosed with cancer, Janez Drnovsek, 56, has moved from the presidential palace in Ljubljana to the village of Zaplana, where he lives alone with his dog on a vegan diet of organic fruit and vegetables, while he bakes his own bread. He has even been known to "greet the trees" by dressing up in cloaks of leaves. Mr Drnovsek appealed this week to his fellow countrymen to join him in embracing the...

ZAGREB, Croatia Croatian and Slovene armed police were deployed Thursday at a disputed border area as tension between the two neighbors rose after Croatia accused several Slovene journalists of illegal border crossing and escorted them back to Slovenia. A regional Croatian mayor, Josip Posavec, called on both sides to "immediately remove all armed men so that the peace returns here."

Hitler's bugs 25.8.2006 - Michael Manske If we say Hitler and beetles, you may think of a fascist dictator and an old Volkswagen car. But there's another kind of beetle linked to the notorious German dictator, lurking in the caves of Slovenia. Michael Manske of Radio Slovenia International has more on this curious story: Slovenia has a number of endemic animals, most famously the proteus anguinus, commonly referred to as a "cave salamander" or "human fish". The amphibian is proudly displayed on the ten-tolar coin. But another cave dweller has recently started getting a lot of unwanted attention from around...

The first new entrant since 2003 to the twelve-member eurozone has been agreed by the European Commission. Slovenia's application to join the single currency on 1 January 2007 was accepted by the Commission. The application by the former communist state must now be approved by the European Parliament and EU member states, who will set the exchange rate. However, Lithuania's application for euro membership was rejected because its inflation rate was too high. If all goes to plan, EU finance ministers will fix the exchange rate between the euro and the tolar, the Slovenian currency, on 11 July. The euro...

BRUSSELS, May 16, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Slovenia today became the first new EU member state to get the green light to join the EU's common currency, the euro. Meeting in Strasbourg, the European Commission ruled the country meets all the necessary criteria and can adopt the euro as of January 1, 2007. The Commission turned down the application of a second candidate for early entry, Lithuania, saying the country's inflation is too high.

EUROPE DAY Did you know there was a "Europe Day"? A day to celebrate the EU? Me neither. But May 9th is it. Here's some thoughts of mine on the poor doomed European Union: Question: What do you get when you take two world wars, add the two most malign ideologies of the century, throw in genocide, the collapse of religious institutions, radical secularism, a political elite sealed off from opinions it finds distasteful, spiraling social costs, deathbed demographics and growing numbers of an unassimilated immigrant population? Answer: You get Europe in the new millennium - mired in aggressive pacifism,...

Article Tools RSS Printer Friendly E-Mail This Page Discussions SOFIA: A US push to give special NATO partnerships to Australia and other Pacific-rim allies ran into trouble at a top-level meeting due to end Friday after European members voiced scepticism, diplomats said. The proposal would see Australia, New Zealand and possibly Japan and South Korea extended privileged status with NATO that would reflect their active role in some Alliance missions while stopping short of offering membership. Foreign ministers from the 26-nation Alliance discussed the issue, among other topics, at a conference in the Bulgarian capital Sofia that began Thursday. But...

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Morten Messerschmidt, a member of the Council of Europe and of Denmark's Parliament for the Danish People's Party. He is involved in the debate about the effects of Muslim immigration to Europe, Islam and terrorism. FP: Morten Messerschmidt, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Messerschmidt: Thanks. FP: Tell us the impact that Muslim immigration is having on Europe. Messerschmidt: We are seeing over the entire continent how the extreme groups of Islam are trying to impose their fundamentalist ideology, which has created awful results in the Middle East, to our part of the world. We see it...

Migrant workers 'boost UK growth' Migrant workers from Eastern Europe are providing a positive boost to Britain's economy, according to a report. New immigration has helped to keep inflation under control, boost output and raise tax revenue, research by Ernst & Young has suggested. Workers from Poland and Slovenia are among those "plugging gaps in a variety of industries", the report said. The UK is one of only three EU states to grant full labour rights to citizens from the 10 recent accession countries. The Ernst & Young Item Club Spring Forecast, which uses the Treasury's own forecasting model for...

Asia Rising Donald Rumsfeld infamously made a distinction between Old Europe and New Europe. He has been scored ever since for his sweeping and impolitic language, but he wasn't sweeping enough: In geopolitical terms, all of Europe is old, the world's most tourist-friendly museum piece. For the future of high-stakes U.S. diplomacy and of great-power politics, look no further than Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the U.S. It is Asia that should occupy an outsized place in our strategic thinking, and it is Europe that should be the relative afterthought, not the other way around. The media and foreign-policy...

Demographics may bring about what the Moors and Ottoman Empire couldn't: a Muslim Europe Anyone know where we can find some Etruscans? You know, members of the Etruscan civilization that existed in ancient Italy, predating even Rome? Well, there aren't any. The Etruscans were absorbed by the Roman civilization and ceased to exist as a distinct people. Ominously, if a growing number of experts and cultural observers are right, it's entirely possible that the same question may be asked 100 years from now -- only about Italians or Spaniards or Russians. As writer Mark Steyn glumly put it in The...

(AgapePress) -- Anyone know where we can find some Etruscans? You know, members of the Etruscan civilization that existed in ancient Italy, predating even Rome? Well, there aren't any. The Etruscans were absorbed by the Roman civilization and ceased to exist as a distinct people. Ominously, if a growing number of experts and cultural observers are right, it's entirely possible that the same question may be asked 100 years from now -- only about Italians or Spaniards or Russians. As writer Mark Steyn glumly put it in The New Criterion, "Much of what we loosely call the Western world will...

BELGRADE, 5 April - The Serbian State Prosecution Office for War Crimes has announced it will charge the Slovene nationals who murdered three Yugoslav National Army's (JNA) conscripts in 1991 with war crimes. The execution of the three soldiers is considered the first war crime in Former Yugoslavia. The murders took place at the Holmec border crossing, and were filmed by the Austrian ORF. Just a few weeks ago the state prosecutor in the Slovene capital Ljubljana brought charges against Mrs. Neka Miklavcic-Predan, the director of the Slovene chapter of the Helsinki Human Rights Group,for publicly referring to the murders...

've had a recurring experience in the last few months. I'll be reading some geopolitical tract like Sands Of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy, and the Hazards Of Global Ambition by Robert W. Merry, and two-thirds of the way in I'll stumble across: "With the onset of the Iraq War and European opposition, many Americans embraced a severe anti-European attitude. 'To the list of polities destined to slip down the Eurinal of history,' wrote Mark Steyn in the Jewish World Review, 'we must add the European Union and France's Fifth Republic.' "

This latest attack targets a Slovenian friar and comes the same day the Vatican confirms Benedict XVI’s visit to Turkey, scheduled for November. Ankara (AsiaNews) – With the battle cry “we will kill you all” a group of youths launched themselves in attack on a Franciscan friar in Izmir (the ancient Smyrna). The attack took place within the confines of St. Helen’s parish. Speaking with evident emotion, Msgr Luigi Padovese, Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia, says “The boys grabbed him by the throat shouting “we will kill you all””. According to the bishop this latest aggression is “fruit of rampant fanaticism”....