PALERMO, 9 October 2010 – Organized crime remains one of the most pressing problems worldwide, said OSCE PA President Petros Efthymiou today. He expressed his confidence that the discussions in the next two days at the Fall Meetings will be a useful and effective guide in dealing with this problem. Mr. Efthymiou’s speech today led off the conference at the PA’s Fall Meetings in Palermo titled, “The Fight Against Transnational Organized Crime

SARAJEVO, 4 October 2010 – Yesterday’s general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina represented further progress and, except for legal restrictions of voting rights, were conducted generally in line with OSCE and Council of Europe commitments, international observers concluded in a preliminary statement issued today. They stressed that certain key areas require action. “We have seen yet another demonstration that the electoral process in Bosnia

SARAJEVO, 1 October 2010 - The International Election Observation Mission for the general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina will present its preliminary post-election statement at a news conference on Monday, 4 October, in Sarajevo. The mission is a joint undertaking of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR), the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

AL-JAZEERA 30 September 2010 Moldova's liberals beat opposition Communists in parliamentary election but results showed it lacked the majority needed to name a pro-Western president for Europe's poorest state. With all votes counted from Sunday's election, the third in the former Soviet republic in less than two years, the three-member liberal alliance had 52.1 per cent of the vote, the election commission said on Monday. The figure translated

The FINANCIAL 30 September 2010 The FINANCIAL – WARSAW. Formal preparations for the first OSCE Summit in 11 years began on Sptember 30 with representatives from OSCE participating States gathering in Warsaw to review how countries are fulfilling the commitments they have undertaken as part of the Organization." The 17-day Review Conference takes place through October and November in Warsaw, Vienna and Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, which

WARSAW, 30 September 2010 – Reviewing our commitments in the OSCE should be an integral part of the day-to-day work of the Organization and not just at such an exceptional event as this review conference, said the President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Petros Efthymiou in his opening address today at the OSCE Review Conference in Warsaw. This review conference boils down to one single question, he said: "are our governments sticking to