News and press releases

Op-ed by George Tsereteli and Isabel Santos, The Hill, 1 November 2018

VIENNA, 1 November 2018 – The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Harlem Désir, today expressed his disappointment after a court decision in Ukraine extended for the third time the pre-trial detention of bureau chief of the RIA Novosti Ukraine news agency, Kirill Vyshinsky...

The SMM recorded fewer ceasefire violations in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, compared with the previous reporting period. At a hospital in Donetsk city, the Mission saw a man with two legs amputated, reportedly due to a mine explosion. The SMM observed a weapon in violation of the agreed withdrawal lines near Voitove. It recorded ceasefire violations near the Petrivske and the Zolote disengagement areas. The SMM’s access remained restricted in all three disengagement areas; it was also restricted near Novoazovsk – an area close to the border with the Russian Federation – Staromykhailivka, Novolaspa, and again near Zaichenko and Bezimenne. The Mission facilitated and monitored adherence to the ceasefire to enable repairs to the phenol sludge reservoir near Zalizne and to critical civilian infrastructure in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as to enable demining near Nyzhnoteple, Zolote-2/Karbonit and Novotroitske. In Kyiv, the SMM monitored a public gathering related to utility prices...

Protecting private property and improving legislation on business entities’ rights were the focus of an international roundtable discussion hosted by Uzbekistan’s Supreme Court with the support of the OSCE Project Co-ordinator and in co-operation with UNDP, USAID and the German Agency for International Co-operation on 1 November 2018 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan...

Strategic planning and quality written project proposals enable NGOs to access European Union and other important donors’ funds. With that in mind, the OSCE Mission to Montenegro provided a series of training courses during October 2018 to the NGO Bona Fide from Pljevlja, Montenegro...

Hate speech in the media was the focus of a two-day OSCE Mission to Skopje-supported discussion with representatives of media organizations, national human rights institutions, state and regulatory bodies, criminal justice agencies and civil society organizations, which concluded on 1 November 2018 in Mavrovo...

An OSCE-supported two-day training seminar for employees of Kazakhstan’s Central Bank on the application of a risk-based approach to anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) supervision of financial organizations concluded on 1 November 2018 in Almaty, Kazakhstan...