News and press releases

The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption and the Co-ordination of the Fight against Corruption (APIC), in co-operation with the Embassy of Italy in Sarajevo acting within the framework of Italy’s 2018 OSCE Chairmanship, launched an anti-corruption project on 5 March 2018 in Sarajevo, to be implemented during the first half of 2018...

On 5 March at 12:55, when an SMM patrol consisting of six members and two armoured vehicles was heading from west to east on a road in Kozatske (non-government-controlled, 36km north-east of Mariupol), it saw a man in military-type attire armed with an assault rifle (AK-74) standing at a checkpoint of the armed formations on the eastern edge of the village. The SMM also saw him pointing the assault rifle directly at the first SMM vehicle, which was then about 120m west of the checkpoint...

The OSCE shared its experiences of how it worked to prepare ground-breaking confidence-building measures to promote peaceful relations in cyberspace at the first meeting of the Organization of American States’ (OAS) working group on co-operation and confidence-building measures (CBMs) in cyberspace in Washington DC on 2 March 2018...

The SMM recorded more ceasefire violations in Donetsk region and fewer in Luhansk region between the evenings of 2 and 3 March compared with the previous reporting period. The SMM recorded fewer ceasefire violations in Donetsk region and more in Luhansk region between the evenings of 3 and 4 March compared with the previous 24 hours. The SMM observed damage to a civilian property in a residential area in Pikuzy. The Mission continued monitoring the disengagement areas near Stanytsia Luhanska, Zolote and Petrivske; it recorded ceasefire violations assessed as inside the Stanytsia Luhanska area. Its access remained restricted in all three areas and elsewhere, including in Izvaryne near the border with the Russian Federation and in Staromarivka. The SMM continued to facilitate and monitor repairs to the Petrivske pumping station in Artema and to a water pipe system in Novotoshkivske. The Mission visited four border areas not under government control. In Kyiv, the SMM observed the tents on Hrushevskoho Street being dismantled and monitored a gathering...

Discussions about the OSCE’s support for Turkmenistan’s ongoing efforts to promote gender equality were the focus of meetings held during the visit of the OSCE’s Senior Gender Adviser, Amarsanaa Darisuren, to Ashgabat from 28 February to 2 March 2018.

ROME, 5 March 2018 – The 4 March parliamentary elections in Italy were a vibrant display of competitive democracy in which voters could readily inform themselves about their political options and could freely cast their ballots, concluded international observers from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly today following their first-ever election observation mission in the country. The elections offered voters a multitude of parties to choose from, and benefitted from extensive media coverage, with diverse and critical analysis of many aspects of the campaigns. In a welcome effort, concerns about ‘fake news’ were taken seriously by authorities and media companies during the campaign. On election day, time-consuming procedures resulted in some delays and long queues for voters...

A five-day training course for some 30 Tajik customs officers from all over the country on the detection of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials at border checkpoints concluded on 2 March 2018 in Dushanbe.