News and press releases

From 30 November to 1 December 2012, the Head of the OSCE Centre in Astana, Ambassador Natalya Zarudna, and the Centre staff visited the South Kazakhstan Region and its capital, Shymkent...

DUBLIN, 30 November 2012 – The latest round of talks on the Transdniestrian settlement concluded today in Dublin. During the three-day meeting, the participants reviewed progress achieved this year under the Irish OSCE Chairmanship...

Young diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan discussed quiet and preventive diplomacy mechanisms at an OSCE-supported course that ended in Ashgabat on 30 November 2012...

LISBON, 30 November 2012- The OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, at the close of her visit to Portugal today, praised the government for giving priority to the fight against human trafficking...

ASHGABAT, 30 November 2012 – Forty senior students of the Institute of International Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan attended an OSCE-supported course on the international protection of human rights that concluded in Ashgabat today...

DUSHANBE, 30 November 2012 – The OSCE Office in Tajikistan completed today a second joint border patrol course for Afghan and Tajik border officers as part of a series of training courses to enhance the capacity of Tajik border troops and Afghan border police to detect and interdict illegal cross-border movement...

SKOPJE, 30 November 2012 – Raising awareness on the role of political parties in the electoral process is the aim of an OSCE-supported conference that started in Skopje today...

More than one hundred legal practitioners and scholars are taking part in an OSCE-supported international forum on the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that starts in western Ukrainian city of Lviv on 30 November 2012...

VIENNA, 29 November 2012 – The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, expressed concern today that legal proceedings initiated against several media outlets in Kazakhstan might severely undermine media pluralism in the country...

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), addressed the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna on 29 November 2012 and stressed the need to jointly address intolerance and discrimination on religious grounds...

A team from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) visited Madrid from 26 to 29 November 2012 to present the final report of the Election Assessment Mission for last year’s early parliamentary elections in Spain...

ROME, 29 November 2012 – Representatives of Moldova and Ukraine signed a treaty today in Rome on the sustainable management of the Dniestr/Nistru river basin. The agreement was facilitated by the Environment and Security Initiative (ENVSEC), a joint initiative of the OSCE, the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the United Nations Environment Programme...

An international conference on the impact of administrative justice for the development of public law started on 29 November 2012 in Kyiv with support from the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine (PCU)...

The OSCE MenEngage network was launched on 29 November 2012 in Vienna as part of a larger advocacy effort during the global 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence...

Dunja Mijatović, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, told participating States there was still much to be done to end violence against journalists in her last official report of the year to the OSCE Permanent Council on 29 November 2012...

On 29 November 2012, representatives of the OSCE Centre in Astana and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights spoke at a training seminar on international election observers’ rights and responsibilities organized by Kazakhstan’s Central Election Commission...

OSH, Kyrgyzstan, 29 November 2012- An OSCE seminar on countering violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism concluded today in Osh in the south of Kyrgyzstan...

ASTANA, 29 November 2012- An OSCE-supported expert conference on the role of administrative law and justice in human rights protection was held in Astana today...

The OSCE Mission to Skopje is holding its final basic training course for legal practitioners and law enforcement officials on the new adversarial and parties-driven criminal procedure from 29 November till 2 December 2012...

OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier met UK Foreign Secretary William Hague in London on 28 November 2012...

DUBLIN, 28 November 2012 – Official negotiations on the Transdniestrian settlement started in Dublin today. The three-day meeting brings together representatives of the sides, mediators and observers in the negotiations – Moldova, Transdniestria, the OSCE, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, the US and the EU...

LISBON, 28 November 2012- The OSCE Senior Adviser on Gender Issues, Miroslava Beham, concluding today a two-day visit to Portugal, stressed that special attention must be paid to women’s rights in times of austerity...

VIENNA, 28 November 2012 – The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, welcomed today the rejection by the Senate in Rome of the proposal to retain imprisonment for defamation in the Italian Criminal Code...

ERGNETI, 27 November 2012- On 27 November, the 28th meeting under the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism, co-facilitated by the European Union Monitoring Mission and the OSCE, took place in Ergneti...

TIRANA, 27 November 2012- The Head of the OSCE Presence in Albania, Ambassador Eugen Wollfarth, met today with representatives of the Domestic Observers Coalition to discuss planned activities in the run-up to the 2013 parliamentary elections...

KYIV, 27 November 2012 – The state social adaptation programme for discharged military personnel was the focus of a roundtable discussion supported by the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine (PCU) in Kyiv today...

OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier exchanged views with representatives of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs at a joint meeting of the Subcommittees on Security and Defence and on Human Rights in Brussels on 26 November 2012...

Challenges faced by the regions is the focus of a two-day workshop started on 27 November 2012 in Nukus, the capital of Uzbekistan’s autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan...

TIRANA, 27 November 2012- The Head of the OSCE Presence in Albania, Ambassador Eugen Wollfarth, issued the following statement today, ahead of the country’s 100th anniversary of independence on 28 November:

The first of five seminars on new registration procedures for civil society organizations started in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on 27 November 2012 with support from the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine...

More needs to be done to improve responses to hate-motivated crimes against people with disabilities, said participants at a joint workshop organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombudsperson in Norway, in Oslo on 26 November 2012...

ASTANA, 26 November 2012 – Seminars on political party issues in Kazakhstan supported by the OSCE Centre began today in Astana...

PRISHTINË/PRIŠTINA, 26 November 2012- The OSCE Mission and the Assembly of Kosovo Women’s Caucus launched today a media campaign to raise awareness about the importance of timely testing and detection of breast cancer and to raise funds for the purchase of a mobile mammograph...

Fourteen frontline border officers, supervisors and managers, customs officials, inspectors and investigators from Central Asia and Afghanistan learned about issues related to chemical precursors that have a potential to be used by terrorists in the first co-operative effort between the World Customs Organization and the OSCE Border Management Staff College in Dushanbe from 19 to 23 November 2012...

OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) Knut Vollebaek visited Moldova from 19 to 21 November 2012, where he presented his recently launched Ljubljana Guidelines on Integration of Diverse Societies and discussed co-operation with the Government to develop a comprehensive integration strategy...

BAKU, 26 November 2012- The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Ambassadors Robert Bradtke of the United States of America, Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, and Jacques Faure of France) and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk, traveled to the region November 19 to 26 to continue their efforts to assist the parties in finding a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict...

Civil society representatives from Austria, Germany and Switzerland gained insight into effective methods for monitoring and responding to incidents of hate crimes against Muslims, at a workshop organized by ODIHR and the non-governmental organization ReachOut in Berlin on 24 and 25 November 2012...

CHISINAU, 26 November 2012 – The Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova, Ambassador Jennifer Brush, presented today the annual 16-Day Campaign against Gender-Based Violence under the slogan “Real men don’t beat women”...

An OSCE-supported two-day training course on the implementation of the Aarhus Convention that gives the public right of access to environmental information, participation and access to justice in governmental decision-making concluded on 23 November 2012 at the Aarhus Centre in Dushanbe...

KYIV, 23 November 2012 – A OSCE-supported train-the-trainers seminar on corrective work with domestic violence perpetrators for senior teaching staff from the Ukrainian State Institute for Family and Youth Policy concluded in Kyiv today...

Some 300 books were donated by the OSCE Office in Yerevan to the Armenian Police Educational Complex on 23 November 2012 as part of its support for police education reform...

BELGRADE, 23 November 2012- The Acting Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, Paula Thiede, expressed today her support for the "16 Days of Activism against Violence against Women” campaign that starts on Sunday...

ASHGABAT, 23 November 2012 – An OSCE-organized training course on launching a website and online newsroom management concluded in Ashgabat today...

DUSHANBE, 23 November 2012 – Ways to prevent, detect and investigate internal corruption cases were examined at a training seminar at the OSCE Border Management Staff College that concluded today...

Religious leaders can do more to promote the right of all religious and belief communities to full, equal and non-discriminatory access to legal personality, said participants at a joint meeting of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the European Council of Religious Leaders- Religions for Peace (ECRL) in Warsaw on 22 November 2012...

Better co-operation on immigration issues is a way to prevent human trafficking. On November 23, 2012 the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine organized a roundtable discussion in Kyiv to promote better co-ordination between Ukrainian authorities and consular officials in combating human trafficking...

Ways to evaluate the performance of judges were the focus of a two-day workshop organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the OSCE Mission to Moldova and the Superior Council of Magistrates that ended on 22 November 2012 in Vadul lui Voda...

PRISHTINË/PRIŠTINA, 22 November 2012- Self-regulatory bodies for print media have a key role to play in improving the quality of reporting, protecting media from undue pressure, and increasing their competitiveness in saturated media markets, the participants of an OSCE conference on the state of print media in South Eastern Europe concluded today...

ASTANA, 22 November 2012 – The OSCE Centre in Astana supported a distance learning seminar on countering money laundering held today in Astana...

The OSCE Secretary General, Lamberto Zannier, welcomed on 22 November 2012 the Permanent Representative of Mongolia, Enkhsaikhan Jargalsaikhan, to the OSCE following the decision for the country to become the Organization’s 57th participating State...