Page 2 - Andy Heil News Today

Serbia's armed forces have proposed a return to conscription after more than a decade as an all-volunteer army, with the president vowing to "look into modernizing" the laws on military service. The announcement has met with resistance, with critics accusing the government of politicking.

As the new year chimed in, Kosovo's new visa-free relationship with the EU began, a measure long desired by Pristina and the country's citizens. However, a sluggish economy has meant that not all of Kosovo's 1.8 million people are ready to hop on a flight right away.

Hooked to an IV drip, 49-year-old legislator and mother of two Marinika Tepic pledges to keep up her hunger strike in a fight against what she says were fraudulent elections -- but for a host of other reasons, too.

On December 17, Serbs vote in snap parliamentary, provincial, and municipal elections. Polls suggest most of the races will be won by the ruling Serbian Progressive Party and its allies. A key exception could be the capital, where the opposition is in a tight race.

A project uniting linguists and students from both sides of the Balkans' most contentious border tries to show Serbs and ethnic Albanians that they share more culture than they think. As it turns out, thousands of words "do not need translation."

Kosovars and Montenegrins take issue after tennis ace Novak Djokovic and his Serbian national teammates take to the court for late-round Davis Cup matches to a tune that calls for the Serbian flag to fly over foreign lands.

Under EU pressure, Podgorica has officially shuttered its contribution to the global buy-a-passport business. But RFE/RL's Balkan Service has learned it's still considering handing out hundreds more "golden passports," which in the past have mostly gone to Russian and Chinese nationals.

Gabriela Bankova says she can't get her pneumonia treated as she can't get admitted to a Bulgarian hospital under the correct gender. She has vowed to get official recognition of gender reassignment -- which was prohibited by Bulgaria's Supreme Court of Cassation early this year -- or die trying.

Priests from the Russian-led Moldovan Orthodox Church are joining a rival church based in neighboring Bucharest. The defections indicate the groundswell of anti-war sentiment among Moldovans and the widespread frustrations with the Russian Orthodox Church's "promotion of pro-Russian interests."

One of the founders of a group challenging the overwhelmingly Muslim country to reject Islam insists that the budding movement is seeking to oppose religious extremism in all its forms. Prosecutors aren't so sure, though, and the local Islamic community surely isn't buying it.