Charles Recknagel is standards editor for RFE/RL.
The EU's drive to get Turkey to toughen its visa regulations to help resolve the migrant crisis is giving regional businessmen reason to worry.
What do volunteers who go to fight in Syria find? Battles for war booty and fiefdoms, says one returning Kosovar who counts himself lucky to be alive.
The Balkan migrant route is being choked off. What happens next?
Russia's bombing campaign has redrawn the Syrian battlefield and strengthened the hand of Damascus for peace talks. But those gains come at a high cost.
An official of the newly elected Croatian government lit a powder keg when he proposed creating a registry of people who "betray" nationalist values.
Much of the world's response to the extremist group Islamic State (IS) has been to look for ways to defeat it militarily. But the underlying challenge is to defeat the group's ideology.
Turkmenistan's authoritarian president has a soft spot for Akhal-Teke horses -- the country's national symbol. So he has passed a new law regulating the horses' lives.
The U.S. interest-rate hike is bad, and good, news for other countries. Here are some of the major effects.
Montenegro is a small country with a small army of about 2,000 soldiers. But its invitation to join NATO sends a strong message to Moscow that Russian cannot divide Europe into spheres of influence.
Dushanbe is increasing its control over how Tajiks practice Islam amid claims hundreds have joined Islamic State in Syria. But are the measures stabilizing or destabilizing Tajikistan, where Islamists and secularists fought a civil war just 20 years ago?
Montenegro's Western-leaning government hopes NATO will offer it membership in December. But pro-Russian parties are seeking to sabotage the prospect with street protests.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan often look like mirror images of strong, authoritarian nationalists. That could make it difficult for them to compromise over Turkey's downing of a Russian jet.
Moldova was once a star pupil in a program to bring neighboring countries closer to the European Union. Now a political crisis could put Moldova back in Moscow's orbit.
Azerbaijan is holding parliamentary elections that will be boycotted by key international monitors and all of the country’s established opposition parties. The November 1 poll follows a two-year government crackdown on civil society in the oil-rich Caspian Sea state.
Ukraine's local elections this weekend will gauge the appeal of President Petro Poroshenko and his efforts to end a war and kick-start an economy.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has made his first foreign trip in four years for a surprise meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Why?
Anti-migrant parties are a rising force in Europe. The current crisis gives them a further boost.
Rough estimates suggest that Russia has so far spent less than $100 million for two weeks of air strikes, including cruise missiles, against targets in Syria. What has it got in return?
Russia's bombing campaign in Syria is endangering its relations with majority Sunni Muslim states.
Kyrgyzstan's election results reveal a paradox: the country is a democracy within the Kremlin's orbit.
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!["In the beginning, when I went [to Syria], everybody was greeting us. But later, they were looking at us differently. They were scared of us," Arben tells RFE/RL correspondent Luljeta Krasniqi Veseli.](https://gdb.rferl.org/31acc576-687e-4b89-903d-7cda75e34e8b_cx0_cy19_cw0_w100_r1.jpg)
!["In the beginning, when I went [to Syria], everybody was greeting us. But later, they were looking at us differently. They were scared of us," Arben tells RFE/RL correspondent Luljeta Krasniqi Veseli.](https://gdb.rferl.org/31acc576-687e-4b89-903d-7cda75e34e8b_cx0_cy19_cw0_w66_r1.jpg)
