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BUDAPEST, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) — Hungary\’s Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi told foreign journalists in Budapest on Friday that one of the focuses of Hungary\’s six-month presidency of the European Union (EU) in 2011 would be increasing both the influence and self- confidence of Central Europe.

\”We want more attention to be paid to the region,\” Martonyi said. \”We want Central Europe to be more assertive both inside and outside Europe.\”

Martonyi said that alongside the existing Visegrad four alliance of four Central European countries — which comprises Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia — Central Europe increasingly looks south to encourage the integration of the Western Balkans, east to improve relations with Russia and the countries of the EU\’s Eastern Partnership, as well as west to Austria and the rest of the EU.

According to the foreign minister, a particular priority of the Hungarian presidency will be developing the EU\’s \”neighborhood policy\” regarding the bloc\’s relations with its neighboring countries in the south and particularly in the east.

\”There must be synergy between the EU\’s policy towards Russia and towards those countries in the Eastern Partnership,\” he said.

A summit meeting involving the six members of the EU\’s Eastern Partnership initiative, namely Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia, will be held in Budapest in May 2011.

Martonyi added that he expects substantial progress will be made in 2011 in the field of integration of the Western Balkan countries into the European Union.

\”We want to speed up negotiations concerning Croatia\’s accession and hopefully conclude the negotiation process by the end of June,\” he elaborated.

MOSCOW, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) — Two militants were killed Sunday in Russia\’s North Caucasian republic of Dagestan Sunday, said the national anti-terrorist committee.

Clashes broke out in a forest area near the Serebryakovka village of the republic\’s Kizlyar district between a group of armed militants and law enforcement officers.

Two insurgents were killed, one of whom was believed to be a major head of the criminal gang.

No policemen suffered injuries in the shootout. The special operation was currently underway.

Violence is common in Russia\’s mainly Muslim North Caucasus republics, especially Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, with militants frequently targeting police and officials as representatives of Russian authorities.

Moscow has vowed to bring stability to the region by improving social services, raising pensions and salaries as a measure to tackle corruption and terrorism infiltration.

TBILISI, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) — The Azerbaijani constitutional court will approve the result tallies of the 2010 parliamentary elections on Monday, according to reports reaching here.

The constitutional court put off its scheduled deliberations on the result tallies from Friday last week.

Judge Rafael Gvaladze said a criminal case had already been filed regarding an appeal from the country\’s Goychay-Agdash constituency, where the running candidate had allegedly interfered with ballot casting on Nov.7, the election day.

Mazahir Panahov, chairman of the Azerbaijan Central Election Commission, said the commission had thoroughly studied all the complaints submitted from the country\’s 125 constituencies, before presenting the election results to the constitutional court for final approval.

The commission, however, has rendered as null and void the election results from 46 polling stations.

There were 5,314 polling stations at precinct levels for this year\’s parliamentary elections, in which 690 candidates had stood.

GENEVA, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) — A majority of Swiss on Sunday voted for an initiative to expel foreign criminals, the government said.

\”The majority of voters have sent a clear signal that they consider foreign criminality to be a serious problem. The Federal Council respects the will of the people and will set to work on putting the task confided in it into practice,\” it said in a communique following the voting.

With the support from an unexpected 53 percent of the voters and 17.5 of the 26 cantons, the Swiss equivalent of provinces, the new initiative maintains that foreign nationals who have committed one of the listed crimes should \”automatically lose their right of residence and be deported to their country of origin.\” The listed crimes range from murder, breaking and entry, to social security fraud.

A working group led by Councilor Simonetta Sommaruga will now examine questions and draft a proposal on the initiative\’s implementation, which won\’t be activated until a final act of the Swiss parliament.

MOSCOW, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he was \”unpleasantly surprised\” by the Russian immigration law that restricted freedom of traveling for foreigners, local media reported on Monday.

Under the law, a foreign national, even if he or she has been legally employed in Russia, has no right to travel beyond the region where he or she is employed for longer than ten days in a year.

Medvedev, a lawyer by education, said this clause was the remnant of Soviet mentality when every foreign visitor was under suspicion of spying.

\”Such logic implies that the less a foreigner travels in Russia, the better for the country. So let he be anchored to one spot or, better still, let he refrains from coming to Russia at all,\” Medvedev said during a meeting for modernization and technological development.

He added that such a situation has been very much convenient only for law enforcement agencies and secret services, and the situation must be changed.

Beside the immigration law, many other Russian laws and regulations also mount numerous obstacles for the country\’s modernization and spoil investment climate, he said.

KIEV, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) — Ukraine is ready to further develop relations with Syria, one of the most influential and respected countries in the Arab and Islamic world, President Viktor Yanukovych said here Friday.

\”Ukraine and Syria are linked with the years of friendship and fruitful cooperation, and I hope the results of the talks will give a powerful impetus to the development of bilateral relations,\” Yanukovich said at a meeting with visiting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Yanukovych said he believes both countries \”will continue to take measures to ensure the political dialogue at high level.\”

In turn, al-Assad said his country is interested in developing long-term strategic partnership with Ukraine.

\”We should starting this partnership with a political dialogue, policy advice, coordination of positions between our countries and, finally, to complete it by signing the agreement on the establishment of a free trade area,\” the Syrian leader said.

MADRID, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) — A lightening strike by Spanish air traffic controllers has caused chaos in Spain Friday.

The action has caused the closure of the airports of Madrid, Mallorca, Minorca and Ibiza, the Canary Islands and in the region of Galicia, as well as causing the closure all Spanish airspace.

The Spanish Public Works Ministry issued a statement confirming that the controllers had \”abandoned their workplace in massive numbers,\” two hours after their change of shift at 5:00 p.m. hours local time.

The action has happened just as Spain is beginning a holiday weekend: the Puente de Constitution, with millions of people taking advantage of what for many is a five-day weekend to travel to areas such as the Canary and Balearic Islands.

At least 150,000 passengers will have their flights affected and Spanish Airline, Iberia said they do not expect the affected airports to reopen until at least midnight.

Some passengers told Spanish television station RTVE that their planes were on the tarmac waiting to take off when they received the news that they would not be able to do so.

Early reports also indicate that stranded passengers have begun their own protests in various airports against the lack of information from airlines and the air-traffic controllers. The Air Traffic Controllers confirm that it is a \’spontaneous\’ protest against the Governments new rules on their working hours, while the Airports Authorities (AENA) have responded by calling the action \’irresponsible\’ and has threatened disciplinary action. AENA has also said that they will investigate whether the action could constitute a criminal offense.

Meanwhile the Minister of Public Works, Jose Blanco has announced an emergency crisis meeting with Isaias Taboas, the Secretary of State for Transport, the President of the AENA, and the Director of Civil Aviation.

Passengers have been advised to remain at home until the situation becomes clearer.

BRUSSELS, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) — The European Union (EU) has activated its civil protection mechanism to assist Israel in fighting forest fires, the European Commission said Friday.

At the request of the Israeli government, the EU activated Thursday night the Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC), a special unit for coordinating EU assistance in civil protection operations, in order to combat Israel\’s worst forest fires in decades.

\”We are moving quickly to help Israel tackle this natural disaster, whose scale is unprecedented in the country\’s history. Israel can count on Europe\’s immediate support,\” said Kristalina Georgieva, Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response.

On Thursday night, Israel submitted to the EU a specific request for fire-delaying and extinguishing materials, such as anti-fire powder. Within hours, the MIC participating states offered the requested material.

In addition, fire fighting aircrafts were offered by Greece, Spain, France, Cyprus, Spain and Croatia.

The commission reported that four Greek planes had already arrived on site Friday morning and 92 fire fighters from Bulgaria were on their way to Israel.

An major forest fire broke out in the region of Haifa, killing at least 40 people Wednesday and forcing hundreds of other to evacuate the region.

PARIS, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) — French luxury family Hermes is examining schemes over the weekend to further protect its capital scattered among family members from external acquisition, after the world\’s largest luxury goods conglomerate LVMH sneaked 17 percent of its shares.

According to a report by local daily newspaper Le Monde on Saturday, some 60 Hermes family shareholders and their representatives are likely to create a holding company with 51 percent of Hermes\’ capital, which makes it harder for external buyers to attain Hermes shares potentially sold by family shareholders on the market.

They started the discussion on Friday, the daily said, but didn \’t publish any decision till now, and were reluctant to give comments.

So far, the Hermes family heirs clutched 73.4-percent stake of the group and repeatedly stressed their unity after LVMH\’s surprising entry into the family-run brand in late October.

After LVMH announced its acquisition, Hermes\’ executives urged the French luxury giant to back off as they saw an implication of hostile takeover. However, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault has said there will be no further bid on Hermes in the medium term.

ANKARA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) — Turkey said Monday it wants to normalize relations with Israel after its assistance in Israel\’s fight against fire brought an opportunity for the two countries to improve their strained ties.

Turkey would never turn down anybody who wants to fix relations in a friendly manner and was seeking peace and normalization of relations, government spokesman Cemil Cicek was quoted by the semi- official Anatolia news agency as telling a press conference here.

While reiterating Turkey\’s call for apology and compensation for Israel\’s killing of eight Turkish citizens and an American of Turkish origin on a Gaza-bound aid ship this May, Cicek said Turkey never showed enmity against the Israeli people.

\”What we are taking a stand against is wrong policies. We do not have a problem with the people of Israel or any other country, \” he said.

Turkey sent two fire-fighting planes on Friday to help Israel fight its worst-ever forest fire that killed more than 40 people and raged an area of 50 square kilometers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then called Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the day and expressed his appreciation.

Turkey and Israel saw ties worsen after the May 31 Israeli raid of the Gaza-bound flotilla. Turkish government has demanded apology and compensation from Israel, which has failed to meet the call.

Cicek said there were still contacts between the two countries from time to time after the May 31 incident, the agency reported.