US Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Zagreb for a Western Balkans summit, highlighting renewed interest from Washington in the fragile region as it deals with an unprecedented influx of refugees.
Germany will send thousands of rejected asylum applicants back to the Balkans in the coming months as Berlin toughens its stance on economic migrants in the face of a refugee crisis.
Freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall in the Balkans, that seriously affected traffic throughout the region, claimed a second victim on Sunday as a man died from cold in northern Serbia.
Ban Ki-moon begins a tour of the Balkans this week which will include the first visit by a UN chief to the site of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and to Kosovo since it declared independence in 2008.