In scenes reminiscent of the Nazi German occupation, French police rounded up almost 1000 Romani people (sometimes called Gypsies) in August and deported them to Romania and Bulgaria.

The mass deportations were foreshadowed by President Nicolas Sarkozy in July in a series of inflammatory speeches in which he accused Romani people of being in an “unacceptable situation of lawlessness” linked to “illicit trafficking, deeply unworthy living conditions and exploitation of children for begging, prostitution or crime”.

Many observers point to the limited results of Bulgaria’s transitions to democracy, due to the persistent communist-era-method in governing of the country. These democratic shortcomings are observed not only because of the still strong power-hold of the former Bulgaria’s Communist Party, but also because of the often employed communist-era methods in exercising government authority. An example is certainly the case of government infringing the rights of Bulgaria’s Muslim community to elects its leadership. The latest case of these appalling governmental policies is the memo issued by the Minister of Education to the state employed teachers to decide on the ethnicity of their students without the knowledge of the students or their families.

Turkey, a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, will temporarily take over the council’s presidency again Wednesday and will head two high-level U.N. meetings during its one-month term.

Turkish President Abdullah Gül will chair a U.N. meeting Sept. 23 on the protection of peace. A presidency statement to be prepared by Turkey is expected to be adopted at the end of that meeting.

Many people are wondering how far the Anti-Muslim hysteria in the West will go. A lot of signs indicate that it is exactly that, the hysteria. The recent attack on a New York Muslim cab driver by an innocent-looking-film-student shows how far the anti-Muslim hysteria already grew. As the details of the story emerge, they show that many people now feel that they can go after any Muslim with no impunity.

Macedonia and Montenegro have expressed an interest in joining the rail alliance created by Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.

Macedonia wants to join the alliance, created by the three former Yugoslav states 20 years after the dissolution of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, to which they all belonged, according to General Manager of Macedonian Railways Oliver Derkovski.

The deadly fiasco of the Turkish-led “peace flotilla” to Gaza highlighted the deepening strain in the Israeli-Turkish alliance. But it mainly helped expose the deeper, underlying reasons for Turkey’s shift from its Western orientation toward becoming a major player in the Middle East – in alliance with the region’s rogue regimes and radical non-state actors.

Ahead of a debate in the German parliament in the autumn, three German non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have called on the government to remove obstacles to dual citizenship in order to aid integration.

These NGOs on Monday urged the government to reform the rules on dual citizenship, arguing that the current regulation is undemocratic and hinders integration.

According to reports from Banja Lukam today, Republica Srpska's PM Milorad Dodik said Bosnia-Herzegovina was increasingly showing its inability to survive.

Dodik heads the government of the Serb republic (RS). The post-war Bosnia is made up of this Serb entity, and the Muslim-Croat Federation.

Dodik accused international representatives in Bosnia for the state of Bosnia's affairs.