SARAJEVO-- The sickening crack from a Serbian sharpshooter's rifle made my American colleague jump bolt upright in the driver's seat. "Take it easy," his young woman Bosnian interpreter said with a gentle smile as the car hurtled down Sniper’s Alley toward the Holiday Inn hotel's underground garage. The high velocity bullet ricocheted with an eery, loud echo across the otherwise deserted highway.

 PADUA -- Luca Zaia,  the Veneto region’s long-serving President, was re-elected in the country-wide November regional elections, in part due to a digital campaign that has made waves across the Italian political landscape.

 RIYADH -- UNIDO director general Gerd Müller begins his second term with a costly jamboree in the Saudi capital Sunday but internal critics describe the UN agency as troubled monarchy where qualified women are discriminated against on the basis of their weight and waist size and croneyism has led to scores of managers being hired from his native Germany.

ROME – An Anglo-Australian family that had been living off-grid in an Abruzzo forest has been ordered to send their three children, aged 8 and twins 6, to an “educational community”, accompanied by their mother for a period of observation, as has been reported in the RAI.