As Balkan governments scramble to secure coronavirus vaccines, another foe lurks: a growing anti-vaccination movement that is trying to grab the spotlight, AFP reported. With vaccine sceptics ranging from renegade doctors to politicians and Serb tennis champion Novak Djokovic, misinformation about the pandemic has been spreading across social media as fast as the virus itself.

Montenegro's new prime minister predicted in Brussels on Tuesday that his country would be the next to join the European Union and vowed to fight the political corruption that has tarnished its reputation, AFP reported.

Turkey has entered its first full weekend lockdown since May after coronavirus infections and deaths hit record highs in recent days.

Turkey’s health minister has announced a vaccination plan starting with an experimental “inactivated vaccine” later this month to combat the COVID-19 pandemic amid a surge in infections and deaths.

Serbia’s PM Ana Brnabic said on Monday the Balkan country plans to start laboratory testing of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus and it will also continue talks with drugmaker Pfizer about purchasing its shot.

Not enough beds and not enough doctors: a skyrocketing coronavirus caseload is pushing hospitals in the Balkans to the cusp of collapse, in chaotic scenes reminding some medics of the region's 1990s wars, AFP reported. In the Western Balkans, one of Europe's poorest corners, the crisis is exposing gaps in healthcare systems that have long suffered from low funding and a brain drain crisis, with an exodus of promising young doctors and nurses leaving to seek better wages and training abroad.

Some 2,000 protesters staged an opposition rally in North Macedonia late Thursday to demand the resignation of the country’s Social Democrat PM Zoran Zaev, AP reported.

Most Western Balkan countries have failed to fulfil the first requirement to meet European Union industrial emissions standards despite commitments governments made in 2005, environmental campaigners warned on Tuesday.

Turkey’s interior ministry banned smoking in public places across the country to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the AP reported. In a statement late Wednesday, the ministry said smoking would be banned in busy streets, bus stops and public squares when necessary.

Hashiм Thaci, who resigned as president of Kosovo last week, on Monday declared that he was not guilty during his first hearing in a war crimes trial at a special court in The Hague, news wires reported.