At a luxury hotel in Istanbul, staff in gloves and masks space out and disinfect tables as they prepare for a scheme which Turkey hopes will rescue part of its $35 billion tourism industry from the ravages of coronavirus.

Albanian police on Sunday clashed with opposition supporters who were protesting the demolition of the country's National Theater building in the capital of Tirana, news wires reported. Police pulled a group of artists and some opposition leaders away from the building before heavy machinery started to bring it down.

A comprehensive curfew came into force in 15 Turkish provinces on midnight Friday, in an attempt to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, news wires reported. The measures will last four days until midnight Tuesday, a public holiday in the country.

As Europe looks to salvage summer vacations after the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus, one country is courting visitors from 4,500 miles away, Bloomberg reported. Serbia is kicking off a marketing campaign on Friday that will target tourists from China, where Covid-19 first emerged. The eastern European nation is using a platform run by Alibaba to tout its ancient monasteries, mountain resorts and lively nightlife in the capital, Belgrade.

Serbia’s special police were deployed on Monday to keep apart supporters of the populist government and the opposition, who were holding separate rallies in Belgrade, news wires reported.  Political tensions rise in the country ahead of next month’s parliamentary election.

Serbia’s president is denouncing a “fascist rampage” after a right-wing opposition group clashed with ruling party lawmakers outside the parliament building on Friday, news wires reported. The leader of the Dveri group, Bosko Obradovic, and his supporters blocked the entrance into the parliament, shouting and blowing whistles, as ruling party lawmakers struggled through the crowd amid chaos.

Serbia's culture minister on Friday called for an apology over the European Union's "fake" description of Nikola Tesla, the famous pioneer of modern electrical engineering, as a Croatian on the bloc's official website.

Serbia’s president Aleksandar Vucic has set 21 June as the date of a parliamentary election despite the pandemic, news wires reported. The vote was originally scheduled for 26 April but was put on hold after a nationwide state of emergency due to coronavirus spread was proclaimed in mid-March.

The Western Balkan countries are expected to enter a recession this year, a direct consequence of the coronavirus pandemics, the latest Regular Economic Report of the World Bank shows.

Facing growing public discontent, the Serbian government has decided to ease coronavirus lockdown measures this weekend despite warnings by doctors, news wires reported.