The annual evaluation of employees is a long-standing practice in developed countries, but in most companies in the Balkans it is just established, where it`s believed that would have positive effect on employee productivity because at the end of the year they will be awarded on the basis of the results of their work. On the basis of such observations, the sentence "play - not play, your radio plays," very frequent catchphrase on Serbian territory, could be ancient past for employees.

Among various battles between the most developed countries for different kinds of dominations in the world in the last years, the battle for occupation of prestige positions on worldwide ranking lists of the first-class universities occupies very important place. In the last six years, different kinds of ranking system of universities have been established all over the world, while the battle for creating the most prestige list is continuing and improving every day. EU engagement for creating its own list is one of the proofs how much ranking of knowledge and creating these kinds of lists are important.

By Sandra Pekic

Every tenth person in the world is older than 60 years, and demographers estimate than by the half of this century every third person will be lucky enough to reach that age. In Serbia, more than 1.2 million of citizens are older than 65, but despite the fact that they represent one sixth of entire population in our country, the eldest in the society are very often treated as postponed minority. Women in Serbia live approximately 75 years and men 70 years, while in the EU people live even five to ten times longer.

By Sandra Pekic

The return and reintegration of more than 100.000 people who were rejected the asylum requests by Western European countries, or were denied the temporary protection status due to the termination of Balkan wars, represents a great challenge for Serbia in years to come. Readmission agreement, which became valid on January 1st 2008, binds Serbia to accept not only its citizen who were residing without authorisation and proper documents in any EU member state, but also the third-country nationals who illegally crossed Serbian borders in order to enter EU territory. Although many have returned from the EU to their countries of origin, local authorities are still looking for the efficient plan of integrating returnees in local community.

By Gordana Basovic

Maria I. (45), a nurse at a Belgrade hospital, has completely changed her attitude toward life five years ago. When she accidentally found out that she is infected with HIV, everything has turned upside down. The worse part of the story, she says, was the living memory of how did it happen and whenever she thought of telling her husband about her trouble dark clouds would have come over her. But her husband, whom she was married to for three years at the moment, was not surprised. He was the one who infected his wife.

By Nenad Radicevic

The Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) attitude towards the European Union and the future of the country will be of great importance for the pace of the Serbia`s European integration in spite of the hard secularists and atheists` opinions. Even in extremely secular European countries, national churches have had certain contribution in the EU integrations and therefore this is something awaiting also the SPC.

By Jelena Virovkic Ivanovic

With legislations dating from the second half of 20th century and even from Federal People`s Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbian economy and state administration are kept from moving on, not to mention from running alongside with developed European countries.

By Gordana Basovic

Having in mind that the average age of the Serbian population is 42 years which makes it one of the states with the oldest citizens, it`s no wonder birth-rate is frequent topic of local politicians. Alarming warnings on negative population growth politicians very often strengthen with the great number of abortions performed, thus justifying supporters of abortion ban although the European examples prove the abortion ban does not affect birth rate substantially.

By Gordana Basovic

Unregistered, smuggled medicines problem, mostly common in developing countries, is also obvious in the most developed world states primarily because of unregulated medicines trade via Internet that does not require prescription. However, it is virtually impossible in the EU countries` pharmacies to find an unregistered medication, which has been the case in every other pharmacy in Serbia for years. Besides, it is impossible for doctors to prescribe regularly the medication being still aware it has not been registered in the Medicines and Medical Devices Agency of Serbia. This means the only way it gets onto the market is - smuggling.

By Gordana Basovic

New Serbian health insurance card has been made and designed after the European model. Nevertheless, for the time being, a health policyholder from the town of Prokuplje has fewer possibilities for medical treatment throughout Serbia than an average Romanian or Pole has in the territory of all 27 European Union member-states or even in Lichtenstein, Island, Switzerland and Norway.