Balkan News

Having earlier declared gambling a state monopoly, Moldova is now handing control over gambling and lotteries to two foreign companies under a public-private partnership.

Acting on a European arrest warrant, the Romanian authorities arrested Stevan Budac for alleged genocide and “terrorist acts” against Croats and Hungarians in eastern Croatia in 1991.

Serbian right-wingers, worried about talk of a legal agreement with Kosovo, have launched a campaign for a referendum on the issue that they hope will block any such moves.

The political ambitions of Bosnian presidency member Bakir Izetbegovic’s wife, Sebija, have drawn inevitable comparisons with America’s most famous husband-and-wife team – the Clintons.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is this week meeting his counterparts from Turkey and Russia, as his intense diplomatic activity continues.

Prisoners of Albania’s Communist regime, forced to toil underground in brutal conditions, had to campaign for years to get the state to pay them miners’ pensions because no official records of their work existed.

Police prevented Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj from holding a rally in the village of Hrtkovci, where he made nationalist speeches in 1992 that got him convicted of war crimes.

Several hundred people demonstrated in Sarajevo to support Atif Dudakovic, former commander of the Bosnian Army’s Fifth Corps, who was arrested last week on suspicion of war crimes.

Two journalists are giving back awards to the Croatian Journalists’ Association in protest after it honoured a reporter who they accuse of favouring war criminal Slobodan Praljak, who committed suicide in court.

Weeks of uncertainty and controversy over the unconfirmed rally that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly intends to hold in the Bosnian capital on May 20 have finally been resolved by Erdogan himself.

Macedonia's corruption-busting Special Prosecution will get an extended mandate to investigate high-level crime by being made part of the regular prosecution, the country's Deputy Justice Minister says.

Romania's best known anti-communist dissident, Doina Cornea, who was imprisoned several times in the 1980s for her public criticism of Nicolae Ceausescu’s brutal regime, died on Friday aged 89. 

Serbian-born Igor Kokoskov has been signed up as head coach of the American basketball team Phoenix Suns – making him the first NBA head coach born outside North America.

The Washington-based Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina is to award former US President Bill Clinton for his services in ending the war in the country on May 5.

The right to use one’s mother tongue - Albanian or Serbian - is essential for everyone in Kosovo, but progress is being prevented by political disputes, the government’s Language Commissioner told BIRN.

Anticipating defeat over Kosovo, Serbia’s boss is playing war games with another old enemy, Croatia.

The US and EU must strengthen their engagement in the Western Balkans, pushing hard for EU and NATO membership, and for Serbia's recognition of Kosovo, a new US think tank report says.

Kosovo’s Foreign and Deputy Prime Minister, Behgjet Pacolli, has started a diplomatic tour of Asia, aiming to convince more countries to recognise Kosovo's independence.

Lengthy talks in Macedonia between the government and small parties on a reshuffle, intended to broaden its support, are expected to finish soon, political leaders say.

Whether bilateral relations, political careers or urban redevelopment projects, rising and falling stars are the common theme of this week’s selection of premium articles.