Balkan News

Although the Republika Srpska's government website claimed the Prime Minister of the Bosnian entity was attending Donald Trump's inauguration, a US embassy statement suggested she was not the official invitee.

The train that sparked tensions with Kosovo with its nationalist slogans and pictures surprised passengers commuting from Kraljevo to Pozega when it turned up instead of their standard carrier.

Reflecting Serb enthusiasm about the Trump era, Bosnian Serb students have sent an inaugural gift to the new US President and his Slovenian-born wife, Melania, wishing them success.

Right-wing Serbs are euphoric while Romanians and Bosniaks are worried. All over the Balkans, governments and people are watching to see what a new era in US diplomacy brings.

An exhibition on Anne Frank was removed from a school in the town of Sibenik over claims the Croatian WWII fascist Ustasa fighters were depicted as villains and anti-fascist Partisans as innocents.

Campaign group Human Rights Watch claimed Croatian police have been forcing asylum-seekers across the border to Serbia, sometimes using violence, without allowing them to make asylum claims.

Ministers of Bulgaria and Serbia have agreed a gas interconnector should become fully operational by 2020, helping both countries reduce their dependency on Russian energy.

Countries in the region are pondering whether they will lose or gain from a Trump presidency – but the end results of this new era are hard to call.

The tobacco industry is doing its utmost to deter Slovenia from introducing plain cigarette packaging - it must not succeed.

After the Serbian President’s claimed he and his sons were ready to fight in Kosovo, veterans associations and the army union say its questionable how many would follow them.

Our selection of articles from Balkan Insight this week reflects what a turbulent start this year has got off to in the Balkans, as well as how global fears and expectations of the Trump Presidency are manifesting themselves in this region. 

Macedonia's main parties have given contrasting reactions to the decision of the SJO to drop all charges against the leader of the opposition Social Democrats, SDSM, Zoran Zaev.

Serbs in Kosovo say that the recent ‘propaganda train’ dispute between Belgrade and Pristina left them worried about their security and fearful that they are being used as political pawns.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Security Minister Dragan Mektic called on prosecutors to question two high-profile commentators who predicted that war would break out again in the country.

Bosnian police have asked the public to help identify those who attacked Serbia's Prime Minister at the 2015 memorial to the Srebrenica massacre.

Leading expert on Russia in UK says Moscow might recognise Kosovo as part of a grand re-set of America-Russia relations.

All over the region, wildlife welfare organisations as well as ordinary people are doing their bit to help their furry or feathered friends survive the bone-chilling temperatures.

Bulgarian Socialists want Rumen Radev to live up to his reputation as Russia’s friend - but experts doubt that he will do much to change the country’s fundamental Euro-Atlantic orientation. 

Bosnia’s descent into a permanent state of instability was a result of the retreat of the United States from the region, which is about to accelerate under Donald Trump.

Belgrade clearly banked on eliciting a stormy reaction from Kosovo by dispatching a train to Mitrovica; whether this drama was a designed to put Kosovo in the wrong - or was a simple miscalculation - is less clear.