Balkan News

Former Bosnian Serb military policeman Slobodan Knezevic is accused of involvement in the detentions and killings of 120 Bosniak civilians in the Prijedor area in July 1992.

Two small ethnic Albanian parties are to join Macedonia’s ruling coalition as part of a first reshuffle by Prime Minister Zoran Zaev aimed at growing his slim majority in parliament.

The Bulgarian Holy Synod decided not to take part in a showpiece celebration with the unrecognised Macedonian Orthodox Church after receiving a letter of complaint from the Serbian patriarchy.

Zoran Vukotic, a Serb former policeman on trial for war crimes, told a Kosovo court that he did not kill four ethnic Albanian civilians in May 1999.

Albania, Romania and Macedonia were among 32 countries represented at the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem, held against a backdrop of violence as dozens died when Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian protesters.

Israel and the Sarajevo Jewish Community revoked an invitation to Croatian right-wing politician Zlatko Hasanbegovic to attend a ceremony at which his grandparents will be posthumously honoured for saving a Jewish girl.

Hate speech and racist rhetoric has been increasing in Croatia, mainly targeting Serbs, LGBT people and Roma, warned the Council of Europe’s European Commission against Racism and Intolerance.

Three Balkan countries made it to the Eurovision finals - after the Albanian contestant was censored for his tattoos and the Montenegrin representative’s joke about sick children caused controversy.

Bosnian journalist Slobodan Vaskovic said the threat of a ministerial lawsuit over his reporting on a young man's suspicious death would not stop him probing the case.  

The Serbian Orthodox Church pleaded with the government not to recognise Kosovo’s independence or to agree any exchange of territory with the Pristina authorities.

Kosovo's Ministry of Justice and Islamic Community have signed an agreement on engaging imams to help radicalised Muslims who have been arrested or jailed for terrorism.

Former Territorial Defence force security officer Ekrem Ibracevic was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes against Serb civilian prisoners held in poor conditions at detention centres in Srebrenik in 1992.

The state prosecution is to probe claims that Macedonia's previous government spent unnecessarily huge sums on buying real estate for embassies abroad.

The president of the Croatian Journalists’ Association quit after refusing to revoke a decision to award a reporter accused of biased coverage of Bosnian Croat military chief Slobodan Praljak’s war crimes conviction.

A collection of academic articles on World War II concentration camp Jasenovac is being published in a bid to counter “growing trends of historical revisionism” and politicised misuse of Croatia’s wartime past.

Director Lazar Bodroza recalls the leap of faith he took to make ‘Ederlezi Rising’, Serbia’s first-ever sci-fi film – and an unexpected hit with fans of the genre.

A Macedonian publisher claims to have sold thousands of copies of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, sparking debate about whether the fascist dictator’s book should be widely available in the country.

Once seen as a rare national success story, Bosnia’s armed forces are now leaking personnel at an alarming rate – as more and more soldiers despair over the low pay and poor conditions.

Serbia's draft strategy on security names separatism, religious and political extremism and more recognitions of Kosovo as some of the key threats to national security.

Politics everywhere may involve a great deal of plotting and scheming, but as usual in the Balkans this goes well beyond the usual limits of the normal.