Balkan News

Saimir Tahiri, a former Minister of Interior under investigation for drug smuggling, has resigned from parliament, saying he wishes to face justice as a common member of the public.

Croatian nationalist singer Marko Perkovic ‘Thompson’ was acquitted of a public order offence for chanting a World War II fascist slogan at one of his concerts.

From physical attacks to death threats and home break-ins, five journalists from around the Balkans share their personal stories for World Press Freedom Day of the threats that have stayed with them, sometimes years afterward.

The Bosnian state court sentenced former Croatian Defence Council fighter Sasa Savinovic to eight years in prison for his involvement in the murders and forced resettlement of Bosniaks in 1993 in Mostar.

Former Bosnian Serb serviceman Dalibor Maksimovic is accused of the killing of four Bosniak civilians in Zvornik in 1992.

Serbia's Minister of Innovation and Technological Development, Nenad Popovic, has slated a children's picture book about same-sex families published in Croatia – saying it must not be allowed into Serbia.

The Serbian Radical Party said it has appealed the ban on its planned rally in the village of Hrtkovci, where its leader Vojislav Seselj made nationalist speeches in 1992, for which he was convicted of war crimes.

Government pledges to raise average salaries to 500 euros a month could create a long-term headache for Serbia’s economy, if rises are not matched by an upsurge in productivity.

The Serbian government has made multi-million-euro donations to aid Serbs in Bosnia and other countries, although some of the aid payments allegedly have political motives or have been linked to controversial politicians.

Relatives of Yugoslav soldiers killed in May 1992 on Dobrovoljacka Street in Sarajevo as they were withdrawing from the city will not mark the anniversary in the capital for the second year in a row.

The award-winning Bosnian journalist Dragan Bursac speaks about the difficulties of working under the special police protection he has received after receiving numerous death threats.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis on Wednesday said that he had refused to approve a set of justice bills that he said violate the rule of law and go against European standards. 

Competition with cafés and popular drinks means Belgrade’s last remaining female soda-water vendor, Slavica Lazic, faces a fight to keep her traditional business open. 

 As he mulls entering national politics, the water-polo star turned successful local politician says it is time Serbs stopped ‘hammering each other’ – and started agreeing on the country’s future.

The approaching anniversary of Montenegro's enforced incorporation into the Kingdom of Serbia has reawakened centuries-old divisions that have never gone away.

Six years of efforts to deliver justice were wasted when the defendants convicted in the Medicus organ-trafficking case were inexplicably sent for retrial, says a judge who served on the original trial panel.

A British anti-immigration hardliner, dubbed an “extremists’ marketing mastermind” by The Times of London, is training Serbian far-right activists on how to win the information war.

At the last May Parade in Belgrade in 1985, Marshal Tito, the main figure at all previous such events, had been dead for five years and the military was desperate for nothing to go wrong.

Stuck in Belgrade for the old workers’ holiday? No worries. There are many places to enjoy the day in and around the city – and savour the Serbian way of celebrating it.

As the world’s biggest steel producer announces that it intends to sell its plant in Galati to address EU anti-trust concerns, its employees fear for the future.