Balkan News

After some Western European countries banned Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s presidential election campaign rallies, the Turkish leader and his ruling party will hold their first demonstration abroad in Sarajevo.

Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin’s ban from Croatia at the weekend was just the latest backlash caused by the inflammatory rhetoric of a politician who’s not afraid to upset Serbia’s neighbours.

A manifest lack of real interest in the stability and integrity of the Balkans is opening the door to malevolent foreign interference and reanimating the reactionary fantasies of local elites.

Youngsters in Kosovo are frustrated by the continuing need to get visas to travel to Europe – mainly blaming their own corrupt politicians and their unwillingness to fight corruption.

The Serbian government’s discarded media strategy draft, which has been obtained by BIRN, planned to bring the state back into the media market through public-private partnerships.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has requested all documents related to the 2016 extradition from Bulgaria of businessman Abdullah Buyuk, wanted by Turkey for his links to cleric Fethullah Gulen.

At the trial of Skender Bislimi, accused of torturing Kosovo Albanians in 1999, his former neighbour testified that Serb paramilitaries beat her relatives and forced them to sing about Slobodan Milosevic.

Berislav Pusic, who was convicted of wartime crimes alongside five other senior officials from the unrecognised Bosnian Croat-led Herceg-Bosnia statelet, has been granted early release.

Prosecutors urged judges at the UN court to reject former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic’s appeal and increase his sentence to life imprisonment for genocide and other wartime crimes.

After Zagreb signed a contract to build a bridge linking the Peljesac peninsula with the rest of Croatia, Bosnia said it will complain to Brussels, arguing the two countries' sea border demarcation must be completed first.

Three MEPs criticised an upcoming ceremony at Bleiburg in Austria commemorating the deaths of Nazi-allied Croatian troops and civilians, arguing that the event is being misused to display fascist symbols.

Romania's President Klaus Iohannis took his bicycle out on Monday afternoon to “enjoy the spring weather” - but said he quickly discovered just how chaotic traffic was in the country’s capital. 

The families of six Turkish nationals hastily deported from Kosovo to Turkey in a secretive intelligence operation speak of violence, fear and uncertainty

Moldova's intelligence service tells BIRN it has identified at least 62 people, mostly from the breakaway region of Transnistria, fighting for pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine.

Inventive Bosnians are turning to amusing video games to make fun of their politicians' often broken pre-election promises – but the parties targeted by these games don't get the joke.

Following the government's initiative, the speaker of Kosovo's parliament has called for a 'unity team' to represent the country in the EU-led dialogue – but many MPs are far from convinced.

An art campaign called ‘Even Walls Have Ears’ will highlight the widespread surveillance that was a key method of control and persecution under Albania’s Communist regime and caused many to live in fear.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appealed against his conviction for genocide and other wartime crimes, denying he was part of a criminal enterprise to persecute Bosniaks and Croats and demanding a new trial.

Serbs and anti-fascists will commemorate victims of the Croatian World War II concentration camp at Jasenovac on Saturday, boycotting the official state commemoration for the third year in a row.

The Serbian city of Novi Pazar has awarded Turkey’s President, Reccep Tayyip Erdogan, with the title of honorary citizen as part of its 557th birthday celebrations.