Balkan News

Serbian media outlets and NGOs that recently blacked out websites or went off air in protest against what they see as assaults on media freedom are meeting in Belgrade on Thursday to chart a new campaign.

The Spanish region’s bid for independence has reverberated across the Balkans, which has a history of separatism and where some regions harbour similar ambitions.

Violently sharp peaks, azure lakes and the odd bear make Montenegro’s wild Prokletije mountains one of the Balkans hikers’ best-kept secrets. 

Seventeen years on from October 5, 2000, when energy-packed protests overthrew the Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic, those at the heart of those stirring events recall them fondly.

As the state management of Agrokor prepares to reveal the results of an in-depth financial study on Thursday, many fear that it will reveal new, previously hidden, company debts.

Ahead of his war crimes verdict, Naser Oric, a wartime defender of Srebrenica who once worked as Slobodan Milosevic’s bodyguard, says he is “loved” by Bosniaks - but is also despised by many Serbs.

A Croatian official told the trial of former Serbian security chiefs Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic that Zagreb is still searching for people who disappeared as a result of Serb forces’ attacks in 1991.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals launched an online multimedia exhibition giving insights into the suffering of children during the former Yugoslav wars and the Rwanda genocide.

Schlimmer ist noch der Albanische Skandal, wo eine Phantom Firma, welche nicht mehr existierte, wegen enormer Steuer und Zoll Schulden, einen Auftrag und viel Geld pro Monat erhielt, für absolut Nichts. Eigentlich sollte die Radar Anlagen gewartet werden, aber Nichts geschah über 2 Jahre, weil die Kommando Stelle des Militärs von Kriminellen übernommen wurde, damit die Schmuggler Boote unbehelligt fahren können. Ein NATO Skandal mit Albanien, was schon Standard wurde. Alles ohne Ausschreibung, natürlich an eine Firma, welche noch nie IT Anlagen installierte, wartete, nur eine Import-Export Lizenz hatte, noch Personal, oder Fahrzeuge für Wartung Landesweit. Die neue Albanische Verteidigungsministerin, Olta Xhacka,: hat noch nie im Leben gearbeitet, war die […]

Croatia’s Defence Minister admitted the US military is using its infrastructure following BIRN’s revelation that a small island airport had become a Pentagon hub.

The first trial in Serbia for the mass killings of Bosniaks from Srebrenica will continue, after an appeals court overturned a previous ruling that required the prosecutor to file new charges.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has indefinitely postponed his announced visit to Zagreb, following a recent worsening in Croatia-Serbia relations.

A record 23 candidates in Macedonia are bidding for the vacant post of chief prosecutor – who faces a tough task in restoring faith in this important but discredited institution.

Human rights and LGBT activist Goran Miletic talks about being openly gay in a homophobic society, and how the prime minister attending this year’s Belgrade Pride was a positive signal.

Boge, a mountain resort village in western Kosovo set in a picturesque landscape, attracts visitors in winter for its skiing but also in other seasons for hiking, mountaineering, paragliding and traditional Albanian food.

A number of Balkan states may have been rebellious provinces within recent memory – but don’t expect them to stick up for anyone else’s fight for self-determination.

With higher benefit payments to 1990s war veterans, the purchase of military jets and debt settlements in the health sector, the Croatian government again risks inflating its budget deficit.

Population in FYROM to be registered, an official register by 2019 By Naser Pajaziti / Published on: 02-10-2017, 12:15 In the absence of a census of the population, government of FYROM will launch what it calls “the population’s register”. Government’s spokesman, Mile Bosnjakovski told IBNA that this is not an actual registration of the population per se, but a process whereby data and the number of people will be worked out through the data provided by different institutions.“This incentive is not a registration of the population, but a government project to create a central electronic register, which will work out the number of people in the country by obtaining data from […]

    Robert Elsie, the scholar specialized on Albanian literature, dies at the age of 67 By Edison Kurani / Published on: 02-10-2017, 16:39 Albania has lost one of the people who dedicated his life to the study of its history. He is Robert Elsie, the scholar who was specialized in the study of Albanian literature and folklore. Elsie died at the age of 67.Born in Vancouver, Canada, during the travels that he did at the end of the ‘70s and at the beginning of ‘80s’ in the Balkans, a special interest was aroused in him for Albania and its culture. After he learned Albanian, Robert Elsie decided to study […]

In an unexpected development, Macedonia’s provisional chief prosecutor advised the Supreme Court to scrap life sentences given to six alleged ethnic Albanian Muslim extremists for the killings of five ethnic Macedonians.