Balkaninsight.com

Stay tuned for all the latest developments as voters in Bosnia and Herzegovina elect town and city councils across the country’s two entities, the Federation and Republika Srpska, plus an assembly in the Brcko District.

Polling stations opened at 7am on Sunday in Bosnia’s municipal elections in which over 3 million Bosnians will have a chance to cast ballots.

Ben Blushi, a long-time critic of Albanian PM Edi Rama, has left Rama's governing Socialist Party while lining up with those who oppose the controversial new law on imported waste.

The wearing of garments that cover the face will be fined in Bulgaria according to a new bill that MPs adopted on Friday.

The focus on big national topics - such the controversial Bosnian Serb referendum - has pushed important local issues to the margins in the election campaign.

Serb organisations in Montenegro are urging the authorities to end what they claim is officially-sanctioned discrimination against the Serbian language and the Cyrillic script in schools.

As the country prepares for crucial local elections, a big question is how last week's controversial Bosnian Serb referendum will impact on voters.

The new political secretary of the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, is widely seen as the man steering the party towards the political centre ground - which should improve its coalition prospects.

A new report paints a broadly optimistic picture of economic trends in the Balkan region where growth rates in particular are picking up.

Kosovo police’s director in the Mitrovica area, Nehat Thaci, has been arrested at a border crossing by the Serbian authorities on terrorism charges, although the specific allegations remain unknown.

A new NGO-run centre in the southern Bulgarian village of Belnichan will provide care and shelter for 60 'retired' donkeys, saving them for being sold for meat.

Greece's Foreign Ministry has accused the Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn of taking Albania's side over the Cham issue - by mentioning it in his reply to a Greek MEP.

Swiss police have arrested Elfeta Veseli, a female former Bosnian Army soldier who is suspected of murdering a 12-year-old Serb boy in the Zvornik area in 1992.

An unusual meeting between Macedonian and the Serbian Orthodox bishops has raised hopes of a thaw in relations between the two estranged churches.

Zagreb students threatening to block classes if the dean does not quit say their fight is over ‘the future of education and society’ - not just over the faculty.

Opposition parties are confident that October’s local elections in the scandal-hit resorts of Budva and Kotor will not result in easy wins for the ruling party.

Following unconfirmed reports that the General Prosecutor and his family have been targeted with threats, an expert has urged MPs not to turn the issue into a political football.

Activists from the civic movement opposed to the Belgrade Waterfront project have summoned a fresh rally for Thursday - as a government minister accused an OSCE official of interfering in Serbia's affairs over the controversy.

Rumours that Serbs planned to build a basketball court on a site where a mosque once stood in the divided northern town of Mitrovica have upset some Kosovo Albanians.

After much Macedonian music went off air in Macedonia in a dispute over copyright, Macedonian TV and radio stations now face another ban - on playing music from Serbia.