Balkaninsight.com

Despite growing concerns over the controversial vote on Republika Srpska’s public holiday, polling stations opened in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity regardless.

Officials in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska are finalising preparations to hold their controversial referendum but the apparent haste has been causing confusion, while a boycott by Bosniaks seems certain.

The Bosniaks have made a strategic error in magnifying the trivial issue of the Serbs’ national day out of all proportion.

Former Bosnian Army soldier Jasmin Coloman was sentenced to three years in prison for his involvement in the murder of detained Croat civilians in the Vitez area in 1993.

Sunday’s controversial Bosnian Serb referendum, which directly contravenes decisions made by state and international authorities, will undermine the enforcement mechanisms of the 1995 Dayton peace accord.

A jailed boss of one the rival drugs clans in the resort of Kotor was shot dead in prison on Thursday while serving a two-year sentence for extortion.

The General Secretary of the European Federation of Journalists, EFJ, says the outlook for press freedom in Macedonia is depressing, condemning the incarceration of the journalist Zoran Bozinovski.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Milorad Dodik just ahead of the controversial Bosnian Serb referendum, but the substance of their talks could not be judged from terse statements.

This year’s October Salon, Belgrade’s famed international contemporary art show, examines the role of emotion in modern art through diverse mediums.

As anxiety mounts in Bosnia over the referendum set for Sunday, the EU decision to accept its candidacy is designed to resolve issues about its stability, say analysts.

While purges continue and even intensify, activists and opposition leaders are increasingly protesting, claiming the process violates basic justice and the constitution.

After the former UK Prime Minister said he was closing down his business empire, his office confirmed to BIRN that his dealings with Albania, which were never made public, are also complete.

The controversial referendum in Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity has unleashed passions and language of a kind not seen since the 1990s - with the media in some countries fanning the flames.

Prosecutors from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro, as well as the Hague Tribunal and the EU’s Kosovo mission, told a BIRN conference that states must work together to prosecute war crimes.

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network has launched a unique database of the publicly-available final verdicts delivered in 348 war crimes cases by courts in the former Yugoslavia and by the UN tribunal in The Hague.

The trial of 37 alleged members and accomplices of an ethnic Albanian terror group that battled Macedonian police in Kumanovo last year has been marred by allegations about false witnesses and police brutality.

Experts engaged by the Bosnian Serb authorities will stage reconstructions of the deadly blasts at Sarajevo’s Markale marketplace in 1994 and 1995 and an attack on a bread queue in 1992.

Activists in northern Albania are preparing lawsuits to halt the planned construction of power plants that they say will wreck tourism in the Albanian Alps.

Vuk Jeremic has won important endorsements from respected media outlets in the UK and America - but Portugal’s candidate is still likely to win the top UN post, a Serbian expert said.

Ahead of the December 11 snap polls, Macedonia’s ruling party continues to use its old techniques to pressure voters, NGOs observing the election say.