Balkaninsight.com

Macedonia’s opposition right-wing VMRO DPMNE party elected Hristijan Mickoski as its new leader on Saturday. He will succeed embattled former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who assumed party leadership in 2003. 

MPs failed on Friday night to push forward an attempt to revoke a law allowing a new Hague-based court to try former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters for war crimes after strong pressure from the US and the EU.

As MPs staged a dramatic intervention to change the law on the new Hague-based court that will try Kosovo Liberation Army members, the US ambassador to Pristina warned it could have “profoundly negative implications”.

Serbian trade ministry tells BIRN that while it has not been officially informed of the US decision to blacklist Slobodan Tesic, it will take all such relevant sanctions into account.

A new report commissioned by the country's central bank suggests a Moldovan banker and mayor, who is already on trial, was the possible mastermind behind the 2014 'billion dollar' theft that shook the country. 

Protesters have succeeded in persuading the Bulgarian authorities to send two recently rescued baby lion cubs to a rescue centre abroad, instead of to life behind bars in a Bulgarian zoo.

A new report shows that even small power plants funded by European banks are inflicting serious damage on the region’s precious natural habitats.

Defying Bosnia’s state authorities, the EU and US, the Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska is organising a lavish celebration of its disputed ‘statehood’ holiday, despite a ban by the Constitutional Court.

Balkan countries voted in different ways on the UN resolution that criticised the US decision to recognise Jerusalam as Israel's capital, reflecting conflicts between the US and EU standpoints on this issue. 

Former Bosnian Serb Army soldier Milomir Davidovic was charged with taking part in the rape and sexual abuse of Bosniak women in Foca in the summer of 1992.

Justice Minister Nela Kuburovic visited convicted former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic in custody in The Hague and said that Serbia will probably request his temporary release for medical treatment.

In the year that Ratko Mladic was convicted of terrorising Sarajevo during the wartime siege, two mothers of young children who were killed by the shelling recall the horror they lived through, and explain how they survived.

BIRN research shows how the country’s public broadcaster was used to bring the former ruling party’s historical obsessions to the country’s TV screens.

Looking back on his 100 days in office, Kosovo’s new Prime Minister, Ramush Haradinaj, admits he is far from solving the country's huge problems – but says at least he has 'scanned the situation' and knows what they are.

Only one candidate, seen as the favourite of the outgoing leader, Nikola Gruevski, is standing in the leadership election for Macedonia’s former ruling VMRO DPMNE party, fuelling complaints about a rigged process.

The US on Thursday listed Slobodan Tesic among a host of world figures blacklisted as human rights abusers and corrupt actors, calling him 'one of the biggest arms dealers in the Balkans'.

Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik asked the Serb member of the tripartite Bosnian presidency to oppose a UN General Assembly resolution criticising Trump for recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

At its closing event, UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres said the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia had shown the international community’s commitment to holding war criminals accountable.

Political splits, shadow rulers and endless struggles over the rule of law are all themes that we bring you from the Balkans this week, along with a remarkable discovery. 

The Bulgarian parliament made a U-turn on its own decision to halt public funding for innovative treatments for cancer and other rare diseases after it sparked public outrage.