Balkaninsight.com

Author and journalist Julian Borger argues that because Serbia was not penalised for shielding Ratko Mladic while he was on the run, it helped foster a culture of denial of war crimes and genocide.

Defence Ministry acknowledges embarrassing reports that four of the highest trained soldiers failed to return home from a training mission in UK, again exposing the problem of low salaries and hopelessness in Albania.

A Pristina court jailed four Vetevendosje activists, including an MP, for a total of 21 years and six months for firing a grenade at the Kosovo parliament building in 2016.

Bulgarian MPs have appointed Tsveta Karayancheva from the leading GERB party to replace Dimitar Glavchev as speaker, after the latter resigned on Friday over a dispute with the main opposition party.

Transnistrian leader Vadim Krasnoselsky has alarmed Moldova by ordering a general mobilization, just 10 days before new peace negotiations are due to start in Vienna.

Ratko Mladic faces judgment next week for allegedly terrorising the population of Sarajevo during the 1,425-day siege - including an 11-year-old who was shot by a sniper, and a 14-year-old hit by shell fire.

Romania’s best-known Christmas market opens on Friday in the city of Sibiu, Transylvania, and will remain in business until the beginning of January.

The long-expected re-boot of the UN-sponsored name talks between Macedonia and Greece will take place on December 11-12 in Brussels.

Turkey’s plans to buy Russian S-400 missile systems alarm its Western allies but form part of an ever-closer partnership with Russia that will have an obvious impact on the Balkans.

Former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic’s defence team, plus his relatives’ visits to the detention unit and financial aid to him personally, have cost the Hague Tribunal, the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia over two million euros.

The choice of a Dacian wolf as Romania’s logo for the presidency of the European Council in 2019 has caused controversy over whether it might send a confusing nationalistic message about the country. 

Ahead of a meeting of Serbia's ruling party, when a decision on potential new early elections is to be announced, a watchdog has warned that the country has already spent millions of euros unnecessarily on early polls.

The brutal murder of a Romanian alleged gangster could be a sign that a ‘turf war’ between rival Balkan crime gangs in the UK capital is hotting up, media reports say.

Lack of political will, inefficient prosecutors and poor cooperation between Belgrade and Zagreb means some families of people killed in and around the Croatian town of Vukovar in 1991 may never get justice.

The defence team for Bosnian Serb general Novak Djukic, who was convicted of the 1995 Tuzla massacre, have blamed the attack on unknown “terrorists” - a claim that was sharply criticised by human rights campaigners.

An expert witness told the Hague trial of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic that the Serbian State Security Service, which they ran, was able to deploy paramilitary boss Arkan’s forces - a claim rejected by the defence.

We look at hopes that some old disputes in the region could be resolved as the odd gust of fresh thinking blows in different corners of the region, as well as reflecting on issues of good governance and peoples power. 

After Malcolm Simmons quit as president of the judges of the EU's rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, saying it had become too politicised, EULEX has said the judge himself was the subject of serious investigations.

After his arrest, Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic told his lawyers not to waste time defending him, but instead to defend the “Serb army and people”, defence team member Miodrag Stojanovic told BIRN.

Alleged letter to Bulgarian authorities, leaked to BIRN, expresses European Commission’s concerns about the Balkan country’s treatment of refugees, Afghan nationals in particular.