Balkan News

A board game in which players try to escape from Communist countries reinforces a narrative which identifies Nazism and Communism as equally evil – an idea that’s being used by historical revisionists in the Balkans to whitewash fascists.

A Kosovo parliamentary commission investigating the deportation of six Turkish citizens alleged to be members of what Ankara claims is a terror group led by cleric Fethullah Gulen has found 31 breaches of laws and procedures.

The president of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals rejected a request from Serbian Radical Party leader Seselj to allow him to appeal against a second-instance verdict convicting him of persecuting Croats in Serbia in 1992.

Relatives of the 68 people killed in February 1994 when Bosnian Serb forces shelled Sarajevo’s Markale marketplace commemorated their deaths in the Bosnian capital.

The N1 Balkan television network’s Serbian office said it received a letter threatening to kill its staff, while its executive producer blamed government politicians for stirring up antagonism against media.

Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj was criticised by rights campaigners for appointing recently-released war crimes convict Sylejman Selimi, a former Kosovo Liberation Army commander, as his political adviser.

Freedom House's 'Freedom in the World 2019' report downgraded Serbia to the status of 'partly free', blaming an alleged decline in the country's democracy, with Montenegro also coming under strong criticism.

Former Bosniak Territorial Defence fighter Izet Arifovic, who was being tried for murdering three Serb civilians in the Srebrenica and Bratunac areas of Bosnia in 1992, has died.

The ‘Justice for All’ movement is ringing the alarm bell over the possible impeachment of Supreme Court President Lozan Panov, seen by many Bulgarians as their last hope for an independent judiciary.

The former head of Romania’s anti-graft agency, Laura Codruta Kovesi, has been shortlisted for the post of EU prosecutor - but the Bucharest government, which fired her, said it intends to prevent her appointment.

A decaying former industrial town in central Albania hopes a 51-million-euro NATO investment in its disused military airfield will revive its fortunes.

If the European Union was hoping for a free and fair election in Moldova, the first week of campaigning suggests it will be disappointed.

The tragi-comic performance of Romania’s ministers while presenting the priorities of its European Council presidency made Romanians cringe – and should be a warning of what is to come.

In the small town of Kamenica, Serbs and Kosovo Albanians are learning each other’s languages in an attempt to put past animosities behind them - and to increase their chances of getting a job.

Montenegrin opposition politician Nebojsa Medojevic said that his Movement for Changes wants to join former Donald Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon’s European right-wing organisation, The Movement.

Serbian police have questioned two men who allegedly carried a mock gallows at the latest anti-government protests, which drew thousands of people onto the streets of several cities.

After winning several prizes at the US Sundance film festival, the authors of the Macedonian documentary 'Honeyland' have decided to use the buzz to help the children of the rural beekeepers that feature in their film.

Prime Minister Edi Rama's feud with President Ilir Meta has deepened ahead of the June elections – after he accused Meta of acting like an opposition spokesman in the row over a development project in the capital.

Traditional carnival events take place across Croatia between January and March – but in the country’s eastern Slavonian region, locals have revived an old custom of riding around before Lent on horseback. 

Former Bosnian Serb soldier Vuk Ratkovic’s conviction for the multiple rape of a women in Visegrad during the war in 1992 and 1993 was upheld on appeal.