Balkan News

Unable to recruit enough programmers and engineers at home, Serbia’s booming tech industry is increasingly reliant on international hires.

China is actively seeking students from countries along its Belt and Road Initiative, including the Balkans, but experts say such countries must do more to build their own China expertise if they are to make the most of Beijing’s global outreach.

Hungarian pro-government media tried to rally sympathy for fugitive Macedonian premier Nikola Gruevski after he fled to Budapest, while the other outlets used the scandal to criticise Viktor Orban’s administration.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has two Sarajevos - one the capital of the state, the other called East Sarajevo, which is the capital of its Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska - with no visible boundary between them.

Macedonian authorities have detained the country's former secret police chief, Saso Mijalkov, who was seen as a grey eminence during the rule of the now fugitive former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.

Macedonia’s fugitive ex-Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski said he has been given political asylum by Hungary and accused the government in Skopje of plotting to assassinate him in jail if he remained in the country.

A Zagreb court decided that that former owner of the indebted food giant Agrokor, Ivica Todoric, who has spent 13 days in custody on remand, can be released after paying one million euros in bail.

Macedonia will file an extradition request for fugitive former PM Nikola Gruevski, regardless of whether Hungarian authorities have already granted him political asylum or not, the Justice Minister said.

The president of the UN war crimes court in The Hague, Theodor Meron, criticised Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic for denying that the Srebrenica massacres were an act of genocide.

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic confirmed that Macedonia’s fugitive ex-premier Nikola Gruevski reached Hungary from Serbian territory, but insisted that Belgrade had no legal grounds at the time to arrest him.

Kosovo's bid to join Interpol failed when it did not get enough supporting votes at the international criminal cooperation organisation’s general assembly in Dubai.

Environmental NGOs and activists have condemned a government plan that sets aside only 1.6 million euros a year to tackle alarming levels of air pollution as farcical.

After Croatia announced plans to rent out 15 former Yugoslav workers' resorts, Bosnia and Serbia have said they will take action to protect their property rights in the country.

Ahead of Tuesday’s vote in Dubai on Kosovo's Interpol membership, both Serbia and Kosovo are pushing their rival agendas – and anticipating success.

Romania's ruling Social Democrats removed several critics of strongman Liviu Dragnea from the party and from government posts on Monday. 

A group of civil society activists in Kosovo filed 61 criminal complaints about war crimes by Serbian police and military forces to the Special Prosecution in Pristina.

A Dutch writer who thought she had found a missing Picasso in Romania has now said she was the victim of a hoax.

The 27th anniversary of the fall of the Croatian town of Vukovar was commemorated across the country and at the England-Croatia football match, while a Serbian peace group paid tribute to the victims.

Police arrested Dusan Spasojevic, a former Serb Territorial Defence fighter, who has been charged with committing a war crimes against a Bosniak civilian in the village of Jusici in May 1992.

At least 230 Serbian officials hold multiple state-funded posts, some of them earning more than 10 or 20 times the average Serbian salary, a BIRN investigation shows.