Balkaninsight.com

Ten prosecutors from Albania’s Serious Crime Prosecution Office are facing disciplinary proceedings after refusing to take part in the drawing of lots for a new prosecutor in the trial of notorious organised crime suspect Emiljano Shullazi.

Moldova intends to do away with compulsory military service in the next few years, as the country makes the transition from a conscript army to a purely professional military.

Romanian prosecutors on Friday indicted three police chiefs for using excessive force against anti-corruption protesters at an anti-government rally on August 10. 

If the Ukrainian Orthodox Church receives recognition of its independence from Moscow from the Ecumenical Patriarch, the similarly isolated Macedonian Church hopes for a similar breakthrough.

City Hall in Bucharest on Thursday inaugurated the revamped fountains in the central Unirii Square, to replace the ensemble built by the dictator Ceausescu in the 1980s – which critics have dismissed as a costly irrelevance.

A British newspaper, citing a Bellingcat investigation, says clear links can be drawn between suspects behind the Skripal poisoning in England and the alleged mastermind of a coup in Montenegro.

With Croatian lawmakers obliged to rewrite abortion laws by February 2019, pro-choice activists fear that new restrictive measures may render abortion even less accessible than it is already.

Tourism officials from all over the Balkans are angling for a bigger slice of the lucrative Chinese tourism market – although Croatia is doing best at luring Chinese holidaymakers by far right now.

Amid concerns in the West about Serbia's close military and other ties with Russia, Serbia is to host a NATO emergency response exercise with about 1,000 participants.

Journalists face violence from criminal groups and pressure from an entrenched political leadership.

Bosnian Serb authorities have put in place tight security measures for the high-profile visit of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov.

A Kosovo Albanian witness told the trial of two Serbian soldiers before a Belgrade court that he was shot and wounded in an attack on the Kosovo village of Trnje in March 1999.

After a Croatian war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder burned his own house down, experts warned that many ex-soldiers in the country still need psychosocial care.

The Bulgarian Prime Minister has dismissed the proposed declaration of his own cabinet to back Hungary in its quarrel with the EU – while also criticizing Viktor Orban’s policies.

Months after the Croatian national football team won glory with a silver at the World Cup in Russia, the sport is in the headlines for very different reasons – with fresh corruption indictments.

As the number of migrants crossing the Balkans continues to rise, the EU’s border guard agency Frontex is to upgrade cooperation with Serbia, where officials have complained that the migrant issue is becoming too much to handle.

Balkan states cooperate well with international partners on counter-terrorism – but face a lack of resources and in problems of cooperation between institutions, the latest US State Department report says. 

Bosnian Serbs demanding action over the unsolved killing of David Dragicevic shifted their daily protests on Wednesday night to the front of the police department in Banja Luka.

The visit by Russia’s top diplomat may have a major impact on Bosnia’s political scene, coming amidst an especially heated pre-election campaign.

After censuring Hungary, Brussels is upping the pressure on Bucharest over its policies on the rule of law and corruption.