Balkan News

The main ruling and opposition parties in Macedonia are both tempted by the prospect of early legislative elections – but for very different reasons.

Former Kosovo Liberation Army commander Rrustem Mustafa said after being interviewed in The Hague that he had been asked 'very serious questions' after being invited as a 'suspect witness'.

A year after the murder of Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic, a slew of gun and bomb attacks in Kosovo’s lawless north remain unsolved.

A Russian trade embargo on Ukraine is hurting Moldovan exporters and undermining the pro-Russian Socialists’ platform for elections in February.

American historian Max Bergholz tells BIRN how the 1941 massacres in the Bosnian town of Kulen Vakuf show that upheavals caused by outbreaks of violence can transform ethnic identities and relations.

Kosovo's expectations that the EU will abolish visa requirements are fast fading – and a feeling betrayal is damaging the country’s confidence in its European perspective.

Exiled Kremlin critic Ilya Ponomarev says Serbia’s affinity for Russia plays well for Putin domestically, but its EU accession prospects are the real attraction.

The short film In Between has been selected to appear at the Berlinale International Film Festival, a first for Kosovo cinematography.

A court in Montenegro found investigative reporter Jovo Martinovic guilty on drug-smuggling charges.

Journalists and politicians need to take a fresh look at the town that fell in 1991, one that addresses the issues of today, not only the war of the past, according to a panel discussion.

None of the suspects arrested over the murder of Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic is believed to be the person who shot him, although they are thought to have aided the murder, claims a prosecution document seen by BIRN.

At a UN Security Council session called by Belgrade, Kosovo’s president defended Pristina’s decision to transform its security force into an army, while his Serbian counterpart claimed it will jeopardise peace.

Two proposals to ‘discipline’ online media in Albania were criticized on Monday as potentially anti-constitutional and as likely to have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.

Once a glittering haunt for Yugoslavia’s pre-war elites, the Hotel Bristol has fallen on hard times, becoming home to displaced families who now face eviction – while mystery lingers over the building’s fate.

Washington has called for the shutdown of the downscaled United Nations peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, arguing that its work is done - but Serbia and its allies insist it must stay.

 ‘Winter is coming’, the famous phrase from the hit series ‘Game of Thrones’, causes trepidation across the Balkans – not because of ice zombies but because of the high pollution levels almost suffocating the region’s cities.

Romania has the worst record for unfair trials in the European Union. With the justice system mired in controversy, ordinary victims of judicial errors face an uphill struggle.

The leaders of Macedonia and Greece, Zoran Zaev and Alexis Tsipras, are to be nominated for a Nobel peace prize for their efforts to achieve a historic agreement between their countries.

The trial of former Bosnian Serb Army officer Dane Lukajic, accused of involvement in violence against prisoners of war detained at the Manjaca camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, opened in Zagreb.

Thousands of Roma people were detained in camps and killed in Nazi-occupied Serbia during World War II alongside the country’s Jews, but little has been done to commemorate their suffering or preserve their memory.