Balkaninsight.com

Romania’s ruling Social Democrat strongman Liviu Dragnea won a party confidence vote on Friday, after several top members demanded his resignation over graft cases.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow supported Bosnia's territorial integrity and constitutional order – adding that no 'external player' should think it can run all the affairs of the Balkans.

Former Serbian state security officers charged with the 1999 murder of opposition journalist Slavko Curuvija rejected evidence that allegedly places them at the scene of the crime.

President Hashim Thaci has asked Kosovo's Constitutional Court to rule on whether an international agreement signed by him would be considered ratified, but MPs' are not happy with his plan.

Experts and international organizations oppose the State Court’s call for laws to regulate media reporting on criminal cases – saying it will unjustifiably hinder the media’s work. 

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.