Annual report on the state of global freedom by Freedom House, shows Balkan countries remain divided into ‘partly free’ and ‘free’, with only Bosnia moving up the table a notch.The US watchdog Freedom House has ranked Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia “partly free” countries, while Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro, …
Read More »Kosovo Arrests Serbian Grave Desecration Suspect
Police have detained a man suspected of destroying Serbian Orthodox graves in Kosovo Polje but insisted that he wasn’t motivated by ethnic hatred.A police statement said that a 48-year-old man, named as M. Buzuku, an ethnic Ashkali, was arrested on Tuesday afternoon for allegedly vandalising more than 50 gravestones. Police …
Read More »Bulgaria to Start Afghanistan Withdrawal Process
Cabinet expected to agree on Wednesday to partly terminate the military mission to the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.The Bulgarian decision will be made in accordance with the strategy for the transformation of participation in the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, which the government in Sofia adopted at the end of 2011. …
Read More »Kosovo-Serbia Border Talks in Stalemate
EU-led talks between Belgrade and Pristina ended on Tuesday without much progress on a recent border management deal.Talks on implementing the “Integrated Border Management Agreement” and preparing for the next round of the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia on January 17 ended inconclusively on Tuesday. Following a meeting of the …
Read More »Serbia Tops Germany’s Asylum Seekers List
The highest number of people who sought asylum in Germany in 2012 came from Serbia, recent German foreign ministry data show.Data from the German Foreign Ministry show that 8,477 of the 64,539 people who requested asylum in Germany in 2012 came from Serbia, ranking the country first in the list …
Read More »Parents Face Suspects at Macedonia Mass Murder Trial
The parents of five victims in the politically-charged case gave emotional testimony at a Skopje court as they faced those accused of killing their sons.The parents of five victims in the politically-charged case gave emotional testimony at a Skopje court as they faced those accused of killing their sons.With tears …
Read More »Montenegro Shuts Media out of Constitutional Talks
Parliament’s constitutional committee was to discuss changes intended to bring EU accession closer but instead agreed to close its doors to press and public.Committee members adopted the closed-door policy at their first session on Tuesday, suggesting that it would stop the talks being manipulated for political advantage during the upcoming …
Read More »Serbian Far-Right Group Risks Court Ban
The Constitutional Court may look again at banning SNP Nasi after its members torched a provincial flag and put up posters calling NGOs and media foreign agents.Vladimir Cvijan, head of parliament’s committee on constitutional affairs and a member of the presidency of the ruling Progressive Party, said the Constitutional Court …
Read More »Serbia Gives Landmark Payout to Bosnian Detainee
For the first time, Belgrade will pay compensation to a Bosniak who was held in a Serbian prison camp after fleeing from the fall of Srebrenica in 1995.In the landmark decision, a Belgrade court has awarded around 5,000 euros to Mujo Vatres, a Bosniak from the town of Zepa near …
Read More »Montenegro’s Kosovo Refugees Protest for Electricity
Refugees from Kosovo living in containers at a camp in Montenegro’s capital staged a demonstration to demand power supplies.”This is not life – without electricity, it’s like we are in prison,” one of the refugees told journalists in front of the headquarters of the EU delegation in Montenegro’s capital Podgorica …
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