Balkans

Ceremonies to mark Orthodox Christmas at churches and monasteries in Kosovo were shadowed by detentions and protests.Kosovo police arrested nine people in the town of Gracanica on Monday for what they said were “security reasons” amid a visit by a Serbian official. The director of the Serbian government’s office for …

Prime Minister Sali Berisha said Serbia’s threat to remove a memorial to ethnic Albanian fighters in the Presevo Valley breaks international law.“In every free country it’s the local authorities and not the central government that decides which historical or cultural monuments to erect,” Berisha said in a statement on Sunday. …

Two former officials accused of collaborating with Communist-era Yugoslavia’s secret police have had their names cleared.The administrative court in Skopje overturned a preliminary ruling by Macedonia’s Lustration Committee that former ambassador to Poland, Petre Nakjovski, and former state security service official Hetem Ejup Ademi had been secret police collaborators during …

A Sarajevo court upheld the jailing of a Bosnian Serb army officer over the 1995 Srebrenica killings but cut his sentence.The appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court endorsed the conviction of Slavko Peric, a former assistant commander, but reduced his prison sentence from 19 to 11 years. It also …

Majority of young people from Bosnia and Herzegovina would leave the country at the first opportunity for a better education and the chance of a job.Most young people in Bosnia would leave the country for good if they could, because they do not see any kind of future for themselves, …

Kosovo’s President has expressed readiness to meet her Serbian counterpart – in the context of a meeting between ‘presidents of two sovereign and independent states’.Arber Vllahiu, President Atifete Jahjaga’s spokesperson, told Balkan Insight that the two leaders would meet “as presidents of sovereign and independent states” to support the EU-led …

The train once used by the former Yugoslav leader, Josip Broz Tito, is now taking tourists from Serbia to Montenegro.It was a train that once carried monarchs and world leaders. But now holidaymakers, keen on learning more about the history of former Yugoslavia, can take a trip in the ex-President’s …

The president of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska entity said it would not allow the country to recognise Kosovo as independent.Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, RS, said he had been personally subjected to “enormous pressure in order for Bosnia to recognise Kosovo in the euphoria surrounding the acknowledgment of Kosovo’s …

The Hague Tribunal was wrong to acquit two Croatian generals of war crimes, the court’s chief prosecutor says.Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac were acquitted in November of war crimes committed during the Croatian military operation codenamed ‘Oluja’ [‘Storm’] in 1995, overturning a previous guilty verdict from the International Criminal …

Macedonia’s top general wants conscripts to bolster the country’s cash-strapped forces, but the defence minister disagrees.The head of the army’s general staff, General Goranco Koteski, said that conscription could boost Macedonia’s security but defence minister Fatmir Besimi rejected the idea of reintroducing non-professional soldiers. “We should remain consistent to our …