Balkan News

The Serbian government has chosen the Chinese Zijin Mining Group as its strategic partner for the failing copper mining and smelting complex, RTB Bor.

Civil society and opposition MPs are calling for mass protests in Kosovo against potential border changes, ahead of the September 7 meeting in Brussels of the Kosovo and Serbia presidents.

More than 50 organisations and experts on the Balkans have signed an open letter urging Europe and the US not to agree to any territorial swaps between Kosovo and Serbia.

The Bosnian state court found former policeman Kahro Vejzovic not guilty of torturing Serb civilian detainees in the village of Stupari in the Kladanj area in 1992.

Former soldier Rade Garic was charged with persecuting Bosniaks by committing murders, torture, rape and other crimes in the Vlasenica and Srebrenica areas in 1992 and 1995.

A museum in Transnistria, dedicated to its short war for independence in 1992, shows how Soviet-style propaganda still holds the breakaway region in its grip.

Three Bulgarian ministers stepped down on Friday, after Prime Minister Boyko Borissov requested their resignations following the deaths of 17 people died in an accident on a mountain road.

As the plot thickens when it comes to the possibility of a land swap between Kosovo and Serbia, we look at the hurdles and obstacles to any such deal while also exploring other pressing issues troubling the region.

Moldovan authorities have said they will permit both Pro-Russian and pro-Romanian protesters to rally simultaneously in the capital, Chisinau, on Saturday.

The annual summer clean-up of Bulgaria's mountain tops, organised by the environmental organization Friends of the Earth – Bulgaria, attracts dozens of nature lovers who want to keep these precious sites pristine.

A museum in Zadar is on the backfoot after it was found using an insulting term for Albanians in an old exhibition – which it said was because the exhibition dated back to the 1970s, when it did not have the same meaning.

Croatia’s shipbuilding industry was once a world leader but is now on its last legs, an expert tells BIRN – adding that wars, mismanaged privatisations and a general lack of direction have added to its woes. 

Former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski may avoid his two-year jail sentence for the illicit secret purchase of a Mercedes if Macedonia's Appeals Court fails to confirm the verdict by the end of October.

People marched through the main square of Kosovo’s capital Pristina on the International Day of the Disappeared to commemorate the people who are still missing from the 1998-99 war.

President Hashim Thaci said he will bring the idea of a ‘border correction’ with Serbia to the negotiating table in Brussels as part of a potential final deal with Belgrade, amid rising opposition to any territorial exchange.

Bosnia’s Institute for Missing Persons is excavating the site of a suspected mass grave containing 29 Bosniak women and children killed in the village of Zecovi in the Prijedor area in July 1992.

Albanian human rights associations and politicians have united in condemnation of the unidentified persons who sprayed bullets against the home of the father of crime reporter Klodiana Lala.

After a leaked taped conversation was published, apparently showing an Albanian official trying to influence a European Court of Human Rights judge, the court has called it 'inappropriate' – but insisted it did not change the court's decision.

Jovan Tintor, a former adviser to Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, was convicted of being responsible for the unlawful detentions and abuse of Bosniak and Croat prisoners in the Vogosca area in 1992.

After a European Parliamentary Committee, LIBE, voted on Thursday in favour of visa liberalisation for Kosovo, its leaders greeted the development as a welcome step towards ending the current barriers on free movement.