Bosnia and Herzegovina

Victims’ groups and rights campaigners in Bosnia and Croatia praised the UN war crimes court’s decision to order a retrial for former Serbian state security officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic.

Croats have been migrating en masse from Bosnia since the end of the 1992-5 war, which poses a threat to their continued existence as a national community, Catholic Church leaders say.

Today marks 20 years since the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement, was signed in Paris in 1995.

It was signed by the then presidents of Serbia and Croatia, Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman, and Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina Alija Izetbegovic.

The new report by US NGO Global Financial Integrity entitled 'Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2004-2013' rings alarm bells about the amount of 'black money' leaving the four Balkan countries each year.

Hundreds of visitors from all over Bosnia descended at the weekend on Mount Jahorina, one of the country's three 'Olympic mountains', to enjoy the early winter sunshine and mark the official opening of a new ski season.

Local officials and rock bands from Sarajevo and Belgrade also arrived for the opening ceremony, but the main ingredient was still missing - snow. 

Twenty years after the war ended, more than 7,000 people displaced by the conflict still live in temporary accommodation in ‘collective centres’ throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Western diplomats criticized the government of Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated entity of Bosnia, after it suspended cooperation with the country's main court, prosecution and state police on Thursday.

The Croat and Bosniak members of the Bosnian Presidency Dragan Covic and Bakir Izetbegovic met yesterday with the Turkish President Recep Tayyp Erdogan in the first of a two days visit to Ankara and Istanbul.

The Republika Srpska government said on Thursday that it has halted all cooperation with the State Investigation and Protection Agency and the state prosecution after they arrested five Bosnian Serbs for alleged war crimes in Bosanski Novi and searched official buildings in the Republika Srpska town for evidence.

The Prosecution of Bosnia-Herzegovina has rejected a motion to keep Sakib Mahmuljin in detention for one month, the Tanjug agency reported.