Balkans

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Wednesday declined a request from Vujadin Popovic, the former chief of security of the Bosnian Serb Army's Drina Corps, to be released on probation for the rest of his life sentence.

A total of 2,113 artefacts that Serbian Customs described as having "great historical and archaeological value" were seized from a truck at the Srpska Crnja border crossing between Serbia and Romania on Tuesday.

The truck had Romanian licence plates and was being driven by a 46-year-old Serbian citizen.

The Montenegrin ruling coalition MPs adopted the changes to the Law on Religious freedom, while the opposition boycotted the session.

But in the end, the party had to for with less, as in exchange for its continued participation in the Social Democrats-led government, it accepted a freshly-tailored seat of First Deputy Prime Minister tasked with overseeing the political system and inter-ethnic relations.

He sharply criticized the delay in supplying the countries of the Western Balkans with the vaccine.
According to the Albanian media, quoted by Dnevni Avaz, Rama criticized the EU because the Union left the countries of the Western Balkans waiting for vaccine stocks until the member states first provide sufficient doses for their population.

Serbia's information commissioner has ordered the country's interior ministry to provide the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network with information BIRN requested concerning war crimes fugitive Rajko Kozlina, sentenced in late 2019 by a Serbian court to 15 years in prison but who remains at large.

Bosniak Party MP Ervin Ibrahimovic during a parliament session in Podgorica. Photo: Parliament of Montenegro.

"We have to face the past and pay homage to the victims. That is the task of Montenegro, which should continue the course that makes it a factor of stability in the region," Ibrahimovic told media.

The EU will procure Pfizer and Moderna vaccine, which is expected to be produced in larger quantities.
However, as we find out, the anger of everyone from the Western Balkans was caused by the news that the distribution of vaccines through the COVAX program, for which all countries paid 5 million dollars, will not start before May.

Are political calculations behind a practice in Serbia to classify as inactive the addresses of people deemed no longer living at their registered addresses, a significant number of them ethnic Albanians?

North Macedonia's president on Wednesday said the country wouldn't compromise its identity and accommodate a demand from Bulgaria that has held up talks to join the European Union.

EU-member Bulgaria has blocked accession talks with North Macedonia and wants its neighbor to formally acknowledge that its language has Bulgarian roots.