Birn

The 14th Century fortress of Novo Brdo is again under threat, despite relatively recent rehabilitation work that was intended to deal with damage suffered over many years of neglect, Kosovo's Council for Cultural Heritage has warned.

The fortress, located 40 kilometres east of Kosovo's capital Pristina, stands atop a hill and is protected under Kosovo law.

Slobodan Georgiev. Photo: Belgrade Media Centre.

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network called on the Serbian police and prosecution on Thursday to take action after BIRN Serbia editor Slobodan Georgiev was vilified in an online video.

Two Greek reporters have made it on the list of 10 journalists selected to receive a fellowship from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), which will allow them to tackle in-depth features on the subject of freedom over the next year.

Martin Panovski tells BIRN that he resigned from a government commission on the botched makeover of Skopje after deciding that the new government did not intend to undo the damage.

In the nineties, illegal cigarette shipments used to leave Montenegro's port of Bar by speedboat, darting across the Strait of Otranto into the waiting arms of the Italian mafia.

The father of Serbia's Interior Minister, Branko Stefanovic, mediated in arms deals between the Serbian weapons manufacturer Krusik and a private Saudi Arabian company, a BIRN investigation can show.

Over a thousand people took to the streets of Sofia on Monday afternoon to protest against the inadequate political reaction to the demands of mothers of children with disabilities.  The march took place under the slogan "The System is Killing Us - All" and is part of a months-long campaign for a better, more personalised social support system for people with disabilities and their families.

Thousands of people protested on Sunday in Chisinau against the recent invalidation of the mayoral election in Moldova's capital.

The rally was organised by the pro-European Action and Solidarity Party, PAS, led by Maia Sandu, and the Dignity and Truth Platform, PDA, led by Andrei Nastase.

As the US Justice Department prepares to appeal against a federal judge's ruling that Donald Trump may not block Twitter users from following the presidential account on the social network, his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic has continued to block people seen as critical of his administration, stopping them from directly responding to his posts. 

Following repeated delays, a court in Tirana on Thursday threw out a defamation case against BIRN Albania, brought by Appeals Court judge Gjin Gjoni and his businesswoman wife over BIRN's reporting on the judge's wealth.