People from across the former Yugoslavia were helping one another, but their governments enabled the tragedy Imagine the following scenario. Catastrophic floods have hit your country. More than 100,000 houses are toppled or submerged in mud. Over a million people are affected by the disaster. At the same time, one of your country's richest businessmen decides to take his wife to London. But this was...
Mass evacuations are under way in the Serbian town of Obrenovac and in villages along the Sava river in water-logged eastern Croatia. Officials say more than 16,000 people have been evacuated from flood-hit regions in Serbia, many finding shelter in schools and sports halls. Tens of thousands of homes have been left without electricity or drinking water Continue reading... ...
Unshackled from Bosnia's bloody history, seemingly thriving as a beacon of multi-ethnicity, is Brko a model for urban success? Brko looks like any small Bosnian city. Smoke-filled cafes line the pedestrianised main street, serving bitter coffee against the blaring backdrop of another regional speciality: high-octane turbo-folk music. But behind Brkos quotidian façade lies a novel political...
As Balkan countries prepare to mark the start of the first world war, history books show widely different interpretations "Those people were terrorists Gavrilo Princip and the rest of them," said Salih Mehmedovic, standing at the spot by the Latin Bridge in central Sarajevo where the young Bosnian Serb shot dead Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary 100 years ago. Mehmedovic, a Bosniak,...
Amid volatility, governments in south-east Europe are starting to use technology to involve people in policymaking One of the biggest problems with government communications as a profession in general and especially in the so-called young democracies of south-east Europe is that more often than not it's not really about communication. Getting one's message across is still widely seen as the holy grail...
Australia's ambassador to Croatia summoned after Liberal MP Craig Kelly's comments 'taken out of context' The Australian ambassador to Croatia has been summoned after a Coalition MP was reported as passing on the best wishes of the prime minister, Tony Abbott, to a group celebrating a fascist period in the countrys history. Hughes MP, Craig Kelly, said he was mortified at reports he attended the Croatian...
Some attack them and others guard them. Yet if Ukrainians looked at Yugoslavia, they'd see neither Russia nor the EU is the way forward A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Lenin. Back in 2011 Ukraine was preparing to host Euro 2012. The government decided to release a promotional video titled Switch On Ukraine. Among the sites shown in the video was Liberty Square in the north-eastern city...
s youngest world chess champion at 22, beating Anatoly Karpov in Moscow. He went on to hold the No 1 spot as the world's best chess player until he retired in 2005. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1963 when the country was still part of the USSR, the chess grandmaster is known for his outspoken political opposition to the Russian president. A Croatian chess player close to Kasparov has revealed he applied...
Country becomes the 28th member, the first addition since Bulgaria and Romania joined in 2007 Fireworks lit the sky and festive crowds gathered on the streets on Sunday night to mark Croatia's entry on Monday into the European Union, a major milestone 20 years after the country won independence in a bloody civil war. Croatia became the 28th member, the first addition since Bulgaria and Romania joined...
s armies marched into Yugoslavia, responding to a military coup in which Serbian officers had overthrown a pro-Nazi government, thus endangering German strategy in the Balkans. In less than a fortnight the country capitulated, overwhelmed by the Germans' superior firepower. Peripheral regions of the multinational state were immediately gobbled up by neighbouring countries while the Germans split the...
ve got the laws you asked for – why do you want people to be nice as well? Or, even worse – we're being nice to you because the law tells us to be. That's good enough, isn't it? This may be the issue with the acceptability, or otherwise, of gay people in society. The legal protections are all pretty much in place, and the principle of equality enshrined. When same-sex marriages start taking place next...
s World Cup qualification celebration, footballer Joe Šimunić took a microphone on to the field and shouted to fans: "For the homeland!". The 30,000 fans responded: "Ready!" It might sound like nothing special, but he used the phrase "Za dom spremni!", an old war call used by Ustashas, the Croatian collaborators of the Nazi regime who sent tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews and others to concentration...
s newest nation. The state electoral commission, citing initial results, said 65% of those who voted answered "yes" to the referendum question: "Do you agree that marriage is matrimony between a man and a woman?" About 34% voted against. The result meant that Croatia's constitution will be amended to ban same-sex marriage. The vote has deeply divided Croatia. Liberal groups have said the referendum's...
Partial victory for alleged war criminal who now faces fresh legal hurdles before a decision can be made on extradition bid ...
s autumn fiscal surveillance report also censures Germany, France and Croatia over reforms or deficit Brussels has urged Italy and Spain to redraft their tax and spending plans or risk breaching eurozone debt rules in 2014. The two countries were singled out for criticism in the first report issued as part of the so-called Two-Pack process , under which countries in the single currency area agreed...
never again'," continues Ziadeh, clicking off his PowerPoint, and handing over the podium to the next speaker. This is a quietly determined American woman who knows all too well that those words, uttered at the Nazi war crimes trials in Nuremberg more than 60 years ago, have proved somewhat hollow. With an estimated 48,000 people, mostly civilians, missing in Syria alone – victims of forced disappearances,...
outrage is synthetic; we're all in this game. But the NSA's data collection power is not necessarily an advantage As a US diplomat and UN official, I operated with the certain knowledge that the host country intelligence service – and, possibly, other services – listened to my calls. And as for anyone else, many of these calls dealt with personal matters. So, I have sympathy for Europeans who are...
s Balkan war veterans rights are enshrined in law Serbian fighters battle Belgrade for even basic benefits A wounded leg brought Zeljko Vukelic home from the war. Back in Serbia, injured pride placed him on another warpath. Like a scar, the frontline has followed him. "It's just like the Krajina," he says, comparing the battlefield where he faced Croatian forces 20 years ago to his present-day standoff...
t received political asylum in Germany during the 1980s, I probably wouldn't be writing these lines, as our future would have been uncertain. I had the opportunity to learn the language and even go to school in my adopted country. In the 90s I moved to Croatia and now we are "proud" citizens of the EU. That's three different political systems in a pretty short lifetime. During the disintegration of...
s 1992-95 war. The 15-day survey, the first in 22 years, should give the most detailed snapshot yet of the enduring upheaval of the war, in which some 100,000 people were killed and 2 million were driven from their homes. The results will provide data vital for efficient economic planning and for Bosnia's ambition to join the European Union . But preparations have been marred by tension between leaders...