Photo of the Week
January 25, 2009
Old world feel. Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Continuing Political Evolution
January 23, 2009
By Apostolis Karabairis* Internal correlations and trends in Bosnia and Herzegovina have changed considerably over the past few years. However, contrary to the early post-war years, academic and press analysis has covered much less the recent developments in the country, following the interest and policy shift from Clinton’s democratization doctrine of the 1990s to Bush’s [...]
Exclusive: NATO Internal Investigation to End with Staff Transfer in Skopje
January 16, 2009
On Monday, 19 January, a NATO general will be dispatched to Skopje from the Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, Italy, to look into complaints made against a military official currently employed in a senior position in the alliance’s Macedonia liaison office. It is likely that this visit will result in an important personnel change [...]
Lingering Security Concerns in Kosovo, as Imam Attacked by Radical Islamists
January 13, 2009
By Christopher Deliso* Despite several recent reports suggesting that radical Islam in Kosovo no longer represents a significant security threat, the beating of a prominent Albanian imam by Drenica-area Wahhabi Muslims indicates that the challenge within the Muslim community – the real target of the foreign-funded extremists – persists. The disproportional yet unexplained influence of [...]
Bulgaria: 2008 Year in Review
January 11, 2009
By Oxford Business Group* Though Bulgaria was sidetracked by the economic slowdown, the country fared better in 2008 than many of its neighbours and fellow members of the EU, maintaining higher levels of growth, seeing a fall in inflation and recording solid rates of foreign direct investment (FDI). According to official figures published by the [...]
Realm of the Black Mountain: A History of Montenegro
January 4, 2009
Realm of the Black Mountain: A History of Montenegro By Elizabeth Roberts Cornell University Press (2007), 521 pp. Reviewed by Christopher Deliso Although released just in 2007, Realm of the Black Mountain: A History of Montenegro comes from a much older school of scholarship. With this much needed work, former diplomat Elizabeth Roberts has produced [...]
Snow Descends on the Balkans, to the Relief of Ski Resorts
January 4, 2009
The first New Year’s gift of 2009 to the citizens of many Balkan countries has come in the form of the season’s first significant snowfall, blanketing large areas in Macedonia, northern Greece, Serbia, Kosovo, Bulgaria and Albania. In the Macedonian capital of Skopje, some 16cm of snow has accumulated in the past three days- posing [...]