Balkanalysis.com would like to announce to its readers that the website will be going on annual summer hiatus from today, August 3rd. The publishing of new articles will resume next month.
Balkanalysis.com would like to inform its readers that the site will be on summer recess through September. Look for new articles and photos to be posted then. Until we’re back, readers may like to check out two new books from Balkanalysis.com director Christopher Deliso, and to peruse the archive- as well as new hand-picked essential background articles presented for you below.
The first new book, The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West, published by Praeger Security International, details in depth the sordid story of how Western interventions in the Balkans during the 1990’s directly allowed foreign Islamic terrorist groups to set up shop- and how Western policy since has created a climate in which extremist groups can thrive, boding ill for regional security.
A work of unprecedented depth, The Coming Balkan Caliphate analyzes the situation on a country-by-country basis, and will be useful for general-interest ‘beginners’ to Balkan issues and experienced professionals alike. Relying on five years of field research and dozens of interviews with ranking security officials from several Western and regional countries, The Coming Balkan Caliphate dispels myths and enhances our knowledge of the emerging extremist threat coming from the Balkans.
The second new book, Hidden Macedonia: The Mystic Lakes of Ohrid and Prespa, is a travelogue out now from London’s Haus Publishing, which details the author’s circular journey around Lakes Prespa and Ohrid, through Greece, Albania and the Republic of Macedonia. Along the way, the history, culture and contemporary life of the great Macedonian lakes are intertwined with a little adventure, camaraderie and good food and drink. Hidden Macedonia will appeal to travelers looking forward to visiting the region, or those who are content to imagine the Macedonian lakes from afar.
Finally, here is a list of twelve original and essential articles (in no particular order). All are among those published over the last year, and will enhance readers’ knowledge and help tide you over until we return from summer recess.
Thanks for your understanding and continued reading.
Balkanalysis.com would like to inform its readers that the site will be on summer recess through September. Look for new articles and photos to be posted then. Until we’re back, readers may like to check out two new books from Balkanalysis.com director Christopher Deliso, and to peruse the archive- as well as new hand-picked essential [...]
By Ioannis Michaletos and Stavros Markos*
The government in Tirana has, over the past few months, imposed new domestic security policies in order to curb an increase in criminal networks and their activities. At the same time, international bodies, namely the EU and NATO — entities which Albania wishes to join in the future — are [...]
In this new and exclusive interview with Italian economist and author Loretta Napoleoni, Balkanalysis.com readers are treated to expert insights on the issues of terrorist financing, organized crime in Europe and the Balkans, and the intractable intertwinement of the terrorist economy and the legitimate one.
Loretta Napoleoni is the author [...]
By Ioannis Michaletos
In Greece as in the wider world, the banking, telecommunication and tech sectors make up the main driving force in economic development. In our post- industrial era, these services across their entire spectrum dictate to a large degree the stock market, social norms and key trends, and assume [...]
Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK
by Alexei Monroe, with foreword by Slavoj Zizek
MIT Press (2005), 400 pp.
Reviewed by Mark White*
In 1987, Neue Slowenische Kunst, or NSK – an obscure art collective made up of several art and performance groups from Slovenia, a Yugoslav republic still four years from independence – was commissioned [...]
On Nov. 15, 2005, United Press International (UPI) printed a devious, half-hearted apology to Balkanalysis.com, in the form of a re-written original story with an inconspicuous addendum. This unfortunate decision raises serious concerns about the news giant’s journalistic integrity, arrogance and damage-control-at-all-costs instinct.
In concluding the above-linked article on testimony given [...]