Pollution and sand extraction are destroying the Vardar River in North Macedonia, say the boatmen who sail its waters every year. As an organiser of the annual Gemidzii or ‘Boatmen’ regatta on North ...

A deeply polarised and politically volatile electorate will head to the polls on Sunday to choose the next mayor of Bucharest - a vote widely seen as a barometer for the country’s overall political ...

Novak Stjepanovic was sentenced to 13 years in prison in Serbia for war crimes in Bosnia in 1992, but he had already skipped the country to join Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, a BIRN ...

As the country’s strongest ethnic Albanian party, long used to power, is forced into opposition, some fear it may retaliate by stoking ethnic tensions and blocking institutions. For the first time ...

The Central Election Commission has again refused to accredit the Belgrade-backed Srpska Lista party for parliamentary elections, triggering harsh reactions from Western diplomats. Srpska Lista’s ...

Efforts to provide teachers and books in the Roma language culminated last year with the opening of a library of Roma-language books in Prizren – and interest in it has grown ever since. Arzu Cukici ...

Varna's opposition mayor Blagomir Kotsev – whose arrest in July on corruption charges sparked angry demonstrations – has been released after supporters raised the hefty bail sum in hours. Varna mayor ...

Proton was built on the principle that data should not be treated as a commodity, says CEO Andy Yen. A decade on, over 100 million users seem to agree. Andy Yen recalls being laughed at by investors ...

A recent mass shooting at a school in Belgrade had a widespread impact online in the Balkans, sparking a series of copycat threats, misleading articles, fake video footage and insensitive reports in ...

Internal documents show Frontex and the European Commission are well aware of Bulgaria’s dire human rights record on its border with Turkey, but the EU’s executive arm had other priorities – expanding ...

Former communist countries in Southeast Europe face catastrophic depopulation, with far-reaching social and political consequences. Young people are leaving. Fertility rates have collapsed. Societies ...

Veterans of the Dutch UN peacekeeping battalion deployed in Srebrenica remember how they were left powerless to prevent the genocide of Bosniaks by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995 - and how the ...