Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

RFE/RL Balkan Report 27.12.2012 A review of RFE/RL reporting and analysis about the countries of the western Balkans. For more stories on the Balkans, please visit and bookmark our Balkans page .

 

Macedonia Budget Passed As Deputies Removed RFE/RL's correspondent in Skopje reports that plainclothes Interior Ministry police have expelled opposition lawmakers from parliament ahead of a vote on the government's 2013 budget plan. More   Serbia Tries To Scrap Its Gun Habit Belgrade and its international partners are hailing a decade of achievement in a long-running effort to rid Serbia of the postwar legacy of rampant gun possession. More   Director Of Controversial Holocaust Film Rejects 'Revisionist' Criticism RFE/RL's Deana Kjuka speaks to Macedonian director Darko Mitrevski about his latest film, "The Third Half," which tells the story of a beautiful and affluent Jewish girl who falls in love with a poor Christian soccer player.Set in World War II-era Yugoslavia as Macedonian Jews were being deported to Nazi Germany, it is based on the real-life story of Holocaust survivor Neta Cohen. But it is highly controversial in Bulgaria, an ally of Nazi Germany during the war. Bulgarian officials call the film an "attempt to manipulate Balkan history" and "spread hate." More   Court Finds Macedonia Responsible In U.S. Rendition Case The European Court of Human Rights has found Macedonia responsible for the torture and ill-treatment of a man who was mistaken for a terrorism suspect. More   UN Tribunal Hands Bosnian Serb General Life Sentence The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague has sentenced Bosnian Serb General Zdravko Tolimir to life in prison for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. In the ruling on December 12, UN judges said Tolimir, an intelligence chief and close aide to Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, planned and oversaw the killing of some 8,000 Muslims. (Reuters video) More   Illegal Miners Risk Life And Limb To Dig For Bosnia's Black Gold Considering Bosnia-Herzegovina's high level of unemployment, it is perhaps not surprising that illegal coal mining is quite widespread in the former Yugoslav republic, which has vast reserves of the fuel not far below the surface. More   Novi Sad Under The Snow At least five people have been reported killed across the Balkans as freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall descended on the region. Officials say four people died in Croatia and one in Serbia as a result of blizzards that forced authorities to close airports and roads. Serbia's second-largest city of Novi Sad was socked in by the snowfall. More