La chaîne Al-Jazira s'implante dans les Balkans

le monde.fr
LEMONDE.FR avec AFP

11.11.11
21h18
"Vous regardez la première chaîne régionale d'information dans la région." Cette annonce est la première que Sasa Delic, un des deux présentateurs de la première émission d'information de la chaîne d'information en continu, Al-Jazira Balkans, a formulé pour ses téléspectateurs, à 18 heures vendredi 11 novembre.
Dans une ex-Yougoslavie morcelée, le paysage médiatique l'était tout autant. La célèbre télévision qatarie d'information en continu a donc pris le pari de s'implanter dans la région pour ouvrir ce service d'information intégré à une échelle régionale, ce qui n'existait plus depuis la dissolution de la Fédération. Inédit....more....
read more: le monde.fr
http://www.lemonde.fr/actualite-medias/article/2011/11/11/al-jazira-s-implante-dans-les-balkans_1602703_3236.html

Al-Jazeera Launches Balkans Network

radio free europe
November 11, 2011

On November 11, Pan-Arabic television network Al-Jazeera is set to launch its Balkans network, which will broadcast in local languages....more...
read more: radio free europe
http://www.rferl.org/content/al_jazeera_launches_balkans_network/24388037.html

The good old days?

the economist
Turkey in the Balkans
Talk of an Ottoman revival in the region seems exaggerated

Nov 5th 2011

BELGRADE AND SARAJEVO
from the print edition
“SARAJEVO won today as much as Istanbul,” declared Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, after his election victory in June. His comment excited new debate in the western Balkans about Turkey’s activist foreign policy. Are the Ottomans coming back? Several examples suggest not.

read more: the economist
http://www.economist.com/node/21536647

Broadcasting to the Balkans

the economist
News in the ex-Yugoslavia
Al Jazeera’s latest venture

Nov 12th 2011

SARAJEVO
from the print edition
IN THE centre of Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital, a gleaming piece of Arabic script adorns the top of a new building. This is the logo of Al Jazeera, the Qatari network that has changed the face of television news since it was founded 15 years ago. Inside the building, carpenters and technicians are putting the finishing touches to the offices. But this is not just another foreign bureau....more...
read more: the economist
http://www.economist.com/node/21538213

The pull of Brussels

the economist
The Balkans and the Europe
At least the western Balkans is still starry-eyed about the European Union

IF GOVERNMENTS tweeted what they thought, it would be easy to sum up what those in the western Balkans felt this week: “phew!” from Serbia, “yeah!” from Montenegro and “meh”, the equivalent of shrugged shoulders, from everybody else....more...
read more: the economist
http://www.economist.com/node/21532306

Al-Jazeera launches Balkans broadcast

guardian
Qatar-based network hopes venture will provide objective news in a region where media is heavily influenced by politics

Associated Press in Sarajevo

guardian.co.uk, Friday 11 November 2011 17.40 GMT

The pan-Arab news network al-Jazeera is launching its Balkans operation that is expected to reconnect people divided by the wars in the former Yugoslavia and offer them new perspectives of each other....more...
read more: guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/11/al-jazeera-launches-balkans-broadcast

Balkan mercenaries in Libya risk lives for gain

se times
22/09/2011

Monetary reward -- not ideology or politics – is seen as the main motivator.
By Biljana Pekusic for Southeast European Times in Belgrade -- 22/09/11
He has not chosen to fight for Moammer Gaddafi, or for the Libyan rebels. But Zoran G, a northern Kosovo resident and former soldier of fortune, says he understands why others may have done so.

"I would go to Libya or any other country to fight for a good salary," he told SETimes....more...
read more: se times
http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2011/09/22/feature-03

Ex- Yu States Agree to Divide Assets Worth $65m

balkan insight
21 SEP 2011 / 16:26

An agreement has been reached in Sarajevo on the division of diplomatic properties of the former socialist Yugoslavia.

Vecernje Novosti

The handover of 44 properties in OECD countries is due to be completed by next August.


Two decades after the violent collapse of Yugoslavia, the former republics are finally accelerating the process of dividing diplomatic property....more...
read more : balkan insight
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/serbia-gains-ex-yu-assets-worth-26-million

Western Balkans to Get $6.9 Billion as Regions Seeks EU Path

serbianna
September 9, 2011 – 7:12 am

Bloomberg By Boris Cerni and Misha Savic - Sep 9, 2011

The European Union will spend 5 billion euros ($6.9 billion) to help the Western Balkans as it seeks to integrate the region
into the world’s largest trading bloc, EU President Herman Van Rompuy said.
Van Rompuy called on Serbia to continue talks with Kosovo as the nation works to gain EU candidate status year’s end.
Serbia, the largest of the former Yugoslav republics and the slowest to embrace the EU until the arrest of the
last war-crimes suspects, refuses to recognize its former province....more...
read more: serbianna
http://serbianna.com/blogs/michaletos/archives/1079

Planned Russian-backed pipeline raises concerns in EU

deutsche welle
ENERGY

16.09.2011
A new gas pipeline between Russia and southern Europe that bypasses Ukraine has raised concerns in the EU, although Germany's Wintershall is part of the project and former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is a chief lobbyist.

State-controlled energy giant Gazprom is planning, along with western partners, two huge gas pipeline projects whose stated goals are to secure Europe's energy supplies but which critics say will increase the EU's dependence on Russia....more...
read more: deutsche welle
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15390370,00.html

Bulgaria's intelligence chief warns of threats from western Balkans, terrorists

xinhua.net

English.news.cn 2011-09-09 01:29:39

SOFIA, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- Lieutenant General Kircho Kirov, Director of Bulgaria's National Intelligence Service, said Thursday that elements from western Balkans and terrorists may threaten the security of his country....more....

read more: xinhua.net

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-09/09/c_131119384.htm

Back to the Balkans again

the economist
Roundup in the Balkans
Sep 9th 2011, 14:20 by T.J.

BELGRADE
THE first serious working week after the summer holidays has already produced a wealth of stories here in the western Balkans. Some are more serious than others, unless of course you live here, when they are all deadly serious. Here is a roundup of some of them.

Outside the old Yugoslav Federal Parliament building in the Serbian capital they are rolling up the red carpet which had been unrolled to welcome delegates to the 50th birthday bash of the Non-Aligned Movement, which I have written about here. Serbia, which hosted the gathering, is not a member, but never mind that. It finds it useful to lobby over the Kosovo issue and for business....more...
read more: the economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/09/roundup-balkans

Kosovo tensions visible as Merkel visits Belgrade

deutsche welle
BALKANS

23.08.2011
Chancellor Angela Merkel has appealed to the Serb government to redouble diplomatic efforts with Kosovo. President Boris Tadic, however, has reiterated he will not recognize the former Serb region as a separate country.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday publicly urged Serbian President Boris Tadic to engage more productively with Kosovo and resolve the ongoing conflict with the breakaway former Serb region....more...
read more: deutsche welle
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15337157,00.html

Merkel's tour of Croatia and Serbia to focus on economic ties

deutsche welle

BALKANS

22.08.2011
Belgrade and Zagreb are key partners for Germany, even if ties are sometimes complex. Chancellor Angela Merkel has several goals for her trip to Croatia and Serbia, but what do her hosts want and expect from her?

Before Chancellor Angela Merkel's departure for Croatia and Serbia on Monday, her office announced that international, bilateral and trade ties would dominate the agenda. Government sources also acknowledged, however, that the touchiest topic in Belgrade would be Kosovo's claim to independence, recognized by Germany but not by Serbia....more...
read more: deutsche welle
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15334175,00.html

The Bright Side of the Balkans

the new york review of books

Charles Simic

I went to Sarajevo this spring to take part in an international poetry festival, and to receive an award and launch a book of my selected poems that had just been published in Bosnia. This was my first visit to a city known for its extraordinary suffering during the siege by the Serbian forces led by Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, which lasted from April 1992 to February 1996. Flying in on a clear day and seeing the way the mountains and hills press against Sarajevo on three sides, I could easily comprehend the destruction that artillery, mortars, heavy machine guns, and snipers could inflict on its inhabitants, who would have had great difficulty defending themselves. I could see the Serbian siege for what it was: a deliberate effort to collectively punish a city, and terrorize and starve its inhabitants, while taking satisfaction in firing from safe and unassailable heights....more...

read more: the new york review of books
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/bright-side-balkans/

Breivik's Balkan obsession

the economist
The Norway killings
Jul 25th 2011, 15:24 by T.J.

AN UNPLEASANT little surprise. Anders Behring Breivik, the man who has confessed to the Friday attacks in Norway that killed at least 96 people, makes a glancing reference to me in the “manifesto” he apparently put on the internet hours before he began his killing. Discussing a key event in the history of Serbia and Kosovo, in 1690, Mr Breivik refers to me (mistakenly) as a historian, and says that I "refuted" a specific claim made by Noel Malcolm in one of my book reviews. In fact I questioned the claim; "refute" is too categorical.

A look through Mr Breivik's 1,500-page 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, which he published under the pseudonym "Andrew Berwick", shows that he had a strange obsession with the Balkans. A word search for “Kosovo” comes up with 143 matches, “Serb” yields 341 matches, “Bosnia” 343 and “Albania” 208. ("Srebrenica"—the site of a Bosnian Serb massacre of some 8,000 Bosniaks in 1995—does not appear in the document.)...more...
read more: the economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/07/norway-killings

Josipovic, Tadic, Komsic meet to discuss situation in region

tportal.hr
REGION
18.07.2011 16:45

Author: Radio.net
Croatian President Ivo Josipovic, his Serbian counterpart Boris Tadic and members of the Bosnian Presidency, headed by Chairman Zeljko Komsic, held an informal meeting on the northern Croatian Adriatic archipelago of Brijuni on Monday to discuss the situation in the region and Euro-Atlantic integration processes....more...
read more: tportal.hr
http://daily.tportal.hr/139085/Josipovic-Tadic-Komsic-meet-to-discuss-situation-in-region.html

Balkan heat wave claims first Bosnian victim

xinhua news
English.news.cn 2011-07-15 05:20:34
BELGRADE, July 14 (Xinhua) -- The heat wave gripping most of the Balkans claimed its first Bosnian victim Thursday, as authorities urged citizens to remain indoors and drink plenty of fluids, local media reported.
According to the Serbian news agency Tanjug, the victim, a woman whose name was not given, collapsed in the waiting room of a hospital in Modrica in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and died later....more...
read more: xinhua news
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-07/15/c_13985928.htm

Al Jazeera Balkans 'On Air in Autumn'

balkan insight
15 JUL 2011 / 10:29

Station to broadcast 24 hours a day from Sarajevo, Zagreb and Belgrade using state-of-art equipment costing $10 million.

Senka Kurt Sarajevo

Al Jazeera Balkans could start broadcasting as soon as November, the director for programming, Goran Milic, has confirmed.

Work on completing the central studio in Sarajevo for Al Jazeera, nicknamed "the Arab CNN", is still in progress....more...
read more: balkan insight
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/al-jazeera-balkans-on-air-in-autumn

Western Balkan leaders urge joint efforts for EU accession

xinhua news
 English.news.cn 2011-07-13 05:01:40

TIRANA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- The presidents of Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro and the leader of Kosovo on Tuesday urged joint efforts for integration into the European Union (EU).
The leaders made the call in their joint statement after a meeting in Ohrid, a lakeside resort in southern Macedonia....more....
read more: xinhua news
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-07/13/c_13981050.htm