Balkans

ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) – A strong earthquake shook Croatia and its capital on Sunday, causing widespread damage and panic. A 15-year-old was killed and there were other injuries, media reported.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) – The main Serbian hospital treating patients infected with coronavirus looks like an abandoned building, but it isn´t. With its rundown facade, peeling walls and rooms crammed with metal beds, the downtown Belgrade clinic for infectious diseases

Anti-mass migration Slovenian Democratic Party leader Janez Jansa, a close ally of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, has been appointed Slovenia’s new prime minister.

Following a meeting with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on the European Union to open negotiations with Albania and Northern Macedonia to join the bloc.

President Donald Trump celebrated “another win” on Monday by announcing the U.S. State Department had helped broker direct airline flights between Serbia and Kosovo.

BERLIN (AP) — The incoming head of the European Union’s executive branch is pressing for the bloc to open membership talks with North Macedonia and Albania after its leaders failed to agree last month on launching the negotiations.

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) – Police in North Macedonia say they have found 81 migrants hidden in a house near the country’s northern border with Serbia and arrested a suspected migrant trafficker.

The U.S. Department of State told Breitbart London it respects the sovereignty of European states on Friday after appearing to swerve from President Trump’s long-standing commitment to Brexit and independent nation-states by publicly backing the further expansion of the European Union.

Italy’s populist deputy prime minister and minister of the interior Matteo Salvini has proposed a border barrier to halt illegal immigration from the Balkans, similar to the one U.S. President Donald Trump wants along the Mexican-American frontier.

Croatian police have discovered several dozen migrants hidden in a truck and detained two suspected people smugglers.

As the EU confirmed it was spending taxpayers’ cash on migrants seeking to break into the bloc, Bosnians have pleaded for the Balkans migration route to be shut down amidst increasing “militancy” from newcomers.

The Slovenian government has taken new measures to increase border security by arming border agents as an estimated 20,000 or more migrants attempt to break out of the Balkans into Central Europe.

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) – Polls have opened in Bosnia for a general election that could install a pro-Russian nationalist to a top post and cement ethnic divisions drawn in a brutal war more than 20 years ago.

Contents: Diplomats fear that proposed Serbia-Kosovo peace deal will lead to Balkans war; Former Balkan diplomats say that land swap proposal ignores 1,000 years of bloodshed

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s foreign minister says it’s in the European Union’s “strategic interest” to expand in the Western Balkans because otherwise China and Russia will gain regional influence instead.

Austrian troops will carry out war games preparing the nation’s border defence against a migration influx later this month after Balkans police warned 80,000 third-world migrants are heading towards Western Europe.

Nine people were injured after a van carrying 29 illegal migrants from Afghanistan and Iraq attempted to ram a police checkpoint on the border between Bosnia and Croatia.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Marina Stevanov never doubted she would leave her native Serbia as soon as she earned her medical degree with top grades.Now, the 25-year-old doctor is packing her diploma, thick medicine books and a German language dictionary

Contents: Greece and Macedonia negotiate a contentious name change to replace FYROM; Massive protests in Thessaloniki Greece threaten Tsipras government

Bosnian prosecutor Goran Glamocanin has claimed that Sweden is the number one market in Europe for illegal weapons from the Balkan region after yet another explosion occurred in Malmö over the weekend.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — The prime ministers of Greece, Bulgaria and Romania have pledged support for Serbia’s membership in the European Union, saying it would boost stability in the Balkans.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) – Serbian officials warned on Friday of another war in the Balkans if Albanians try to form a joint state with Kosovo in the war-weary European region and the West does not reject such a plan.The angry reactions

The leader of the free-market opposition in Albania told Breitbart News Friday that democracy in his country is in great danger, as the left-wing prime minister Edi Rama has allowed corruption and crime to flourish there.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — The European Union’s enlargement commissioner urged Balkan leaders Thursday to stop stoking regional tensions and fully embrace their European future.

Austria is joining forces with 15 other Eastern European countries to stem the flow of migrants northwards, as they believe the EU has failed in its duty to protect the region’s borders.

The Switzerland-based Centre for Security Studies (CSS) has published a report, focusing on the “Dynamics of Radicalization and Violent Extremism in Kosovo”, which claims that “foreign-funded extremist networks” are active in states applying to join the European Union (EU).

According to an Italian intelligence report quoted by the UK Daily Mail, former NATO soldier-turned Islamic State (ISIS) commander Lavdrim Muhaxheri has fled the Syrian battlefield and returned to Europe with up to 400 of his savage troops in tow, posing as refugees.

PODGORICA, Montenegro – For the first time in more than six years, Israel was allowed to participate in a NATO exercise this week.

BELGRADE – Serbia’s Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday he did not believe he had been subject to an assassination attempt, seeking to calm tensions after the discovery of a cache of heavy weapons on a route regularly taken

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has put out an appeal for millions of dollars’ worth of extra charitable funding to help migrants in the Balkans, claiming that their original target of $555 million is now not enough.In January, the UNHCR,