Posts by Jo Forage
People gathered in the town of Kocani for an overnight vigil, marking one year since the nightclub inferno that claimed 63 mostly young lives.
balkaninsight.com/2026/03/16/w...
“Instead, our folks [the VMRO-DPMNE government of North Macedonia] have doubled down on their rhetoric. This is not done by statesmen, but by people who want to stay in power.”
balkaninsight.com/2026/03/12/n...
Koopman: #Albania and #Montenegro doing best, #Serbia and North #Macedonia selective europeanwesternbalkans.com/2026/01/15/k...
Cooper announced £4 million in funding to help combat Russian threats aimed at “destabilising the region” and “fanning ethnic tensions,” the Foreign Office stated.
She promised £10 million investment for schemes aimed at tackling people-smuggling in the Western Balkans and other key regions.
Shocking evidence of corruption, political ties, and institutional failures that contributed to the tragedy in Kocani, North Macedonia is revealed in a new documentary by the Investigative Reporting Lab – Macedonia (IRL Macedonia) titled “Kocani – Our Moral Compromise”, BGNES reported.
Jane Goodall, ethologist and conservationist, has died. She was 91
Обвинителството веќе шест месеци располага со докази за злоупотреба на службена положба, примање мито и оддавање доверливи информации за инспекциски контроли.
youtu.be/DwbWj1qqzeo?...
Most of the people from North Macedonia who have been blacklisted by the US, mainly due to suspicions of corruption and influence over the judiciary, continue to be active in politics and business.
DW sources say that given the political atmosphere in the country, the parade's main goal is to demonstrate the state's strength and intimidate citizens with a demonstration of military might.
The fight for free and fair elections and the defence of the electoral will of the citizens of Serbia by peaceful methods is the democratic right of every state in the XXI century.
Oд тоа како ќе биде напишан тендерот, многу ќе зависи и кој ќе победи на него. Најдобра илустрација се тендерите што годинава ги распишаа Аеродром и Центар. Имаат исти технички спецификации за униформата и избраа иста фирма: prizma.mk/uchilishni-u...
Political analyst Xhelal Neziri says that the reason why the so-called negative campaign prevails is that political rivals do not offer real and credible alternatives for the elections.
"This form of negative propaganda is driven by the motto 'I am bad, but my opponent is a disaster,'" he adds.
The increasingly authoritarian Vucic has rejected students' demand for a snap parliamentary election. He has stepped up a crackdown, sacking scores of professors and teachers and deploying police inside some faculty buildings.
A market study of over 300 medium and large enterprises in North Macedonia found that only 7 percent consider themselves green economy experts while 30 percent are completely unfamiliar with the concept
While it is true that protests across Serbia in mid-August saw instances of violence, President Vučić conveniently omitted that many demonstrators resorted to stronger measures in response to attacks by supporters of the ruling party.
Months of protests across Serbia, including blockades of the state universities, sparked by the deaths of 16 people last November killed when the roof on a renovated railway station collapsed, have rattled Vucic and his SNS party.
The European Union has thrown its weight behind two major Latin American trade agreements, formally launching the ratification process for deals with Mercosur and Mexico despite sustained resistance from agricultural nations and farmers. Bne IntelliNews
President Zelenskiy travelled to Denmark and France on September 3 to meet with leaders from 35 countries that make up the coalition of the willing (COW) and discuss the need for strong measures to pressure Russia to negotiate an end to the war. Bne IntelliNews
All of this. 👇
Neil deGrass Tyson: "How sad it must be believing that scientists, historians, scholars, economists, journalists devoted their entire lives to deceiving you, but a reality-TV star proven in court to be a lying felon is your beacon of truth & honesty"
Photo of half page of this week’s issue of the TLS - the summer ‘bumper issue’, so well worth the cover price - with Justine Firnhaber-Baker’s review of Helen Carr’s ‘Sceptured Isle: A new history of the fourteenth century’.
Not for the first time in recent days, I thank an informed reviewer for reading/watching something so that I don’t need to. I’m sure that @medievalrevolt.bsky.social is right to suggest that such books find ‘an enthusiastic readership’, though I do wonder whether that really means ‘listenership’.
Another excellent episode of this fantastic podcast.
More timely than ever. Sadly.
@iandunt.bsky.social
The use of violent football ultras as political enforcers evokes Serbia’s darkest chapters. In the early 1990s, militias like Željko “Arkan” Ražnatović’s Tigers recruited supporters to commit atrocities in Croatia and Bosnia.
www.euractiv.com/section/poli...
From open repression to new waves of protests and strikes or even elections and a possible toppling of Vucic, all outcomes appear to be on the table.
www.dw.com/en/serbia-ch...
America seems to have left the Balkan pitch for now. But the UK and the EU have not. They should act and use their economic leverage. If they do not and Serbia heads further down the authoritarian path, it will be not just Vučić but also his gaze-averting western backers who are to blame.