Milo Đukanović is a Montenegrin politician who served as the President of Montenegro from 2018 to 2023, previously serving in the role from 1998 to 2002. He also served as the Prime Minister of Montenegro and was the long-term president of the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro, originally the Montenegrin branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, which governed Montenegro alone or in a coalition from the introduction of multi-party politics in the early 1990s until its defeat in the 2020 parliamentary election. He is the longest-ruling contemporary politician in Europe, having held key positions in the country for over 33 years. However, he was defeated by the 36-year-old centrist former economy minister, Jakov Milatović, after the presidential run-off held on 2 April 2023.
South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) is a regional non-governmental, non-profit network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in Southeast, South, East and Central Europe. The organization aims to create a bridge between international media activities and the media developments in the region. It has headquarters and national committees in several countries. In total 33 member states or territories are included in SEEMO.
The Albanian National Army is an Albanian paramilitary organization which operates in North Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo. The group opposes the Ohrid Framework Agreement which ended the 2001 insurgency in Macedonia between members of the National Liberation Army and Macedonian security forces.
Aleksandar Vučić is a Serbian politician serving as the president of Serbia since 2017. A founding member of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), he previously served as the president of the SNS from 2012 to 2023, first deputy prime minister from 2012 to 2014, and prime minister of Serbia from 2014 to 2017.
Krenar Gashi is a Kosovar Albanian political scientist, currently based in Belgium as a Basileus doctoral fellow at the Centre for EU Studies, Ghent University. His research interest include international relations, the European Union and the works of Jean Baudrillard, while his expertise is in the political developments in the Western Balkans.
Behgjet Isa Pacolli (Gheg Albanian:[bɛhˈɟɛtpaˈtsoɫi]; Serbo-Croatian Latin: Behđet Isa Pacoli; is a Kosovar Albanian politician and businessman who served as the first deputy prime minister of Kosovo and minister of foreign affairs from 2017 to 2019 under the Ramush Haradinaj government. Pacolli is a former president of Kosovo, and served as the first deputy prime minister of Kosovo between 2011 and 2014. Pacolli was one of the signatories of the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence.
The Cathedral of Saint Mother Teresa is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Pristina, Kosovo. In 2007, the Government of Kosovo approved plans for the building. The cathedral is dedicated to the Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary Saint Teresa of Calcutta.
The mass media in Kosovo consists of different kinds of communicative media such as radio, television, newspapers, and internet web sites. Most of the media survive from advertising and subscriptions.
The Batajnica mass graves are mass graves that were found in 2001 near Batajnica, a suburb of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. The graves contained the bodies of 744 Kosovar Albanians civilians that were killed during the Kosovo War. The mass graves were found on the training grounds of the Yugoslav Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (SAJ). Dead bodies were brought to the site by trucks from Kosovo; most were incinerated before burial. After the war, SAJ restricted investigators' access to the firing range, and continued live-firing exercises whilst forensic teams tried to investigate the massacre.
The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network Bosnia and Herzegovina is a non-profit organization based in Sarajevo that reports on war crimes trials before the courts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. BIRN BiH is a member of the BIRN network, which includes BIRN Hub, BIRN Ltd, BIRN Kosovo, BIRN Macedonia, and BIRN Serbia.
Arbana Xharra is a Kosovar Albanian investigative journalist. She has won numerous awards for her reporting and was a 2015 recipient of the International Women of Courage Award from the US State Department.
Censorship in Serbia is prohibited by the Constitution. Freedom of expression and of information are protected by international and national law, even if the guarantees enshrined in the laws are not coherently implemented. Instances of censorship and self-censorship are still reported in the country.
Censorship in Serbia is prohibited by the Serbian constitution. Freedom of expression and of information are protected by international and national law, even if the guarantees enshrined in the laws are not coherently implemented. However, instances of censorship and self-censorship have been reported; as of 2015 Serbia was deemed "partly free" as judged by Freedom House and ranked 59th out of 180 countries in the 2016 Press Freedom Index report compiled by Reporters Without Borders. According to the 2015 Freedom House report, media outlets and journalists in Serbia have been subject to pressure from politicians and owners over editorial contents. Also, Serbian media have been heavily dependent on advertising contracts and government subsidies which make journalists and media outlets exposed to economic pressures, such as payment defaults, termination of contracts and the like.
Christian Ferdinand Wehrschütz, born October 9, 1961, in Graz, is an Austrian journalist. He speaks German, English, Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian/Croatian, French, Slovenian, Macedonian and Albanian and is a military interpreter of Russian and Ukrainian. He is married and has two daughters.
Jovo Martinović is a freelance investigative journalist in Montenegro, known for his reporting on organized crime in Europe and war criminals in the Balkans. His works appeared in The Economist, Time, Newsday and the Financial Times. Among his noteworthy projects was helping produce a Vice News documentary on a gang of jewel thieves known as the Pink Panthers. Since October 22, 2015 he has been in prison in Montenegro and has been charged with involvement in a drug trafficking ring. Rights groups such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch have criticized Montenegro’s government for failing to provide evidence justifying the charges or pre-trial detention for over one year.
Access to public information and freedom of information (FOI) refer to the right of access to information held by public bodies also known as "right to know". Access to public information is considered of fundamental importance for the effective functioning of democratic systems, as it enhances governments' and public officials' accountability, boosting people participation and allowing their informed participation into public life. The fundamental premise of the right of access to public information is that the information held by governmental institutions is in principle public and may be concealed only on the basis of legitimate reasons which should be detailed in the law.
Access to public information and freedom of information (FOI) refer to the right of access to information held by public bodies also known as "right to know". Access to public information is considered of fundamental importance for the effective functioning of democratic systems, as it enhances governments' and public officials' accountability, boosting people participation and allowing their informed participation into public life. The fundamental premise of the right of access to public information is that the information held by governmental institutions is in principle public and may be concealed only on the basis of legitimate reasons which should be detailed in the law.
Christine von Kohl (1923–2009) was a Danish journalist, writer, broadcaster, human rights activist and Balkan expert. She is remembered in particular for her articles and books on the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s while she was based in Vienna. In 2002, she received the SEEMO human rights award.
The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw) is a non-partisan, non-profit economic research institute specialised in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, based in Vienna, Austria. It was founded in 1972 and is currently headed by Mario Holzner.
