The latest news from Macedonia: a local art gallery did a billboard showing the Greek flag with a swastika in place of the cross.
The Greeks have, of course, gone completely apeshit. Front page news, demonstrations, formal diplomatic protest.
This is one of those perfect Balkan storms where you have obnoxious and stupid behavior that leads [...]

I was going to do a rather obnoxious post about the Macedonian name issue, but decided not to. You can see a draft of it in the comments section over here.
Meanwhile, here’s an idea I’ve sometimes toyed with: a series of posts on the leaders of small European countries during the Second World War. [...]

Via the invaluable B92 website comes a nasty little story from Albania.
In her book, “The Hunt”, to be published in Italy on April 3, the former Hague Tribunal Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte states that, during investigations into war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, against Serbs and other non-Albanians, the prosecutor’s office [...]

Bungee government!
Two weeks ago I wrote about how Macedonia’s goverment had collapsed. Well, over the weekend it un-collapsed — PM Gruevski’s party and the Albanians reached an agreement and they’re coming back in office.
For now.
At least one Albanian minister seems to have resigned in protest over the deal, which suggests the Albanians aren’t getting [...]

Well, that was unexpected.
Just a couple of months ago, I noted that Macedonia’s PM Gruevski was the most popular head of government in the Balkan region. Well, his government just collapsed. The Albanian party — his coalition partner — has pulled out, leaving him without a majority.
Here’s a brief primer on Macedonian politics. [...]

Serbia’s government seems to be collapsing.
The cause is, of course, Kosovo. Most of the EU countries have now recognized independent Kosovo, which pretty strongly implies that they won’t accept a Serbia that still claims Kosovo into the EU.
Last week, the nationalist Serbian Radical Party introduced a resolution in parliament calling [...]

I’m working through the frozen conflicts in ascending order of awfulness. Two posts about Transnistria can be found here and here.
So, South Ossetia. Little mountainous region up in the back of the Caucasus. Used to be part of Georgia. Declared independence in 1991, just as the Soviet Union was falling apart. [...]

We’re looking for a few good blogs.
If you’ve been paying close attention, you might have noticed our blogroll is changing. We haven’t cleaned it in a while, and link rot has set in — some blogs have stopped posting, some have moved, some just aren’t around any more.
Cleaning the links is the first step. [...]

Via Unzipped – who is rapidly emerging as the go-to blog for stuff about the current situation here in Armenia — I see that four opposition Members of Parliament are being stripped of their immunity so that they can be prosecuted. For, you know, supporting that coup attempt. You know. The coup [...]

Walked into central Yerevan today.
For those of you who haven’t been following this story: for the last two weeks, tens of thousands of Armenians have been turning out to protest the results of the recent Presidential election. The ruling party’s candidate supposedly won in a landslide, but there’s reason to think the elections were [...]