The train pulled out of Sirkeci Station at 10pm sharp, bound for Bucharest. Within an hour the slow rocking of the train put me to sleep. Sometime around 300am the train stopped, the conductor rapped on the door, shouting "immigration" and the passengers filed out in a stupor. Passport stamped I climbed aboard and went back to sleep. Thirty minutes later there was another sharp rap on the door: "customs!" The officers tore my cabin apart, like cops back home with a warrant. Finally, after fifteen minutes of pillage they left, satisfied there was no contraband in my meager belongings. I fell alseep, only to be awakened again thirty minutes later by a huge, semi-toothed Bulgarian border officer. "Passport?"

I handed it over. He glanced at it long enough to realize I was American, snorted and handed it back. "Okay," he said, "good night."

"That was easy enough," I thought and went right back to sleep. I don't know how much time passed, but once again, I was awakened by a hard thump, followed by two quick knocks on my door, like rapid gunshots.

"What now!" I exclaimed in frustration.

"Eet iz passport kontrol," came a woman's voice behind the door. I fumbled with the lock on my door as images of a snaggle-toothed, heavy Bulgarian matron danced through my head. I flipped on the light, and slid open the door.

More after the jump.

It took a while for me to figure out why everything so was so calm and peaceful. (Mind you, this is very relative.) But as I was walking down the very European streets of Bucharest this afternoon (and very communist city planning it is) it came to me: I've been in the east for a very long time. A week or two shy of a year. It's just strange being in Europe. And like I said, being in Romania is very relative. It's still a pretty wild place. But, compared to my time in Bulgaria almost ten years back, it is crystal clear that accession to the European Union has drastically changed Bulgaria and Romania for the better. There is a lot of wealth here now. And the former Eastern bloc countries, while the people can still be very grim and unhappy, have a measure of stability. And it's definitely not the East. The smells are different. The lifestyle and the stares, the driving habits, the architecture, a thousand different little subtle things, plus the food are just flat out different. Seriously, I've only seen one Lada, and that was in the countryside of Bulgaria this morning! How can it be Eastern Europe and have no effing Ladas?!?

It's a strange adjustment for me to make. I've spent so much time the last 10 years in the East--I haven't been to 'Europe' except for a short stint in 'oh-so-civilized Denmark' in 2007--that I find it odd. I'll probably have a wicked case of culture shock when I get to Germany in a week or so. Oy!

Took the train from Istanbul to Bucharest last night. It was a fun train ride. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

May 5

BBC - A UN war crimes appeals court has ruled that an ex-Yugoslav army officer jailed for crimes at Vukovar in 1991 should serve 17, not five years.

It found the original sentence against Veselin Sljivancanin for torture was inadequate and jailed him for aiding and abetting the murder of prisoners.

Sljivancanin was released in December 2007 after four years in custody.

He had returned to The Hague for the ruling which also upheld a sentence against his superior, Mile Mrksic.

Mrksic is serving 20 years for aiding and abetting the murder and torture of prisoners, as well as allowing inhumane conditions of detention.

Inhumane treatment and torturing prisoners is wrong? Who knew..

Vanessa Mock | Brussels | Apr 28

The Independent - It is a sliver of coastline between two of the smallest states in Europe, boasting breathtaking views across the Bay of Piran and towns full of winding cobbled streets and Venetian Gothic architecture, but this picturesque corner of the Adriatic is casting a shadow over EU expansion plans.

Slovenia and Croatia are at loggerheads over their border and the diplomatic stand-off is threatening to derail Croatia's hopes of joining the EU.

The dispute dates to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, when both countries laid claim to the Bay of Piran, a seven-square-mile expanse of the Adriatic sea.

Croatia wants the border to be drawn down the middle of the bay but Slovenia – which is almost landlocked –says this would impede its ships from gaining direct access to the high seas.

IWPR - New generation of Serbian journalists grapples with ethics and challenges of tackling dark side of their country’s recent history. By Jasna Jankovic in Belgrade

Whether in times of war or not, a journalist should always serve the public interest, the truth and universal human values.

Although views on certain issues may differ, I do not see how the rape of a woman or the murder of an infant can be viewed as anything other than a crime. The same goes for covering up atrocities or, even worse, glorifying such acts as patriotic.

Those who love their nation must face themselves and their compatriots with the truth in order to overcome it and become better and stronge

Sarajevo | Apr 2

DPA - Serbia and Bosnia are to reopen the Belgrade- Sarajevo railway line in 2009, 17 years after it was closed by war in former Yugoslavia.

The line is due to go back into operation in September, when the autumn schedule comes into effect, the railway announced in Sarajevo. The war erupted in Bosnia in April 1992.

Walter Mayr | Mar 20

Spiegel Online -

Greece has blocked the NATO and EU ambitions of Macedonia for the past 18 years over a bizarre name dispute. The ongoing controversy threatens the very cohesion of the diminutive Balkan republic, which holds presidential elections this Sunday.

The village of Achlada, population 400, lies in the shadow of a 2,500-meter (8,200-foot) peak on Greece's northern border. In the café on the main square, a handful of elderly residents silently run chains of wooden beads through their fingers.

At first glance, Achlada, with its snow-white church, looks like a sleepy, idyllic Greek village. During the Ottoman era, however, Achlada was called Krusoradi, named after the Slavic word for pear tree. As a result of the Second Balkan War in 1913, the village became part of Greece and was renamed, coinciding with the partition of the historic region of Macedonia among Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria. This part of Achlada's history is barely spoken about.

Strangers approaching a two-story house at the end of a path near the church are likely to encounter suspicious looks. The building has stood empty for more than half a century. According to a local war memorial, the former owner was killed in 1940 during Greece's struggle against fascist Italy. His name was Nikos Gruios, and according to the inscription on the memorial, he gave his life "for his homeland."

This would hardly be worth mentioning, except that Nikola Gruevski, the grandson of the fallen war hero, wrote a letter to the government in Athens in the summer of 2008. In the letter, he demanded official recognition of the Slavic-Macedonian minority in Greece and the restitution of the property of former residents of Slavic origin who had fled Greece after 1945.

The letter was taken seriously, but mainly because of the identity of its author. Nikola Gruevski, the grandson of the hero Nikos Gruios, happens to be the prime minister of Greece's northern neighbor, the Republic of Macedonia.

Peter Beaumont | Mar 8

The Observer - Fugitive general was shadowed for five months after Serbian conflict ended, claims historian

For fifteen years he has been Europe's most wanted man - the Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic - alleged architect of the deaths of up to 7,500 men and boys at Srebrenica, and commander of the siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War.

Now, amid rumours of negotiations with the European Union over his possible arrest, it has been alleged that for five months after the end of the war a US army unit tracked Mladic and conducted meetings with the fugitive general, but declined to arrest him for fear of triggering violence that might result in US casualties.

The allegations - if proved - would rewrite the story of how so many Bosnian Serb indictees before the Hague managed to slip through the net despite the presence of so many US and other troops. It is claimed that for 18 months after the war, indictees including Karadzic were able to commute between home and office in full view of the International Police Task Force, whose Austrian, Swedish, and Ukrainian officers failed to report these sightings

It has emerged at an especially sensitive time as Mladic's colleague, the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, has begun his trial at the Hague claiming in his defence that he had signed a secret deal with US envoy Richard Holbrooke that he would not be prosecuted if he withdrew from politics - a claim that has been described as "crap" by Holbrooke.

Greg Miller | Belgrade, Serbia | Mar 1

LA Times - As Milosevic's intelligence chief, Jovica Stanisic is accused of setting up genocidal death squads. But as a valuable source for the CIA, an agency veteran says, he also 'did a whole lot of good.'

At night, when the lawns are empty and the lamps along the walking paths are the only source of light, Topcider Park on the outskirts of Belgrade is a perfect meeting place for spies.

It was here in 1992, as the former Yugoslavia was erupting in ethnic violence, that a wary CIA agent made his way toward the park's gazebo and shook hands with a Serbian intelligence officer.

Jovica Stanisic had a cold gaze and a sinister reputation. He was the intelligence chief for Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, and regarded by many as the brains of a regime that gave the world a chilling new term: "ethnic cleansing."

But the CIA officer, William Lofgren, needed help. The agency was all but blind after Yugoslavia shattered into civil war. Fighting had broken out in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Milosevic was seen as a menace to European security, and the CIA was desperate to get intelligence from inside the turmoil.

So on that midnight stroll, the two spies carved out a clandestine relationship that remained undisclosed: For eight years, Stanisic was the CIA's main man in Belgrade. During secret meetings in boats and safe houses along the Sava River, he shared details on the inner workings of the Milosevic regime. He provided information on the locations of NATO hostages, aided CIA operatives in their search for grave sites and helped the agency set up a network of secret bases in Bosnia.

At the same time, Stanisic was setting up death squads for Milosevic that carried out a genocidal campaign, according to prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which was established by the U.N. Security Council in 1993 to try those responsible for serious human rights violations in the Balkan wars.

Now facing a trial at The Hague that could send him to prison for life, Stanisic has called in a marker with his American allies. In an exceedingly rare move, the CIA has submitted a classified document to the court that lists Stanisic's contributions and attests to his helpful role. The document remains sealed, but its contents were described by sources to The Times.

Walter Mayr | Feb 25

Spiegel Online - Radical Muslim imams and nationalist politicians from all camps are threatening Sarajevo's multicultural legacy. With the help of Arab benefactors, the deeply devout are acquiring new recruits. In the "Jerusalem of the Balkans," Islamists are on the rise.

The obliteration of Israel is heralded in a torrent of words. "Zionist terrorists," the imam thunders from the glass-enclosed pulpit at the end of the mosque. "Animals in human form" have transformed the Gaza Strip into a "concentration camp," and this marks "the beginning of the end" for the Jewish pseudo-state.

Over 4,000 faithful are listening to the religious service in the King Fahd Mosque, named after the late Saudi Arabian monarch King Fahd Bin Abd al-Asis Al Saud. The women sit separately, screened off in the left wing of the building. It is the day of the Khutbah, the great Friday sermon, and the city where the imam has predicted Israel's demise lies some 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) northwest of Gaza.

It is a city in the heart of Europe: Sarajevo.

** Photo Gallery: The Fifth Column of the Prophet
** From the Archive: Balkan Mujahedeens

Pristina | Jan 21

AFP - Kosovo launched a new security force Wednesday in a new sign of independence, prompting Serbia to brand it "an illegal paramilitary group" whose creation was "totally unacceptable".

The search for hundreds of recruits of the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) is being supported by NATO peacekeepers in the breakaway Serbian province.

Lieutenant Henrik Kristensson of NATO said the force aims to have 1,500 members by September with an eventual full operational size of 2,500 full time members and 800 reserves in two-to-five years.

He said the force would be recruited from majority ethnic Albanians and minority Serbs and would come under the control of the Kosovo parliament.

Kosovo proclaimed its independence from Serbia in February last year. It has been recognised by more than 50 countries including the United States and much of Europe, but Belgrade, backed by Moscow, refuses to accept the secession.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic branded the KSF "an illegal paramilitary group" whose creation was "totally unacceptable"

Ian Traynor | Prague | Jan 9

The Guardian - • Moscow accepts European monitors on Kiev pipeline
• Freezing Balkans face catastrophe if pact fails

European leaders announced a breakthrough deal with Moscow last night that could see Siberian gas flowing to the households and heating systems of Europe. But hundreds of thousands of families across the Balkans and central Europe faced a freezing weekend without heating amid uncertainty over whether the deal settling the dispute between Russia and Ukraine would stick.

Dan Bilefsky | Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina | Dec 14

NYT - Thirteen years after the United States brokered the Dayton peace agreement to end the ferocious ethnic war in the former Yugoslavia, fears are mounting that Bosnia, poor and divided, is again teetering toward crisis.

On the surface, this haunted capital, its ancient mosques and Orthodox churches still pocked by mortar fire, appears to be enjoying a renaissance. Young professionals throng to stylish cafes and gleaming new shopping malls while the muezzin heralds the morning prayer. The ghosts of Srebrenica linger — recalling the worst massacre in Europe since World War II — but Sarajevans prefer to talk about President-elect Barack Obama or the global financial crisis.

Yet for the first time in years, talk of the prospect of another war is creeping into conversations across the ethnic divide in Bosnia, a former Yugoslav republic that the Dayton agreement divided into two entities, a Muslim-Croat Federation and a Serbian Republic.

The power-sharing agreement between former foes has always been tense. Now, however, the uneasy peace has been complicated by Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in February, which many here worry could prompt the Serbian Republic to follow suit, tipping the region into a conflict that could fast turn deadly.

Pristina | Nov 23

Reuters - Germany declined to comment on Saturday on reports that three Germans arrested on suspicion of throwing explosives at an EU office in Kosovo were intelligence officers.

The explosive charge was thrown on Nov. 14 at the International Civilian Office (ICO), the office of EU Special Representative Pieter Feith, who oversees Kosovo's governance, but caused only minor damage. The men were detained on Thursday.

The three were questioned on Saturday by a Pristina district court judge who ordered them to be detained until Dec. 22.

A defence lawyer told reporters that the three were suspected of having committed an act of terrorism.

The German weekly Der Spiegel also said the men worked for the German intelligence agency BND, and that they had told investigators they had been examining the scene of the explosion, but had not been involved in it.

Mike Lanchin | Nov 18

BBC -
Hundreds of children across Albania are living virtually imprisoned in their homes - for fear of being killed in blood feuds under the country's ancient vendetta code, writes the BBC's Mike Lanchin.

Eleven-year-old Nikolin dreams about the day he can walk out of his house without fear and attend the local school.

"I imagine that it's a beautiful place, with chairs, benches, and a blackboard. I imagine being there with loads of other kids," he says.

Nikolin and his three brothers and sisters have the misfortune to have been born into a family entangled in a blood feud, or vendetta, that dates back more than 30 years.

The children's father, Kole Ndrepepa, was only a teenager when he killed a neighbour after a petty argument near his village.

Under an ancient Albanian code, called the "Kanun", the victim's family invoked its right to take revenge on any male adult in Ndrepepa's extended family, even though he spent 15 years in jail for the crime.

Because the Kanun precludes entering another person's property to exact revenge, home is the only safe place for those under threat.

Roger Boyes | Berlin | Nov 16

Times Online -

A spy at the heart of Nato may have passed secrets on the US missile shield and cyber-defence to Russian Intelligence, it has emerged.

Herman Simm, 61, an Estonian defence ministry official who was arrested in September, was responsible for handling all of his country's classified information at Nato, giving him access to every top-secret graded document from other alliance countries.

He was recruited by the Russians in the late 1980s and has been charged in Estonia with supplying information to a foreign power.

Several investigation teams from both the EU and Nato, under the supervision of a US officer, have flown to the Estonian capital Tallinn to assess the scope of what is being seen as the most serious case of espionage against Nato since the end of the Cold War.

Andy McSmith | Oct 21

The Independent -

At the war's end, British troops lured 12,000 unarmed Slovenians into train wagons and sent them to their deaths. The massacre haunts a witness who says Britain should at last own up

ALmost nothing spoils the beauty of the little Adriatic republic of Slovenia, where the Queen and Prince Philip begin their first state visit today. It slipped out of the disintegrating communist republic of Yugoslavia 17 years ago, almost without bloodshed, to become the most untroubled and prosperous state in south-east Europe.

And yet, there was a time when the woods and mountain slopes of this picture-postcard state concealed one of the murkiest secrets of the 20th century. There are hundreds of Slovenian families who lost relatives in a massacre committed under British eyes when the Second World War was supposed to be over.

From the official British reaction, you might think the massacre never happened, but 85-year-old John Corsellis was there as a 22-year-old relief worker, and saw 12,000 unarmed Slovenian militiamen lured to their deaths by British Army officers who lied to them. His sense of rage at what he witnessed is undiminished, after more than six decades and he thinks it is time that the British owned up.

Oct 20

Deutsche Welle - De Kermabon -- who used to command NATO-led peacekeeping troops in Kosovo (KFOR) -- estimated that an accord with Serbia on EULEX's deployment in Kosovo was "not far away", but said he has remained nevertheless "prudent".

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority proclaimed independence from Serbia on February 17, a move that has been recognized more than 50 countries, including most of the EU members and the United States.

But the Serb minority -- some 100,000 who have remained in Kosovo -- are backed by Belgrade and its powerful ally Russia in rejecting the independence of the territory which they still consider as Serbia's southern province.

Ethnic Serbs living in northern Kosovo, where they make a majority, fiercely oppose EULEX's deployment, considering it would indirectly mean the recognition of Kosovo's independence.

United Nations | Oct 9

AFP - The UN General Assembly voted Wednesday to ask the International Court of Justice to rule on Kosovo's unilateral secession from Serbia in February, as Western nations argued that independence is irreversible.

The vote in the 192-nation assembly on a Serbian resolution seeking support for the referral was 77 in favor, with six against and 74 abstentions.

The ICJ, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and based in The Hague, rules on disputes between sovereign states.

The resolution requests the ICJ to render an advisory opinion on the question: "Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?"

Ljubljana | Sept 21

Reuters -
Slovenians are voting for a new government on Sunday, hoping to maintain the prosperity the small Alpine country has achieved since independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

Most polls suggest that Prime Minister Janez Jansa's ruling conservative Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) might retain its edge and get another 4-year mandate.

However, recent surveys show the opposition centre-left Social Democrats (SD) and their allies, who promise better welfare for the country's 2 million people, could together get more seats in parliament than the SDS and its partners.

Someone in Washington actually is paying attention and knows what the game is about. That man is Chuck Hagel and this letter is exhibit A that should Obama win in November and should he wish to have a bi-partisan, unity-porn, government of national unity he could do no better than to nominate Chuck Hagel as Secretary of State.

You may not like his domestic positions, but his foreign policy ones are tempered by a serene and sober sense of realism and an understanding of what our capabilities are versus our desires. Hagel is no neo-con. He's a pragmatist and realist in the best senses of those words. It's time for prudence and thoughtful policy-making.

A nomination of Richard Holbrooke would be just one more neo-con in Democratic drag.

The Editors maintain a listserve as a way of communicating with each other. Most of the time the conversations are mundane, pedestrian site-administration stuff. But every now and then someone posts a news article and an interesting discussion ensues. This evening is a case in point. Tina posted this article about Russia, the Black Sea Fleet and the Ukraine. Ian quickly chimed in with this:

I wouldn't give Sevastopol back in 2017 if I were the Russians. The Ukrainians can sign another deal, or they can lose the Crimea. Their choice.

And then I replied: "I'm with Ian. The Ukrainians f**k with Russia at their own peril."

And then Ian shot back:

More after the jump

Brussels | Sept 3

Reuters - NATO must show it is prepared to defend its Baltic members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from any attack after Russia's intervention in Georgia, the U.S. ambassador to NATO was quoted as saying.

U.S. envoy Kurt Volker said in Wednesday's Financial Times that the 26-nation Western military alliance must send signals through "planning and exercises" that it intends to help shore up the Baltic states.

"Those countries are members of NATO; so if there is any attack on those countries, we will respond," Volker told the paper in an interview.

"They are feeling a little rattled by seeing Russia use military force to invade a sovereign, small neighbouring country. We need to send signals to shore them up a little bit.

"We will have to make sure ... that the Article 5 commitment is realisable, not just as a political matter, but as a military matter too," he said.

NATO's Article 5 guarantees defence of a NATO member by other members of the alliance in the event of attack.

an Traynor | Aug 29

The Guardian - Radovan Karadzic today accused the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague of being a "Nato court" that intended to "liquidate" him and refused to enter pleas on the 11 charges against him.

The Bosnian Serb genocide suspect - who was arrested last month in the Serbian capital after 13 years as Europe's most wanted war crimes fugitive - challenged the legitimacy of the court, and, as expected, refused to enter pleas on any of the 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes he is charged with.

He insisted again at today's pre-trial hearing that he would defend himself in the case.