Serbian News

By katblock

  • Unoffial Attempt At Making World's Largest Hamburger

    The Serbian town of Leskovac hosted an unofficial attempt to make the world's largest hamburger. The attempt was part of a citywide annual meat festival known locally as Rostiljijada, or Barbecue Week. The chefs used 112 pounds of minced meat to make the burger, which measured 5 foot 3 inches in diameter and was 1 inch thick. It was not the world's largest burger.

  • Serb gets 2-year term for N.Y. man’s beating

    In Belgrade, Serbia, Lawyers reached a plea bargain yesterday under which a Serbian college basketball player charged with beating an American student into a coma would serve about two years in prison in his homeland, potentially ending a case that had strained relations with the United States.

  • Radovan Karadzic's Security Chief 'Masqueraded as Psychiatrist at London Medical School

    The former security chief of Radovan Karadzic, the alleged Bosnian war criminal, masqueraded as a psychiatrist at hospitals in Australia and Britain for several years and lied to the International War Crimes Tribunal about his qualifications. Vitomir Zepinic, who was born in Sarajevo, trained in psychology in Serbia and went on to work for Karadzic during the Balkan conflict. On March 1, he was suspended. A spokesman for the school said that Zepinic had no contact with patients and no complaints

  • Bridge Projector Reminds Suicide Jumpers "You Are Not Alone"

    Forty people jump from bridges in Belgrade, Serbia each year. Working with ad agency McCann Erickson, the Belgrade government installed a projector underneath the bridge that shines the message "You Are Not Alone". It's only visible from above.

  • Serbian Patriarch Enthroned in Kosovo

    Thousands of Serbians gathered in the Kosovo town of Pec to attend the enthroning ceremony of the head of Serbia's Orthodox Church, Patriarch Irinej. The ceremony, attended by Serbian President Boris Tadic and other high-ranking officials, is the first of its kind in the ethnic-Albanian-dominated town of Pec since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February 2008.

  • Anti-Gay Riots

    On Sunday October 11th there was a gay rights march in Belgrade Serbia that was interupted by protestors. Serbian police fought running battles with thousands of far-right supporters who tried to disrupt the march in downtown Belgrade by hurling Molotov cocktails and stun grenades. More than 150 people were hurt and nearly 250 were arrested, police said.

  • Kosovo's First Ballot Since Break Off From Serbia

    Kosovo is preparing to hold its first national elections since its 2008 secession from Serbia after a surprise collapse of its coalition government, delaying European Union-sponsored talks between Pristina and Belgrade.

  • 97 people found buried in dried up lake bed

    The remains of around 100 people believed to have been Muslims killed early in the Bosnian 1992-95 war have been unearthed from a lake bed on the border between Bosnia and Serbia, forensic experts said on Tuesday.

  • 2 Killed in Serbian Earthquake

    Two people were killed and around 100 were injured when a magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck central Serbia overnight, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said Wednesday.
    The earthquake happened at 1:56 a.m. (just before 9 p.m. ET). The epicenter was near the city of Kraljevo, about 80 miles south of the capital, Belgrade.

  • Honoring those Massacred

    President Boris Tadic apologized yesterday at the site where more than 200 Croats were massacred, offering the strongest condemnation to date by a leader from Serbia of wartime atrocities committed by the country.
    The president placed a wreath at Ovcara, a former pig farm where a mass grave remains a painful symbol for Croats of Serb brutality during the 1991 ethnic war. Tadic said he came to “bow down before the victims.’’

  • Serbia Calls for Boycott agaisnt Kosovo

    The Serbian government has called on Serbs to boycott elections in Kosovo next month, complaining in a statement that the right conditions "had not been set to invite the Serb population to take part".

  • Serbia Looking for American Nazi

    Serbia is seeking extradition from the U.S. of a naturalized American citizen who is suspected of serving in a Nazi unit that killed some 17,000 Jewish and other civilians here during World War II, the justice minister said Friday. Belgrade has worked closely with the U.S. on the case of 88-year-old Egner, who was born in Yugoslavia, but emigrated to the United States in 1960. Egner has denied any knowledge of the Einsatzgruppe, a Nazi-run Serbian police

  • Serbia: Boycotting Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony

    The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded this year's peace prize to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who could not attend the Dec. 10 ceremony in Oslo because he is serving his 11-year prison sentence.
    SerbiaA few days ago, the Chinese authorities sent an official diplomatic note to many countries around the world and called them not to attend the award ceremony in Oslo. Nineteen countries - including Russia, Serbia and Ukraine - chose to skip the Nobel peace prize event.

  • Serbia Hints Russia Hiding Fugitive

    Classified diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks earlier this week revealed that the United States and Western nations are deeply skeptical of Serbia’s intentions to hunt down the war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic, despite having publicly praised the nation for its earnest efforts.U.S. diplomatic cables also described the frustration among some advisers to Serbia’s pro-Western presidency at Russia’s non-cooperation in the hunt for Mladic, and raised questions about a possible Russian hand

  • Exit poll: Ruling party leads Kosovo elections

    Incumbent Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has claimed victory in Kosovo's first general election since the province declared independence from Serbia, as an independent exit poll showed his Democratic Party of Kosovo 6 percentage points ahead of its rivals. "This is a vote for a European Kosovo," Thaci told The "It is a referendum for good governance."

  • Report Names Kosovo Leader as Crime Boss

    A two-year international inquiry has concluded that the prime minister of Kosovo led a clan of criminal entrepreneurs whose activities included trafficking in organs extracted from Serbian prisoners executed during the Kosovo conflict in 1999. Kosovo denounced the findings of the inquiry, which began to leak late Tuesday, ahead of the official release on Thursday.One official called the report slanderous and timed to harm Mr. Thaci.

  • Serbian, RS, Israeli officials at death camp commemoration

    Serbian Parliament Speaker Slavica Đukić-Dejanović today attended a memorial service for Serb, Jewish and Roma victims of Donja Gradina. The site, now located in the Serb entity in Bosnia (RS), was a major killing ground that operated within the WW2 system of the Croatian concentration camp of Jasenovac.Tanjug news agency is reporting that more than 360,000 people were murdered and buried there, most of them Serbs. This is in honor of the victims

  • Foreign policy won’t change in 2011

    Serbian FM Vuk Jeremić has stated that one of the tasks of Serbia's diplomacy in 2011 will be to present the country's internal reforms to the EU. He also pointed out that EU integration would remain Serbia's main strategic goal. “(Serbia's) diplomacy will work on presenting the reforms, and I believe we will be able to complete this successfully and present them in such a way that would ensure the next step in the process of EU integration,

  • Serbia attempts to improve image with peacekeeping

    Serbia is attempting to improve its international image by sending its army on overseas peacekeeping missions. In the 1990s, The country's pro-Western government is determined to end the army's past reputation for nationalism, aggression and even war crimes.At the same base on the outskirts of Belgrade where troops once trained for the wars in Croatia,Bosnia and Kosovo, dozens of local instructors and Nato advisers are teaching soldiers to be guardians of the peace in places like Chad and Cyprus

  • St. Sava Day celebrated in Belgrade

    A ceremony on the occasion of St. Sava's Day was held in Belgrade on Thursday evening. he host of the ceremony, Serbian Education Minister Žarko Obradović recalled that St. Sava was and still is our greatest educator, and that “he has determined our national identity”.In his address, Obradović also noted that "Serbia's strategic priority is joining the EU family", adding that education in Serbia "should prepare future generations for living in the EU".

  • Two hunters dead in accident

    Two persons died while four were injured in a car crash near the village of Novi Glog, close to the town of Vranje, in southern Serbia. The victims were a group of hunters on their way to hunt in the village, "driving in a military jeep". The accident happened when the vehicle swerved off the village road, and into a ravine.

  • Police strike continues

    The Independent Trade Union of Police has stated that it will continue its strike, while talks with Interior Minister Ivica Dačić should take place on Sunday. “We have been notified that we will be able to hold talks with Dačić on Sunday, but we will not end our strike,” Velimir Barbulov of the Independent Trade Union of Police told Tanjug.

  • Vladimir Putin to visit Belgrade "in March"

    Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will arrive here for an official visit in mid-March, sources close to the Serbian government said.This was confirmed by the Russian embassy in Belgrade, which said the visit would take place "in the foreseeable future".The embassy stated that talks were ongoing with the Serbian side and that the date for the visit will be set in the coming weeks.

  • “Time to resolve conflict in Kosovo”

    Head of the Serbian negotiating team for the Belgrade-Priština talks Borko Stefanović expects the dialogue to begin after the new Kosovo government is formed. “The Kosovo issue needs to be resolved, as Serbia owes that to its citizens living in the southern province,” he stressed. “Serbia will enter the negotiations with a new, flexible and creative approach, wishing above all to reach an agreement on normal living conditions and safety for Serbs in Kosovo,” Stefanović was quoted as saying.

  • Serbia drops case against Purda

    Serbian War Crimes Prosecution has decided to give up on the criminal prosecution of Tihomir Purda, Danko Maslov and Petar Janjić due to a lack of evidence. The War Crimes Prosecution stated in a release that the decision was made after it had been determined that there is not enough evidence to raise charges for war crimes against the wounded and the sick.

  • Prosecutor: Non-stop search for fugitives

    Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukčević said that police were searching for Hague fugitives Ratko Mladić and Goran Hadžić round the clock. He told daily Press that should Mladić become a suspect in crimes not included in the Hague Tribunal indictment, the War Crimes Prosecution would start a financial investigation against him, in line with the law on confiscation of property obtained through criminal activity.

  • Several thousand rally against Serbia government

    Thousands of anti-government protesters have rallied in a central Serbian town to demand the government call early elections over the deep economic crisis. About 7,000 people gathered Saturday in Cacak. Organizers say similar protests will be held throughout the Balkan country in the coming weeks. Nationalists want the pro-Western government to schedule an early vote for November. They accuse it of corruption and bad economic policies.

  • TV staff sacked for "sabotage" during Putin visit

    The Radio-Television of Vojvodina has fired one and suspended several other employees over a controversial blunder in a report about the Putin visit.The intended word "friendship" ("prijateljstvo") was replaced with "hostility" ("neprijateljstvo"), so the caption accompanying the report on Wednesday about President Boris Tadić's meeting with Vladimir Putin read, "confirmation of hostility".The mistake happened during a news bulleting that the province's public TV outlet broadcasts nation-wide

  • Road construction workers want corruption probe

    The Ministry of Infrastructure received on Tuesday demands by road construction workers to investigate operations of a number of road construction companies.The workers have been on strike since Tuesday morning, demanding their 2009 and 2010 salaries and investigations against a number of companies, namely Beograd, Vranje, Niš, Kragujevac and Bački Put.

  • "Serbs in Kosovo suffer like no other nation in Europe"

    There is no other nation that is suffering as much as Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija are now, Serbian Orthodox Church Partiarch Irinej told a Russian website.Irinej said that Serbs in Kosovo live in constant fear and that many have laid down their lives for the right to stay on their homesteads at the time when European forces came to stabilize the situation in Kosovo and protect the local population, the Department for External Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church posted on its website.

  • B92 Fund endowment safe house opens

    A safe house for women and children victims of domestic violence was opened in the northern Serbian city of Sombor on Wednesday. Today's opening ceremony was attended by representatives of authorities of the province of Vojvodina, the B92 Fund, the city government and donors. This is a fourth endowment-type facility dedicated to victims of domestic violence that B92 has constructed in the territory of Serbia since 2007, when the campaign was launched.

  • Death toll lower from traffic accidents in Serbia

    Interior Minister Ivica Dačić says the number of traffic accidents fell by 17,141 since the introduction of the country's new Road Traffic Safety Law.The death toll from the accidents is now 19 percent lower, according to him.Since December 2009, when the new law came into force, the number of injured in traffic accident and the number of most serious traffic accidents were both reduced by more than 10 percent.

  • May Day Brings Small Protests

    Only three minor unions have called on their members to gather in Belgrade.Unemployment, failed privatizations, endangered labor rights and workers' poor social standing have not proved sufficient to motivate most to express themselves and show solidarity on this day. But leaders of three unions of employees in health, police and industry sectors expressed their dissatisfaction with working and living conditions in Serbia and they see no reason to celebrate Labor Day