06 Oct 14
The delay in establishing new government institutions in Kosovo four months after the general elections is leaving Kosovo diplomats out of pocket.

Nektar Zogjani
BIRN
Pristina

At least five Kosovo embassies in Europe have not paid rents for their offices or salaries to their staff for more than two months as a result of the political deadlock in the country.

An official who works in one of the embassies in Western Europe said staff in the embassy were suffering real hardship.

03 Oct 14
The Court of Appeal in Pristina said there was no legal justification for keeping 11 people arrested for terrorism, including a well-known imam, in detention.

Petrit Collaku
BIRN
Pristina

Kosovo's Court of Appeal on October 1 approved the complaint of the defence of 11 men - seized in a roundup of suspected terrorist supporters - and ordered the Basic Court to review its order to keep them in detention them on remand.

03 Oct 14
More than 4,000 Kosovo refugees, mainly Roma, have just three months left to apply for residency in Montenegro or they could be reclassified as illegal immigrants and have to leave.

Dusica Tomovic
BIRN
Podgorica

Sejetin Hitari lives in a metal container in the rundown Konik refugee camp on the outskirts of Podgorica – a city that has become his home since he fled Kosovo because of the war in the late 1990s.

“I’ve got nowhere to go back to; Montenegro is my homeland now,” the 36-year-old said.

02 Oct 14
The supreme court in Pristina acquitted two Kosovo Serbs who were charged with raping a 16-year-old ethnic Albanian girl during the war in April 1999.

Petrit Collaku
BIRN
Pristina

The two suspects, former Serb policeman Jovica Dejanovic from Priluzje and Djordje Bojkovic from Babin Most, have been cleared of the rape charges, their lawyers said on Thursday.

“The supreme court delivered the right decision which is in compliance with all positive laws in Kosovo,” Bojkovic’s lawyer, Miodrag Brkljac, told BIRN.

02 Oct 14
Kosovo' political stalemate looks set to continue after the constituent session of the new parliament was postponed.

Nektar Zogjani
BIRN
Pristina

Flora Brovina, from the ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, who chaired the constitutent session, said the session had been postponed to create “enough room to overcome the political crisis,” referring to ongoing discussions between the parties to end  the dispute over the election of a speaker.

02 Oct 14
Kosovars are the keenest internet users in the Balkans, in national percentage terms, a global survey of internet and Facebook penetration shows.

Sinisa Jakov Marusic
Skopje
BIRN

The Internet World Stat, a comprehensive survey of internet use, says that 76.6 per cent of the 1.8 million people in Kosovo used the net in 2013.

Kosovo is one of the few countries that is lacking data on Facebook usage, however.

01 Oct 14
While Kosovo remains without a government, the new special court to try Kosovo Liberation Army war crimes suspects cannot start work as planned in January, BIRN has learned.

Marija Ristic
BIRN
Belgrade

Sources within the EU have told BIRN that it is unlikely that the high-profile new court will be established and running as planned in January 2015 because Kosovo has been stuck in political deadlock without a government since elections four months ago.

01 Oct 14
Judges in the trial of guerrilla commander turned politician Fatmir Limaj and nine other ex-fighters accused of abuses at the wartime Klecka detention centre were disqualified after claims of bias.

Petrit Collaku
BIRN
Pristina

The court of appeal in Pristina on Wednesday disqualified the trio of judges in the high-profile Klecka war crimes case after the defence team claimed that they were biased against the former Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas on trial.

26 Sep 14
As Kosovo tries to stop its sons from going off to fight in Iraq and Syria, sympathy for their cause remains strong among some hardline Muslims.

Nektar Zogjani, Petrit Collaku and Nate Tabak
BIRN
Pristina

The calls stopped coming more than three months ago.

Even while fighting in Iraq and Syria for the militants of Islamic State, Musli Musliu still checked in with his family regularly. He used to post photos on Facebook, showing a beaming young man posing with his comrades. One even shows him in a sweet shop.

25 Sep 14
Nikola Sainovic, the former deputy prime minister of Yugoslavia convicted of war crimes in Kosovo, will become the fourth Balkan war criminal to serve his sentence in Sweden.

Marija Ristic
BIRN
Belgrade

Sainovic will be sent to a Swedish jail after being found guilty by the Hague Tribunal of deportation, murder, persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds of ethnic Albanians during war in Kosovo in 1999.

His conviction was upheld on appeal by the UN-backed court in January, but his sentence was reduced from 22 to 18 years in prison.