According to him, “45 per cent of the tickets sold are international, based on previous years [of attendance]”. While he acknowledges that Kosovo’s big diaspora adds to the visitor numbers, Lipa explains that “our goal is to develop an event in Kosovo that perhaps no one else could develop to the scale that we have”….
American photographer Ron Haviv shared his experiences documenting the breakup of Yugoslavia, from Slovenia’s independence to Kosovo’s liberation, capturing the devastating human impact of the conflicts and the people affected. The wars in former Yugoslavia “were about eliminating the idea of the identity of ‘the other’ whether they were Slovenian, Croat, Bosniak, Kosovar and so…
Kosovo government protests as European Commission scraps visa requirement for its residents who hold Serbian passports issued by Serbia’s Directorate for Kosovo. Kosovo residents, most of them Serbs, who have passports issued by Serbia’s Directorate for Kosovo, until now less valuable than standard Serbian passports, will now be able to cross the external border of…
In its fifteenth edition, the Anibar International Animation Festival, in Peja, urges citizens to raise their voices against patriarchal oppression. Park Karagaç in Peja bears a quiet power. Its unassuming nature, containing only a basketball court, playground, and lake theatre, belies the significance of the venue. The laidback outdoor setting creates familiarity and comfort amongst…
Ekrem Bajrovic was sentenced on Friday to 12 years’ imprisonment for his role in the beating, torture and killing of ethnic Albanian civilians who were fleeing towards Albania. The Prishtina Basic Court on Friday found Kosovo Bosniak Ekrem Bajrovic, a former member of Serbian forces during the Kosovo war in 1998-99, guilty of war crimes,…
The Kosovo Albanian community, once displaced by political turmoil and war, has recently been surging Switzerland’s business landscape at an incredible pace. The halls and offices of Google in Zurich, Switzerland, were buzzing with a harmonious blend of chit-chat and banter in Albanian and Swiss German as everyone enjoyed the AI-inspired beer ‘Mu’Pi’ on the…
Public institutions in Kosovo, including government institutions, independent agencies and justice institutions, do not have platforms properly informing the public about war crimes and transitional justice, a BIRN report launched in Kosovo on Wednesday concluded. Kreshnik Gashi, managing editor of BIRN and Internews Kosova publication in Albanian, Kallxo.com, and co-author of the report ‘The Other’, Who…
The surge in summer tourism in Kosovo, marked by the organisation of large-scale international festivals, has underscored the accommodation challenges prompting an increasing reliance on platforms such as Airbnb to fill the void left by limited hotel capacities. Rreze Cuca, from Tuz, Montenegro, was not able to find accommodation in Prishtina in 2022 when two…
Pjeter Shala was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the arbitrary detention and torture of at least 18 detainees, and the murder of one detainee, at the Kukes Metal Factory in Albania. The Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on Tuesday found former Kosovo Liberation Army member Pjeter Shala guilty of three war crimes…
Twenty-three members of Liridona Deliu’s family were killed in a massacre in September 1998 – but she’s facing an uphill battle to be recognised by the Kosovo government as a war victim. Survivors of the Abri e Eperme/Gornje Obrinje massacre in the Drenas area of Kosovo, in which 23 members of the Deliu family were…