Opinion and Analyses

02.09.2008 Denis Kajić, editor of Travelling Balkans website and member of OWPSEE team, comments on the recent debate in Sarajevo created by the fact that this year`s Queer Festival falls within the days reserved for observation of Islamic holiday of Ramadan.

23.07.2008 Valentina Pellizzer, owpsee executive directress reflects on the arrest of war criminal and the Hague indictee Radovan Karadžić, in her blogg marginalije.blogger.ba.

06.06.2008 We all know how important foreign aid has been for the Balkans over the past years of long and difficult transition. Risto Karajkov dissects the issue, pointing out at the positive and negative aspects of foreign aid as experienced in the Balkans.

02.06.2008 Miljenko Dereta, Executive Director of Civic Initiatives, comments on the triumph of pro-European parties in Vojvodina provincial elections and has some useful advise for former Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica.

20.05.2008 The national Ministry of Finance and Treasury, in cooperation with the B&H Directorate of European Integrations (DEI), organized a meeting in Sarajevo, on May 15, 2008, with the representatives of the civil society organisations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. OWPSEE`s Sanjin Buzo comments on the proceedings at the meeting and the ignorant approach to civil society adopted by BiH Institutions and EC Delegation.

07.05.2008 Representation of LGBT Population on the websites of the Extreme Right in Serbia is the graduate thesis of Marija Radoman, student at the Sociology Department of the School of Philosophy in Belgrade.

06.04.2008 An activist of Citizens of Sarajevo, an informal group that has organized, for the past two months, protests in Sarajevo, that uses the 45 Cents pseudonym, draws a line of recapitulation before the big protests scheduled to take place later today, April 6. (Note: the opinion was written on April 5, 2008)

28.02.2008 OWPSEE`s Denis Kajic has some important questions to ask after the recent violent protests in Sarajevo, provoked by the murder of high school student Denis Mrnjavac and the seriously deteriorating securiti situation in the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

27.02.2008 Creation of political independence starts with the declaration. Ideally, if all relations and interests in a given geographic area are harmonised, or solved, the start of independence gets its logical continuation in the UN, where that status of independent state is made formal. Obviously, Kosovo not exactly in that ideal position and it needs much more than just political independence.

25.02.2008 Andrej Nosov and Dragan Popović from the Youth Initaitive for Human Rights write about the new relations between Serbia and Kosovo after the latter declared independence.

16.02.2008 On this day, Saturday, February 16, Sarajevo is going to protest and demonstrate for its right to be a city of citizens and not of privileged politicians. (Forumaši: Pokažimo sutra da nismo rulja, and Forum: SUBOTA, 16.02.2008., 13.00h).

14.01.2008 A week from this year\'s World Social Forum, Vita Europe launches a debate on today\'s organised social movements. Whether you will be at the WSF or not, send us your side of the story! More than 850 organisations from 64 countries have already registered to the WSF 2008 website!

06.12.2007 Greek philosopher Heraclitus claimed that change is the only constant, and I am inclined to agree, having in mind the latest developments on B&H political scene, if only I weren’t bothered by the question of validity and purpose of changes that result in a situation in which everything remains the same, writes Denis Kajic, editor of Viaggiare i Balcani portal and member of OWPSEE Team, in his commentary originally published on Dosta! portal.

13.11.2007 Kosovo is on the brink of a new era. Kosovo’s upcoming elections on November 17th give us a chance to prove to ourselves, to women and men from our international coalitions for peace and justice and to the entire international community, our readiness to build a just and sustainable peace and inclusive democracy, says the Regional Women\\\'s Lobby for Peace, Security and Justice in SEE.

22.10.2007 The start of transition in the Balkans saw the exponential rise of NGOs. The public space got filled with a myriad of groups pursuing a great diversity of causes ranging from relief, economic development, to democracy, human rights, anti-corruption, and a lot more. Is this enough to replace a stable and functional public administration, asks Risto Karajkov, post-graduate student in International Development at the University of Bologna, Italy.

02.10.2007 The ecology in Montenegro is in the worst possible situation in the past 16 years, i.e. since Montenegro was declared ecological state. To put it simply, ecology is walked over by all those who object to that path of development, writes Sinisa Stevovic from MOST.

06.08.2007 Alen Jusufovic’s story, by his own account, starts in 2005, when a girl from Poland told him about RIVER SEE EVS programme. The rest, as the old saying goes, is history. A very personal and, yet, very enlightening and universal story.

26.07.2007 Does the practice to end all meetings, workshops and conferences threaten to become a self contained mannerism? Should we insist on recommendation only because they present a certain tangible outcome suitable for filling in reports? Our on-and-off contributor, Risto Karajkov, post-graduate student just short of his Ph.D. in the field of social development, asks these and similar questions and provides some answers.

03.05.2007 The Narodna Skupstina (People’s Parliament) of the Republic of Srpska adopted, on October 24, 2000, the Law on Labour (Official Journal of RS, No. 38, November 8, 2000). What attracted attention were the provisions on workers’ council in Articles 109-111. The Law provides that all employees with more than 15 full-time employees, the workers can establish their own council to represent themselves and protect their rights.

08.03.2007 The sigh after the announcement of the ruling by the International Court of Justice in the Hague, by Valentina Pellizzer, Executive Manageress of OWPSEE.