The Balkans are the “water tower” of Europe, but drought threatens everywhere. The Danube is at its lowest level for 70 years when it enters Romania, the last country it crosses before flowing into the Black Sea. Throughout the region, the freshwater cycle is disrupted by global warming and human activity. State of play in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Romania.
Meanwhile, terrible fires continue to ravage the Karst region, Slovenia. In Herzegovina, it is the natural park of Blidinje which has gone up in smoke for several days. In both cases, the firefighters are struggling to fight. The Balkans pay a heavy price climate change.
In Greece, the controversy takes a political turn. The island of Lesbos has been ravaged by flames, other fires are still continuing in Crete, Thrace or the Peloponnese, but the authorities maintain that enough means would be committed. The opposition recalls that the Mitsotakis government preferred to recruit police officers rather than firefighters.
Arm wrestling in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina is already campaigning for general elections on October 2, and Croatian nationalists in the HDZ are still calling for a change in the electoral law that would further strengthen the ethnic structure of the electorate. For Edina Bećirevic, it would even mean finalizing the ethnic partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Pressured by three days of demonstrations in Sarajevo, Christian Schmidt, the International High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, finally imposed only technical amendments to the electoral law. But he urges Bosnian and Croatian politicians to find an agreement by the october electionsthreatening to use the ” bonn powers “, to impose ” significant changes “.
Homophobia at the top
Attack against an LGBTQI local in Podgorica, death threats against an activist… Hate speech on the rise in Montenegroeven though the country is the most advanced in the region in the recognition of rights.
Serbia is preparing to host Europride 2022, which will take place from September 12 to 18. However, the new mayor of Belgrade does not intend to go there, preferring to inaugurate “family days”. Aleksandar Sapica former water polo player who established himself in politics thanks to the support of President Vučić has also just created a scandal by declaring that he “ did not know what Ratko Mladić had done during the Bosnian war “. The vitriol reaction of the Peščani site.
“Hej Afrika”
Who remembers Steva Šumadinac alias Jungo Chokwe, Edi Dekenga, the Congolese star of Elipse, or the Guinean Mohamed Kaba Sow? These African singers and musicians came to Yugoslavia within the framework of university exchanges between non-aligned and they rocked socialist-era pop.