SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Bosnia’s lawmakers approved a law to cut military pensions on Monday, a key step towards winning funds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The lawmakers from autonomous Bosniak-Croat federation, which makes Bosnia along with the Serb Republic, approved a law that unifies pension rules for veterans of the 1992-95 war with 56 votes for, 12 against, and 12 abstained.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Bosnia’s bid to join the European Union faces being “frozen” and a planned election next year declared invalid without urgent reform of its constitution, the EU enlargement commissioner said on Thursday.

Eighteen years since the end of Bosnia’s war, the Balkan state continues to wrestle with deep ethnic rivalry that has left it languishing behind its fellow former Yugoslav republics on the long road to EU accession.

SARAJEVO, April 2 (Reuters) – Police are investigating
alleged tax evasion and irregular spending at Bosnia’s sole
alumina plant, majority-owned by troubled Lithuanian lender Ukio
Bankas, a police spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Ukio Bankas is controlled by Vladimir Romanov, owner of
cash-strapped Scottish soccer club Hearts.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – A seven-month power struggle in Bosnia’s autonomous Muslim-Croat federation deepened on Thursday as Bosnian Muslim lawmakers blocked the appointment of a judge to a top court, effectively blocking a government reshuffle.

Political and ethnic rivalry in the Federation, one of two regions in Bosnia along with the Serb Republic, is symptomatic of the complex and unwieldy system of rule in the Balkan country under the peace accords that ended its 1992-95 war.

SARAJEVO, March 20 (Reuters) – Bosnia’s Edin Dzeko hopes to extend his birthday party with a World Cup qualifying win over Greece on Friday that would represent a big step forward for the Balkan country in their bid to reach their first major tournament as an independent nation.

Dzeko, who turned 27 on Sunday, acknowledged the Bosnians would have to be at their best in the cauldron of Zenica stadium to overcome the 2004 European champions, with the two teams leading Group I on 10 pojnts from four games each.

SARAJEVO, March 5 (Reuters) – Bosnia’s BH Airlines has been
grounded and faces possible bankruptcy over an outstanding bank
debt, a senior government official said on Tuesday.

The Sarajevo-based carrier is solely owned by Bosnia’s
autonomous Muslim-Croat Federation, after Turkish Airlines
pulled out of a joint venture in June last year and
handed its 49-percent stake over to the government.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Nineteen police officers and two supporters were injured in crowd trouble after a Bosnian first division soccer match in Sarajevo on Saturday, police said on Monday.

A second match in the northern town of Gradacac was interrupted for 40 minutes because of nationalist chanting, they said.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Nineteen police officers and two supporters were injured in crowd trouble after a Bosnian first division football match in Sarajevo on Saturday, police said on Monday.

A second match in the northern town of Gradacac was interrupted for 40 minutes because of nationalist chanting, they said.

SARAJEVO, March 4 (Reuters) – Nineteen police officers and two supporters were injured in crowd trouble after a Bosnian first division soccer match in Sarajevo on Saturday, police said on Monday.

A second match in the northern town of Gradacac was interrupted for 40 minutes because of nationalist chanting, they said.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Revered Hungarian director Bela Tarr’s famously uncompromising approach to cinema will now be passed to future generations as he begins a new course for budding filmmakers in Sarajevo.

The 57-year-old retired from directing after the release in 2011 of “The Turin Horse”, a bleak, black-and-white portrayal of a peasant and his daughter abandoned by man and God in their remote, windswept cottage.