SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Bosnia’s international envoy said Thursday he would block a referendum planned by Serbs for next month that challenges his authority, calling it the greatest threat yet to the deal that ended the 1990s war.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton arrived on an unannounced visit to Sarajevo Thursday evening, demonstrating the international community’s growing alarm over plans for the referendum, viewed as illegal by the West.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – A Balkans theater project has adapted a 1930s essay by a Croatian author which warns against the rise of right-wing politics in Europe and the stark divide between rich and poor.

Based on an essay of the same name by Croatian intellectual Miroslav Krleza from 1935, the play “Evropa Danas” or Europe Today echoes the rise of the Nazis through a thought-provoking collage of slide and light shows and live music combined with individual acting and dance.

SARAJEVO, April 6 (Reuters) – Saudi investors pledged on
Wednesday to invest in Bosnia with $50 million starting capital
and Turkey said that one of its banks will extend credit lines
for infrastructure projects.

Officials from the Middle East and Turkey said they wanted
to help development of Bosnia, a Balkan country impoverished
during the 1992-95 war where a large Muslim population lives
alongside the Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats.
The Islamic Development Bank (IDB), Al Baraka BARKA.BH
banking group and other Saudi investors have formed a joint
investment company for Bosnia, said Saudi Arabia’s Sheikh Saleh
Kamel, the chairman of the Islamic Chamber of Commerce and
Industry.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Bosnia’s suspension from international soccer was the product of a long-standing political problem and might be a blessing in disguise, officials in the Balkan country said on Friday.

FIFA and UEFA, soccer’s world and European governing bodies, suspended Bosnia earlier on Friday after the country’s football federation (NFSBiH) failed to adopt new statutes in line with their rules.

SARAJEVO, April 1 (Reuters) – Bosnia’s suspension from
international soccer was the product of a long-standing
political problem and might be a blessing in disguise, officials
in the Balkan country said on Friday.

FIFA and UEFA, soccer’s world and European governing bodies,
suspended Bosnia earlier on Friday after the country’s football
federation (NFSBiH) failed to adopt new statutes in line with
their rules.

SARAJEVO, March 10 (Reuters) – Bosnia’s economy grew O.9
percent last year, more than an earlier estimate of 0.5 percent,
but political instability is weighing down the Balkan country’s
performance, the central bank governor said on Thursday.

“The 0.9 percent growth in 2010 clearly shows the country is
back in a positive zone,” Kemal Kozaric told reporters, adding
that he still expects the economy to grow 3 percent this year.

SARAJEVO/VIENNA (Reuters) – Austrian police arrested a wartime Bosnian army general late on Thursday at Vienna airport on a warrant from Serbia which wants him to face war crimes charges, Austrian and Bosnian officials said.

Jovan Divjak is one of a group of 19 Bosnian officials charged by Serbia over an attack on a former Yugoslav army column in Sarajevo early in the 1992-95 war.

SARAJEVO, Jan 25 (Reuters) – UK-based emerging markets
private equity group Greenhouse Investments said on Tuesday it
was interested in buying a controlling stake in Bosnia’s
Postbank BH as part of its regional expansion strategy.

“Greenhouse is in the process of becoming a regional
merchant bank with a focused fixed income offering that will
provide qualifying southeast European companies with access to
international debt capital markets,” its chief executive,
Michael O’Leary-Collins, said in a statement.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Inadequate prosecution of crimes relating to 1990s wars has hampered European integration of the Western Balkans, a human rights watchdog said in an annual report published on Monday.

“Everyone can agree that European integration is the goal for the Western Balkans,” Benjamin Ward, the Europe and Central Asia deputy director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Bosnia’s war crimes court handed down long jail sentences on Tuesday on four Bosnian Serb ex-policemen for killing of more than 150 Bosnian Muslims in central Bosnia early in the 1992-95 war.

The court jailed Dusan Jankovic for 27 years, Zoran Babic and Milorad Skrbic for 22 years and Zeljko Stojnic for 15 years for committing war crimes against humanity, the judicial council’s president Minka Kreho said.