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State Department Delegation Visits BIRN BiH

A five-member delegation from the US State Department has visited BIRN BiH, where the delegation was briefed about war-crimes reporting and trials conducted before the State Court.

The Delegation, consisting of Linda Toth, Christopher Merill, Stephen Page, Paul Saupe and Trim Vernelle, representatives of the Bureau for European Affairs with the US Government, met Anisa Suceska-Vekic, BIRN Director, and Merima Husejnovic, Justice Report Editor.

Members of the delegation expressed interest in BIRN’s past work reporting on war crimes, and asked about the influence and interest of the public in these cases.

Anisa Suceska-Vekic presented the members of the delegation with an overview of projects initiated by BIRN over the past five years, including Justice Report, Justice Radio and Justice TV. She also spoke about the training sessions on court reporting, organized by BIRN, for journalists from different towns in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Merima Husejnovic explained the importance of reporting on war crimes and described practical experiences in reporting on trials conducted before the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and problems that BIRN journalists face in their work.

The State Department Delegation expressed its wholehearted support for the work being done by BIRN, and stressed the importance of this work.

Make Your Own State Budget

The Skockajte budžet team invite you to join us on Saturday, May 15, on the terrace in front of Terazijska cesma,  beginning at 12 mid day and tell us how you think the Government should spend the national budget.

The organisers are calling you to come and support the event which is aimed at providing citizens with a vote in the process of the budget planning.

 

On the stands at Terazijska cesma, there will be 25 boxes, one for each ministry, and people will be able to have their say about how the budget of 656 billion dinars should be spent by allotting the money according to their own priorities.

 

At the end of the day, the results will be sent to government institutions and published on the site www.skockajtebudzet.rs. We hope that this will allow the government and the wider public to get insight into the opinion of  how Serbia’s people  think the national budget should be allotted.

 

This event is part of the “Eye on Public Finances” project, aimed at improving the process of budget planning and control of the spending.

Training on public finances monitoring

BIRN Serbia organises a three-day long training course for journalists from the local media on the subject of monitoring and control of public finances in Belgrade

This program is part of the multi year long programme “Eye on public finances”, which BIRN implemented together with Pro Concept, an expert organisation, supported by the British Embassy in Belgrade.

The Training course will be held at the Media Center from 8th to 10th of May with the support of IREX Serbia.

The training will be attended by editors and reporters from more than a dozen local television and radio stations around Serbia and trainers will be the investigative journalists Sasa Lekovic, Branko Čečen and Nevena Ršumović.

Besides them, the participants will have the opportunity to learn more about the subject of public finance from the experts Danica Popvić and Sasa Radulovic.

This is the first in a series of training which are aimed at raising the standards of monitoring and reporting on public finances by the local media.

Articles produced as a result of the training will be published on the portal www.skockajtebudzet.rs and as a programme on the stations whose representatives participated in the training. 

An inside look into the Berlin Seminar

The Seminar in Berlin, which officially launched this year’s programme, included an intensive agenda with a wide range of guest speakers from Germany, UN and Balkans.

 To begin with, fellows received practical information on the Research & Editorial stages – from the story outline to publishing: tips, suggestions, and potential pitfalls, presented by Gordana Igric and Marcus Tanner.

They also attended a presentation with an insidelook into the fact checking process, presented by DR. Hauke Janssen, Director of Documentation at Spiegel. Romanian fellow Mircea Dan Opris, described Fact checking as one of the most important attributes of an accurate article or report. He noted that unlike Western European and North American newsrooms, the South East European media outlets do not hold the special position of “fact checker”. Mircea continued to explain that in the Balkans, most stories are based on journalist’s own documenting process and it all ends up into the editor’s power of knowledge and trust. Without exaggeration, Der Spiegel, one of Germany’s most reliable publications, is a true example of how far and sharp fact checking can go.

David Brewer, from Media Helping Media, and Milos Milosavljevic, in charge for BIRN online projects, presented “Your story online” – Using multimedia tools to enhance understanding and engage the audience. Georgiana Illie, 2010 fellow from Romania, found the presentation very useful in teaching participants how to present their stories in a multimedia way and exploit online contents in order to maximize its value. David Brewer talked about how the media model is shifting from a -to engage with- model (talk-shows, letters to editors, internet communication) to a -to participate in- model, in which the media layout the facts, the audience picks what’s meaningful to them and then shares it with their audience. Milos Milosavljevic presented the new BIRN platform, which allows the fellows to build this type of online product, with various bits of information that let readers in the process of documentation and the background of the stories.

Fellows also attended a presentation on “Demography – Tackling the taboo of population policy” by Dr. Reiner Klingholz, Director of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development. Serbian fellow, Ivan Angelovski, concluded from the presentation that EU enlargement helps EU demography. Basing his lecture on the research project “Europe’s Demographic Future”, Klingholz said that the EU enlargement process could solve many of its demography issues, which will make it more competitive in time. In that sense, the EU should consider including both Turkey and Ukraine in next 20 or 40 years. Angelovski further noted Dr. Klingholz’ explanation that enlargement could affect demography in future EU countries because “people tend to have fewer babies when new opportunity arises”, illustrating it with the situation in Eastern Germany after the fall of Berlin wall.

On the last day of the Seminar, fellows had the opportunity to visit the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany, attending a presentation on “Where Do the Balkans Stand in German Foreign Policy?”, by Graf Nikolaus Lambsdorff, Representative for Southeastern Europe, Turkey and the EFTA states. Ruzica Fotinovska, our 2010 fellow from Macedonia, highlighted the most important issues discussed such as the Serbia-Kosovo relationship in connection with Serbia’s EU accession process, the economic downturn inGreece and how this will affect the region, the Macedonia name status, as well as the approach of Germany towards each country in the Balkans and the importance of maintaining good neighbourly relations.

Fellows will now start their 3 months of research, traveling to neighboring countries and to the EU, exploring different aspects of their projects.

BIRN Attends High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council’s Workshop

BIRN Justice Report journalist Aida Alic attends a workshop on “Support for the judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina – strengthening prosecutorial capacities in the criminal judiciary system”, held in Sarajevo.

The High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, HJPC, organized a half-day workshop for media and NGO representatives in order to apprise them of the new judicial reform project in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the importance of informing the public about the role of prosecutors in criminal investigations.

A three-year project on “Support for the Judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina – Strengthening Prosecutorial Capacities in the Criminal Judiciary System” is due to begin in the autumn of 2010. The project aims at improving prosecutors’ methods of work, strengthening collaboration with police during investigations and providing information to the public in a more effective way.

The project is being funded by the Swiss Government through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, SDC, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and will be implemented by the HJPC with the help of governmental and non-governmental agencies, and the media.

Representatives of media, NGOs, HJCP and SDC, as well as Zurich Cantonal Prosecution attended the workshop.

Workshop participants said it was necessary to enhance information sharing with the public on the work of prosecutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to educate the media, the NGO sector and citizens about the nature of investigations.

Reporting from Local Communities

On April 27 and 28 the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, in collaboration with USAID’s Judicial Sector Development Programme, continued a training course for journalists from Bosnia and Herzegovina reporting on war-crimes trials conducted before cantonal and district courts.

In the second week of the training course Mehmed Halilovic, former Ombudsman for Media, explained how journalists can obtain necessary information in accordance with the Law on Free Access to Information, while Boris Grubesic, Spokesperson of the State Prosecution, explained what type of information can be provided by the institution, also describing the criminal prosecution process.

Ljiljana Zurovac, Director of the Press Council, spoke about the ethics codex, which includes recommendations for court reporters.

At this training session, lecturers drew the journalists’ attention to the most frequent mistakes made in war-crimes trials reporting. Participants were then asked to prepare news on the basis of verdicts, indictments and judicial institutions’ announcements, avoiding potential mistakes.

On the second day, participants were presented with cases in which journalists were charged or convicted for contempt of court or denial of facts determined by verdicts. Ways of avoiding such situations were discussed.

The training course continues on May 27 and 28. These sessions will focus on the importance of information provided by judicial institutions, for the country and the region.

The goal of the course is to train journalists in reporting war-crimes trials conducted before courts in their local communities, as the transfer of “less sensitive cases” for further processing by cantonal and district courts and Brcko District Court has now begun.

BICCED Project Launched with Regional Conference on Culture

A regional conference on cultural policies in the Western Balkans was held on April 20 in Skopje, marking the start of the three-year project entitled Balkan Initiative for Cultural Cooperation, Exchange and Development, BICCED, which aims to contribute to the change and development of cultural policies in the region, both locally and regionally, through the production and dissemination of analytical articles about both country-specific and shared cultural policies issues.

The conference, entitled “The Balkans, Media and Culture – Time for Change”, gathered more than 30 representatives of cultural organisations and journalists from the region, who gave valuable input for the creation of an editorial strategy for the BICCED project. BICCED is being implemented by the Balkan Investigative Regional Reporting Network (BIRN) and the SEEcult.org portal for the South-East European culture. The project is funded by the Swiss Cultural Programme in the Western Balkans (SCP).

 

Representatives of cultural organisations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia took part in the discussion, which aimed to pinpoint the main weaknesses of the local cultural scenes, as well as common problems and the ways in which regional cooperation and media coverage through the BICCED project could help serve as a platform for wider and diverse cultural cooperation and networking.

 

The participants agreed that there is an urgent need for more space for culture and art in the media sphere, and especially noted the lack of analytical and critical articles, which could initiate wider public discussions and contribute to faster changes and improvements in the field of culture.

 

Opening the Conference and presenting the BICCED project, BIRN regional director Gordana Igric announced that the production of analytical articles on cultural policies, which will start in May this year, will be published on a dedicated culture section of BIRN’s Balkan Insight web site and distributed via a monthly newsletter. Editorial output will also be translated into the languages of the region and disseminated to the more than 90 media outlets across the Balkans, both those already republishing BIRN output, and others.

 

Vesna Milosavljevic, director of the SEEcult.org, said that the time for changes in the fields of culture and media in the Balkans came long ago, adding that she hoped that the BICCED project would boost this process and become a sign that media organisations, primarily focused on politics, as BIRN has been until now, could be interested in problems of culture, too.

 

Bertan Selim, deputy regional manager of the SCP, said that SCP has a rich experience in cooperation and support to projects of cultural organisations in the Balkans and that it was searching for what was missing and what needs additional support. According to him, changes in the field of culture and media that might be triggered thanks to the BICCED project would be helpful for everyone.

 

Ibrahim Mehmeti, national programme officer of the Swiss Cooperation Office Macedonia, also stressed the importance of culture and communication for regional cooperation and especially for the processes of EU integration of the Western Balkans countries in Europe.

 

The importance of cooperation was also highlighted by Piro Misha. the executive director of the Institute of Dialogue & Communication in Tirana, who was one of the key speakers at the conference.

 

“We are small markets and can’t survive without cooperation,” said Piro Misha in the first part of the conference, which was open to media and gave a general overview of cultural policies in the region and the main problems facing cultural organisations.

 

Misha added that journalism in the field of culture in Albania has almost disappeared, accompanied by the lack of basic information about the situation and possible partners in other countries in the region.

 

Other key speakers included Nihad Kreševljaković, executive producer of the International Theatre Festival MESS in Sarajevo, and experts of the Compendium project: Zlatko Teodosievski, art historian, art critic and author from Skopje, and Hristina Mikić, lecturer at the University of Art in Belgrade and the Higher School for Business Studies in Novi Sad.

 

Common problems stressed during the introductory speeches and further discussions included the lack of national cultural strategies, insufficient public funding and nontransparent allocation of funds, politically-driven support for both organisations and appointees to leading positions in cultural institutions, incompetence in administration and policy makers circles, as well as a range of old-fashioned administrative obstacles, such as the lack of tax exemption for investments in culture.

 

Vivacious discussion was heard on copyright and piracy issues, especially in the publishing sector, followed by the participants agreeing on the shared problem of brain drain and lack of support for young talent, and problems of freelance artists.

 

Some of the most important problems were identified as the lack of the support to the independent cultural scenes, with the example of the cultural centre Tocka in Skopje, which had recently been closed.

 

An optimistic note to discussions was offered by guest speaker Dea Vidovic from Croatia, the chief editor and project manager of the portal Kulturpunkt.hr, who was a programme coordinator of the project Operation:City in Zagreb 2005. She gave a presentation of the tactical approaches to local cultural policies and presented the case study of Zagreb Centre for Independent Culture and Youth as a good model for advocacy practices.

 

The second part of the conference, which was closed to the public, consisted of two moderated brainstorming sessions on what to report on and networking strategy – using formal and informal communication tools to influence policy and opinion makers across the region.

 

Among the participants were Biljana Prentoska from Cultural Contact Point Macedonia/Ministry of Culture, art historian, Darka Radosavljevic-Vasiljevic, curator and director of the Remont Independent Art Association from Belgrade; Veton Nurkollari, artistic director and one of founders of the DokuFest in Prizren, Robert Alagjozovski cultural operator, journalist and art critic from Skopje, Biljana Tanurovska-Kjulavkovski from Lokomotiva from Skopje, Vala Osmani, architect, co-founder and director of the architecture department of a project institution Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina, Silvia Dražić as a representative of the Art Clinic and Initiative for cultural policies in Novi Sad, artist Mladen Bundalo from Tac.ka from Prijedor, Iskra Geshoska from Kontrapunkt from Skopje.

 

Among the participants were ten experienced journalists from the region, who were selected for the first phase of the BICCED project through an open call, and who had participated in a training seminar held by BIRN experts prior to the conference. The training aimed to improve the journalists’ skills of analytical and investigative journalism.

 

The participants offered valuable input for the creation of an editorial strategy for the BICCED project and the dissemination of its results.

 

BIRN in Cooperation with derStandard Launches Exchange and Capacity Building Programme

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, in cooperation with der Standard, has begun a one-year journalist exchange programme. The programme, which began in April 2010, will include journalists from Austria, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Serbia, and there will be one exchange held per month.

Florian Niederndorfer was the first Austrian journalist to come to Belgrade as part of the exchange. He is conducting research on the history of the USCE Tower, the tallest sky-scraper in Belgrade and the ex-headquarters of the Communist Party under Tito’s regime. The building was bombed in 1999 during the NATO military operation.

Today, crisis-troubled Austrian Hypo Alpe Adria Bank and a number of multinational IT companies, like IMB, occupy offices in the building.

The evolution of the USCE Tower is a particularly interesting research topic, given that the 25 storey building, which was once a symbol of communism, is currently home to some of the most visible symbols of capitalism. Today there is little evidence that the tower was ever linked to communism.

Florian stayed in Belgrade for three days. He held interviews with two historians – Cedomir Antic and Professor Djordje Stankovic, and architect Natasa Vukosavljevic. During his discussions with the historians, he learned that Tito in fact never actually entered the building.

According to Florian, whose April visit was his first to Belgrade, the city surpassed all his expectations and he was very pleased to be the first exchange journalist of the programme.

He was left with the impression that Serbia’s capital fits well with the slogan “No sleep”, enjoy Belgrade, as an advertisement for the country’s most popular energy drink says. Florian was fascinated by the city’s skyscrapers and Belgrade’s other urban delights. He was also very pleased with the  “friendly and warm-hearted reception by the BIRN staff”.

Bojana Barlovac will be the first BIRN journalist to participate in the exchange; she will travel to Vienna at the beginning of May.

Life in Kosovo debates fiscal cash registers

This Thursday, Life in Kosovo transmits a debate on the roll-out of fiscal cash registers.

How ready are we to pay taxes to the state? How is the process of the installation of these cash registers going? How much does this process cost the state of Kosovo and how much has it cost in the region? What are the reactions of businesses and consumers to the installation of the fiscal cash registers? Who will observe the process of the installation of fiscal cash registers? 

 

Does the Tax Administration of Kosovo have the capacity to manage this process? What do the company representatives who have won the tender for the installation say and what do businesses say?

To discuss these issues, the guests of Muhamet Hajrullahu in the studio will be:

Behxhet Haliti, Head of the Tax Administration of Kosovo ;
Driton Shuki, General Director of GEKOS Company ;
Lumir Abdixhiku, Executive Director in the RIINVEST Institute ;
Ramiz Kelmendi, Owner of ELKOS company ;
Shyqiri Bytyqi, Tax Advisor ;

During the programme, BIRN will also transmit a report from the journalist Artan Haracia on the government reshuffle.

Journalist Edona Musa reports on how the Municipality of Prishtina is not respecting the decisions of the municipal court.

In the “Justice in Kosovo”section, researcher Isa Gacaferi discusses whether there will be a raise of judges’ salaries in January 2011 on the basis of a parliamentary bill. Reasercher Faton Ademi also talks about the publication of a list of officials suspected of corruption.

Finally, the “Week’s Highlight”section, prepared by the journalist Petrit Collaku, looks at “The Days of Pride”, an event organised by war veterans to remember the martyrs of the Pristina region.

 

 

Life in Kosovo is a co-production between Kosovo Public Television, RTK and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN. It is broadcast every Thursday, starting at 20:20.

Regional Conference on Culture Held in Skopje

A regional cultural conference dubbed “The Balkans, Media and Culture – Time for Change” was held on Tuesday in Skopje and marked the start of the forthcoming three-year project: Balkan Initiative for Cultural Cooperation, Exchange and Development, BICCED.

The project is organised by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN and the South Eastern Europe Culture Portal, SEEcult.org. It is funded by the Swiss Cultural Programme in the Western Balkans, SCP.

Distinguished experts and individuals involved in all aspects of cultural policy from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, and Macedonia took part in the discussion today, which aimed to pinpoint the main weaknesses of the local cultural scenes and the ways in which regional cooperation could help address these points.

“It is high time for change and improvement,” Zlatko Teodosievski from the Skopje based New Line\Compendium said in his speech at the conference.

The participants shared local experiences concerning media coverage of cultural events, the organisation of cultural institutions, freelance artists, property rights and other subjects.

Nihad Kresevljakovic from the MESS international theatre festival in Bosnia and Herzegovina noted that media across the region pay very little attention to cultural happenings, which are all too often either absent from their coverage or replaced with trivial information about pop stars.

“The most important paper in Bosnia and Herzegovina for years did not have a culture page,” Kresevljakovic said.

Piro Misha the director of Tirana- based Institute of Dialogue and Communication added that the media in his country mainly ignore cultural events and when they report on such happenings the coverage is often biased and incompetent.

Hristina Mikic from Belgrade University stressed the importance of comprehensive and updated laws on culture that are needed in order for change to happen in the stale public culture institutions which, she said, in many ways remain unchanged from the old socialist era.

Other participants included Dea Vidovic (Kulturpunkt, Zagreb), Mladen Bundalo (artist, Tac.ka, Prijedor), Veton Nurkollari (Dokufest, Prizren), Robert Alagjozovski (cultural operator, journalist and art critic, Skopje), Biljana Tanurovska-Kjulavkovski (Lokomotiva, Skopje), as well as representatives of other cultural institutions.

The participants also discussed the lack of quality cultural critics, the low quality of the translation of the books that are published in local languages, as well as copyright offences, which occur frequently.

The BICCED project aims to serve as a platform for future cultural cooperation among the countries in the region. It will also be focused on common cultural policy issues which can help the states evolve and develop in this area.

Journalists, media and culture organisations, as well as government representatives, shared their thoughts on how they can contribute to the project through various events such as trainings, researches, publications and open debates.

As part of the project’s aim to boost the visibility of culture in the region, ten journalists will be picked each year to participate in training activities. They will be able to compose articles on culture which will be published in media outlets in their own countries and across the region.