Conflicts

Elva is a platform developed in Georgia that allows to easily receive feedback from local communities via SMS. Successfully used to map local needs along the ABL with South Ossetia, it could soon be used elsewhere

In his contribution for the dossier “Abkhazia, twenty years after the war ”, Francisco Martínez shares with Osservatorio's readers the materials he gathered in late 2010 while visiting the region, including video interviews in Gali, Sukhumi and Tbilisi

The Kosovo-Serbia deal is a victory for the civic notion of statehood and citizenship, avoiding further risks of ethnic partitions. Also, it is a remarkable success for the EU, and a reason to be optimistic about its future

ICG's latest report on Abkhazia is timely and its recommendations show the way forward. As usual, It provides a wealth of information and details. Yet, it is not without imprecisions

In recent months, a number of incidents have taken tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan to very high levels. On the Azeri side, the rhetoric is more and more explicitly anti-Armenian and warlike, as clearly exemplified by the Safarov case and the story of writer Akram Aylisli. Yet, things have not always been such.

Zelenkovac is an eco-tourist village in the Bosnian mountains, not far from Banja Luka, hosting artists and travellers from all over the world. According to his founder, Boro Janković, its beauty has a mission

The law introducing double signs in Latin and Cyrillic on the streets of Vukovar has triggered strong protests. But how much is the city really divided?

Negotiations between Belgrade and Priština are swiftly proceeding, while Serbs in Northern Kosovo fear being abandoned by the new socialist government

For the first time in the recent history of Albania, extreme nationalism has political representation: the Red and Black Alliance. An interview with anthropologist Armanda Kodra

Armenia and Azerbaijan are in a bitter conflict. Dialogue between the sides is difficult, but some visits across the border are still happening. The story of an Azerbaijani journalist in Armenia

In north-eastern Syria, a region with a Kurdish majority, the civil war becomes a clash between the Free Syrian Army and the Kurdish-Syrian separatists of the Democratic Union Party (PYD). A report by our correspondent from the Turkish-Syrian border

After the acquittal of generals Gotovina and Markač at the ICTY, the Croatian judiciary must demonstrate that they know how to judge the crimes committed by the Croatian side in the 90s, without the bias seen so far against the Serbs

The law "On the state language", approved by the authorities in Sukhumi in 2007, risks exacerbating inter-ethnic relations in Abkhazia, a territory that remains largely multi-ethnic, even after the ethnic cleansing that happened during the war. Our correspondent went to Abkhazia to find out more about it. A feature story

‘Everybody talks about Syria, but nobody does anything. Instead of stopping the whips, people count while we are being flogged. How is that possible?’ Ibrahim is twenty years-old, lives in Damascus and longs for a different Syria. The last episode of “From the Caucasus to Beirut”, a journey on the discovery of the Middle-Eastern Armenian diaspora

Damascus. When I get there, in December 2011, the uprising against Bashar Al Assad has been going on for ten months. In the city, under the ever-present eye of the dictator, everything seems calm, though at the same time absent and precarious. Even for the historical Armenian community, once again prey to its destiny of chronic lack of safety. The thirteenth episode of “From the Caucasus to Beirut”

Amman is the capital of a Country hovering between remaining faithful to a pro-Western monarchy and the shock wave of the Arab Spring. A community of three thousand Armenians, a small star in the firmament of the diaspora, lives and survives the contradictions of the Middle-East. The eleventh episode of our report “From the Caucasus to Beirut”

Over the years, almost all historical leaders of the Chechen separatist rebels have been killed. In the movement there are no more figures known to the general public, but attacks continue. For the Chechen leadership, however, it is important that enemies have a name. Today, the enemy's name is Gakayev

A city symbol of the Armenian resistance. Razed twice to the ground, first by the Ottoman troops and then by the terrible earthquake of last winter, Van seems to share its destiny with the beautiful Tamara, a legendary figure disappeared in the abysses of the lake it looked over. The eighth episode of our report, “From the Caucasus to Beirut”

Arafat’s bodyguard, then on the front line in the Armenian armed struggle and for 10 years a prisoner in a Syrian jail. “When I came out, everything had changed. The USSR no longer existed”. The meeting with Sarop, in Beirut’s Armenian quarter. The second episode of the report “From the Caucasus to Beirut”

One of the first Turkish scholars to tackle the question of the Armenian genocide in an open and forthright manner, Taner Akçam thinks that overcoming the taboo of the genocide will also enable Turkey to strengthen its own role as a regional power

On 12 April, the murder of five people by lake Smiljkovo, at the outskirts of Skopje, struck Macedonia's ethnic cohesion. Five people are now in jail, accused of being part of an Islamic terrorist organization. Many questions, however, remain unanswered

There are young people in Chechnya who live in prosperity and rapidly pursue their careers. If they sing the praises of Putin and Kadyrov, that is. For all the others, life can be very difficult

At the beginning of May 1992, in one of the hardest battles during the recent conflict in Nagorno Karabakh, the Armenians took the city of Shushi/Shusha. A portrait of the city 20 years later

When UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced on the 21^st of April that the eagerly awaited international conference would not take place, the last hopes were shattered of seeing Cyprus take its turn in the EU presidency as a reunited Country. Not a surprise, certainly. Indeed, there is just a crumb of hope of seeing any evolution in the negotiations. A report from the island

The motto of Turkey's foreign policy in recent years has been: “Zero problems with the neighbours”. But now the Syrian crisis is forcing Ankara to consider a possible military intervention to bring an end to the violence of Bashar al-Assad's regime

Vivid and intense memories from the beginning of the siege of Sarajevo. Friends turning into enemies and loved ones leaving the city. Disbelief as the war starts tragically to unfold

The basic idea behind Go Group Media is simple: give a camera to people from all walks of life, living in isolated parts of the country, and tell them to make films about their lives or things that matter to them. The result is an amazing way to get to know the lives of people living in different parts of the Caucasus

Religion, education, politics. Observations on some recent events in the Bosnian news, a few weeks before the activities scheduled to remind Europe and the world of the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of the siege of Sarajevo and the war in Bosnia Herzegovina

The agreement between Kosovo and Belgrade, reached through EU mediation, enables Kosovo to be represented at regional summits and sign commercial agreements with third countries. At one condition, though: the country's name must be marked by an asterisk linking it to a footnote. The meaning of which is explained to us by Andrea Lorenzo Capussela's

The referendum organised by four Serbian municipalities in North Kosovo riaffirmed their refusal to accept Pristina's authority. As expected, the vote was rejected by the Kosovo government and international authorities. But the referendum marks a turning point in the relationship between North Kosovo and Belgrade, which opposed it fearing repercussions on its EU integration process