Global Voices » Montenegro

Balkans: Online Platform Tracks Reports From Areas Hit by Record Snowfall

Danica Radisic — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:12:22 +0000

Since last week, the Balkans have been hit by massive snow storms, the likes of which have not been seen in over a decade, if not longer. After an unusually long period of nearly no real signs of a typical Balkan winter, last week brought what seems to be non-stop snowfall throughout the region, including the seaside areas around the Adriatic that seldom get any snow.

Men shoveling snow from a street in Sarajevo. Record snowfall has paralyzed transportation in the Bosnian capital, where a state of emergency has now been declared. Photo by Sulejman Omerbasic, copyright © Demotix (5/02/12).

Serbia's national television network, RTS, and other media reported on Friday 3 February, 2012, that a state of emergency has been declared by the government, while citizens have been reporting critical situations throughout the country and that municipal services have been doing a poor job of tackling the snowfall in many urban areas.

In an article titled “Serbia Blocked by Snow, State of Emergency in 27 Municipalities, Recommendation to Call Off School Attendance” [sr], the Head of the State of Emergency Sector of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Predrag Maric, is reported to have stated on Friday:

27 municipalities in Serbia have declared a state of emergency due to heavy snowfall. Maric has told Beta news agency that the most difficult situations are in Sjenica, Ivanjica, Prijepolje, Crna Trava and Surdulica, where the height of snow has reached approximately 2 meters. According to him, power supply is “relatively good,” outages are being fixed quickly and there have been no long power outages.

Maric also announced the possibility of declaring a full state of emergency nationwide, which the Government did on Sunday evening, cancelling school throughout Serbia at least until Friday, February 10, among other things.

Several actions have been organized by the online community in Serbia and the region to fend off the snow and to attempt to regain a functional state in urban areas at least, such as a #lopataup (”#shovelup”), organized by one online community leader, Zoran Torbica, and other local Twitter users.

In the meantime, Al Jazeera Balkans, the recently established regional office of Al Jazeera news network in the region, has joined forces with the team from Ushahidi to set up a platform for tracking verified information on everything from road blocks, power outages to other critical points and information in the entire region.

Ushahidi is an open-source platform for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping, which was also used in Serbia just after the earthquake in Kraljevo in November 2010 to map and track damage in the area.

Haris Alisic, who heads the New Media team for Al Jazeera Balkans, launched the platform on Sunday evening, and many members of the online community, including some of the region's GV authors, have joined the Al Jazeera-Ushahidi team in curating, tracking and verifying reports from the region.

The adapted Ushahidi platform can be located on Al Jazeera's official site, while reports can be sent in by anyone using the following channels:

- via SMS to +387644218661
- via Twitter by using the hashtags #kolaps #sneg #snijeg #lopataup #iskljucenje
- via email to oluja2012@aljazeera.net
- or by entering information directly into the form on the”pošaljite izvještaj” tab on the Al Jazeera page

If you would like to volunteer your time to help map critical areas and are familiar with using online tools, please contact the author of this article, or Haris Alisic via Twitter, or leave a comment here on Global Voices, and we will contact you for more information on what you can do to help. We also ask that you all begin reporting from your area on Twitter and using the above-mentioned hashtags on Twitter, which are automatically collected by the platform and then reviewed and verified by Al Jazeera and volunteers.

Macedonia: Ajvar, Glorified

Filip Stojanovski — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:03:54 +0000

Jovana Tozija wrote lovingly about making ajvar, a traditional favorite winter provision in Macedonia and some other post-Ottoman countries.

The Balkans: Travel Blogs

Veronica Khokhlova — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 01:20:27 +0000

At Balkan Travellers, Sarah Hucal writes about Yugo Yoga performance that took place on a makeshift stage at Belgrade's Museum of Yugoslav History in July 2011; more of Hucal's Balkan travel writing and photos are at her blog, Solo in the Balkans. Jana Orsolic's Istria Week travel photos and journal [sr] are here, here, here, here, here and here. Piran Café's latest entry on the June 2011 trip to Sarajevo (plus links to earlier posts) is here; the blogger also links to the New York Times' recent travel piece on Slovenia, Slovenian Rhapsody.

The Balkans: Over Half of the Population Uses the Internet

Danica Radovanovic — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 22:09:01 +0000

There are over 10.5 million Internet users in the Balkans/the former Yugoslavia, which makes up 51.7 percent of the region's population, according to a recent report [sr; see the table below].

The findings [.zip, sr] cited by Huge Media, in collaboration with Marko Tomić, a student from the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, show that Slovenia has the highest Internet service penetration (63.29 percent), while Bosnia and Herzegovina has the lowest (51.76 percent of Internet users).

It is interesting that over a half of the Serbian and Croatian population is on the Internet, and the authors of these findings consider [sr] that there's an incomplete research evaluation of Internet usage by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (RZS):

…As for the Internet users, we think that the RZS assessment is incomplete and does not include users of mobile internet. […they are] only examining a particular set of data that gives us information about a particular topic, but not the complete story that interests us.

Facebook is the most popular destination: over 70 percent of Internet users have a Facebook account in Serbia, and 63 percent - in Croatia:

The average time spent on Facebok is 25 minutes (both for Serbia and Croatia), and the average user in Serbia checks his/her Facebook account 16 times a day, while in Croatia it is 13 times a day.

[…]

The increasing number of Facebook users can be explained by non-residents of Serbia and Croatia using this social network during their travels.

The online social dynamics and the activities on Facebook do not differ much in other Balkan countries. Last year, we published the data on the Serbian young adults who spend the most of their time on Facebook, communicating with their friends (61 percent), “like”-ing their statuses (66 percent), sharing content and information (56 percent), writing private messages (47 percent), and playing games (22.4 percent).

Statistical and educational institutions in each of the Balkan countries could generate and use the data on the relevant online activities to detect and focus on their critical users, to adjust their policies and action plans based on the data.

It would be also interesting to see age distribution among users and other relevant demographics, as well as the analysis of online social interactions on other Internet services and social media sites.

Currently, research is being conducted on the social media usage among young adults, students, educators, and scholars in Serbia, but it is limited, in a way, as it cannot be considered a sample for the entire Balkan population. Each country could work on their local national data for cross-statistical area analyses for the future.

Montenegro: Serbian not spoken here?

Vilhelm Konnander — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 18:55:33 +0000

M. Bozinovich of Serbianna discusses a recent Montenegro census saying that 20% of Montenegrins no longer speak Serbian, and whether this is an actual result or caused by nationalism.

The Balkans: Most Influential ex-Yu Twitter Users

Filip Stojanovski — Mon, 02 May 2011 09:40:57 +0000

Dragan Varagić published his analysis of the most influential Twitter users [sr] from Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Montenegro, done through manual selection and consulting ratings services.

The Balkans: Turbo-folk and Rock Mashups

Filip Stojanovski — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 14:50:42 +0000

Mashup clips by YouTube user apostolski, which combine video footage of Coldplay, U2 and Queen with Serbian turbo-folk songs are poised to become the next big viral hit among Balkan social media users and bloggers [MKD]. Some have already “spilled over” into traditional media like TV call-in show Jadi burek [MKD], which “reuses” clips from the net.

The Balkans: Angelina Jolie's “Directorial Debut”

Veronica Khokhlova — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 02:32:52 +0000

Gray Falcon and Srebrenica Genocide Blog discuss (from different perspectives) Angelina Jolie's “directorial debut” - “a love story set during the Bosnian war.”

The Balkans: Genocide Denial

Veronica Khokhlova — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 01:45:51 +0000

Greater Surbiton writes about “the bizarre world of genocide denial.”

Central & Eastern Europe: Initial Reactions to WikiLeaks' Cablegate

Veronica Khokhlova — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:49:51 +0000

While other regions feature a lot more prominently in the collection of U.S. embassy cables published by WikiLeaks thus far, a few countries of the CEE region do appear in the kickoff edition of Cablegate.

Below is a small selection of initial reactions from the region's bloggers.

Piran Café, a Slovenian blog, announced the Cablegate “winner” from the Balkans:

Croatia, apparently.

Of the 251,287 secret US Embassy cables which Wikileaks began making public yesterday, 2,053 relate to Croatia, according to the ‘Cables by Country‘ graphic on Wikileaks Cablegate website. […]

The Balkan “runners-up” are:

Bosnia & Hercegovina is next at 1,419, followed by Serbia & Montenegro, with 1,244. Slovenia comes in a distant fourth with 947, with Macedonia (783) and Montenegro (503) bringing up the rear. […]

Although no Slovenia-related documents have been published yet, the country - along with the Pacific island of Kiribati - is in the media spotlight of sorts already, due to the Guantanamo Bay prisoner release situation:

[…] Advance material supplied to The Guardian, Der Speigel, Le Monde, and The New York Times included in passing a mention of a strongarm deal the US offered to Slovenia. Most of the accounts went something like this:

The (New York Times) also cited documents showing the U.S. used hardline tactics to win approval from countries to accept freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. It said Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if its president wanted to meet with President Barack Obama and said the Pacific island of Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to take in a group of detainees.

Milan Balažic, spokesperson for Slovenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, denied that any such deal making transpired, insisting that Slovenia cannot accept Guantanamo detainees on legal grounds and that PM Borut Pahor does still have a visit to the US scheduled for next year. The statement I read didn’t specifically say however, that Pahor would be meeting with Obama. […]

Viktor Markovic of Belgraded.com provided a brief overview of the files that mention Kosovo, noting on Twitter that he “got 1k hits on this post in the first couple of hrs […] seems everyone is searching for dirty secrets”:

[…] The first interesting bit relates to comments on Kosovo government and their dissatisfaction with the EULEX-Serbia cooperation, but also the EU diplomat’s dissatisfaction with Serbian MFA Vuk Jeremic:

[Elysee Diplomatic Advisor Jean-David] Levitte noted that the EULEX mission is having diplomatic problems with the Kosovar government and public after signing two technical protocols with Serbia. They are hoping to ensure continued calm as Kosovo heads into municipal elections. [Assistant Secretary Philip H.] Gordon stated that the Kosovars will have to accept the protocols but that it should be clearly explained that these are technical agreements that have no impact on Kosovo’s independent status. Levitte also criticized Serbian FM Jeremic, saying that he is doing nothing to encourage Serb return or participation in Kosovo’s government. Levitte noted that Jeremic “makes big promises” every time he comes to France, but doesn’t follow through. Levitte no longer meets with him and does not consider him to be the “modern face of Belgrade” that he purports to be. […]

Guistino, the Estonia-based author of Itching for Eestimaa, mockingly complains that the people behind WikiLeaks “haven't caught on yet that Estonia is the center of the universe”:

I keep checking WikiLeaks for the horde of secret diplomatic cables out of the US Embassy in Tallinn. “Local demagogue known for shady real estate dealings!” “Wealthy chocolatier may have connections to organized crime!”

No such luck. […]

This week, the group seeks to release 251,287 leaked US embassy cables, 610 of which are out of Estonia, though they aren't up yet. […]

On a more serious note, Guistino criticizes WikiLeaks' U.S.-centric approach:

[…] While I am, like everybody, keen to learn more about US policy, I would also appreciate if WikiLeaks provided more information on other countries. Because of its access to those cables, global interest, plus perhaps the prevalance of English, the bulk of the material seems to be about the US. As an American, I have to say, not fair! An international media organization should provide more content than that. In other words, where are the confidential Russian cables, Julian? We in Estonia await more.

Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer who is part of the legal team representing Mikhail Khodorkovsky, wrote this about the Russian segment of Cablegate:

It's no wonder why the FSB vaguely threatened to assassinate Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. In just the first wave of confidential diplomatic cables released yesterday, we get the opportunity to [see] how officials of the U.S. government really felt about relations with their new partners in Russia, underscoring the profound cynicism of Obama's reset policy. And apparently, there is much more to come once Wikileaks taps its Russian archives.

Apart from a near total obsession with Russia only through the prism of Iran, the wires also reveal a specifically detailed awareness of Russia's democratic unraveling, which contrasts sharply with the president's positive statements on the relationship. Vladimir Putin is described as the “Alpha Dog” of a “vitrual mafia state,” while Dmitry Medvedev “plays Robin to Putin's Batman.” […]

Reactions of the Russophone Twitter users are quite diverse.

@sergey_gaber is optimistic (RUS):

WikiLeaks, by the way. Here, folks, it seems as if the blessed time has come when no one is afraid of anyone. It is wonderful.

@kushnir72 is apprehensive (RUS):

This whole WikiLeaks story will result in the Internet getting banned :)

@GlazTV doesn't seem to have enough trust (RUS) in the Cablegate files - because Julian Assange, editor-in-chief and spokesperson for WikiLeaks, hasn't been silenced yet:

One thing I don't understand is how come the fellow who created WikiLeaks and who's giving the US some really hard time, is still alive and at large??? It's giving me some strange thoughts…

Finally, @yasviridov posted this item, which has so far been re-tweeted by at least 20 people:

Damn! My real 5th-grade geometry grades have surfaced on WikiLeaks. If Mom finds out, she'll kill me!

The Balkans: Regional Lottery vs Nationalism

Veronica Khokhlova — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:56:28 +0000

Belgraded writes about the planned revival of “the one big regional lottery” in the former Yugoslavia and does not “miss the opportunity to point out just how stupid nationalism is.”

Montenegro: Hero's Welcome for YouTube Star

Filip Stojanovski — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:09:46 +0000

YouTube star Ekrem Jevrić Gospoda was given a hero's welcome upon his arrival in his native Montenegro on July 11. His fame also grew when, allegedly unrelated to his status of YouTube star, he also took part in a photo-shoot for a renowned fashion brand.

At the Podgorica airport, Jevrić was greeted by local camp singer Purašević and “hundreds of fans and relatives,” while tens of entertainment portals and TV stations from the Balkans — including from Macedonia — reused a video from the event, also available on YouTube.

In the clip, apparently at a request of a female journalist, the singer-songwriter whose song about the daily grind ‘cursed' working women because they can't take care of children, explains that “Women work. All our women work all over the Gray World,* women work,” and adds that he's not really bothered by that fact.

But, the man whose video currently has over 3.9 million views on YouTube, complained that he didn't make any money from that, because he's not paid per view, so “it's all for nothing, all for free, and maybe in the future, later we'll make something.”

In addition, a few weeks ago, numerous Balkan portals spread the news that Jevrić shows up in a menswear photo-shoot as a tailor. One of them, SerbiaNet, also published [SER] an audio clip with an excerpt from a telephone interview [SER]. According to Jevrić:

I worked for a big and famous billionaire, with famous brands, called Dolce & Gabanna. I was standing in front of a pub [in my suit] and he was passing by and asked me “Are you an Italian?” I said “Excuse me, but I am not, but I am quite close to Italy.”

Then they said “Would you allow us to take photos of you and take your telephone number, and we'll call you in ten days if you are accepted.” And then they accepted me and offered 500 USD per day to work for them. I worked two days, and got a thousand dollars. A car would come to my house and take me there, and then take me back home by car, and so. They also told me that they might invite me again to work for them, and what do I know…

The interviewer also tried to provoke conservative Jevrić about the openly gay status of Dolce & Gabanna, but to his credit the singer-turned-model ignored the issue.

* Possibly this is a reference to the common South Slavic idiom “the White World,” meaning abroad, far away, used in folk stories.

Slovenia: Referendum on the Arbitration Agreement

Veronica Khokhlova — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 01:07:26 +0000

Sleeping With Pengovsky writes - here and here - about this past Sunday's referendum on the Arbitration Agreement between Slovenia and Croatia; posts Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 of The Definitive Guide to the Arbitrage Agreement Between Slovenia and Croatia (links to the earlier installments are here); and notes that “the Arbitration Agreement can (not necessarily will) become a model for solving similar disputes in the region.” More background on the Sunday's referendum - at ESI's Rumeli Observer.

Macedonia: Remnants of the Yugoslav Legacy

Filip Stojanovski — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:06:30 +0000

Sead Dzigal reminds readers [MKD] that after “the death” of the .yu domain [SER] this past March, the term ‘Yugoslavia' officially survives on the international scene only in the provisional reference the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the title of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which does not seem like a good company.

CEE: Facebook Use Stats

Veronica Khokhlova — Wed, 12 May 2010 08:53:02 +0000

Worldwide Facebook statistics - at Facebakers.com: in Central & Eastern Europe, the Czech Republic has most users - 2,634,300 people, the country's overall ranking is #29, penetration is 25.8%. It is followed by Poland (#31), which has 2,604,440 users, with 6.77% penetration. Serbia (#41) is CEE's #3: 1,997,540 users, penetration is 27.07%. Russia is #56, with 1,112,680 users and penetration of 0.79%.