the first time since 2008, a train was decorated with all kinds of Serbian nationalistic slogans and images (and for good measure, Serbian Orthodox iconography and information) set off from Belgrade towards Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.

Kosovo's government declared they would not allow the train to cross their border previously.

Then the Serbian government stopped the train just before the border with Kosovo in a town called Raska, claiming that Kosovo separatists had mined the line (it has not seen much use in the intervening time, I suppose), and then it was turned back.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/14/tensions-flare-serb-nationalist-train-halts-border/

Commentary

Since the war that saw the state of Yugoslavia broken up again, there has been a great discontent amongst Kosovans about being independent from Serbia (Kosovo is majority Muslim), and from the other side, a bunch of vague claims that Serbia has the right of jurisdiction.

Since the war there is tensions remaining between the flag-wavers of several countries and their honorable 'representatives', in various directions. Cherna Gora (Montenegro) recently has been claiming russians hacking their internet and making propaganda on social networks during the recent election and briefly Montenegro was blocked from access to numerous social networks including facebook and twitter. Serbia and Kosovo is another one.

In my opinion, it is unlikely that any significant war will break out again in these parts of the world, but the political class is always looking for ways to turn unhappy people into a licence to print bombs. Mainly because the governments in old Jugo are all pretty decrepit post-communist corruption-nest-holes that don't get nearly as much money out of their people as countries in the west, and a great deal of reluctance, even if understated, of a refusal to comply with laws that are contrary to custom, something that is common all over the former communist bloc countries.

So it's not really that newsworthy, but it is a prime example of the vacant posturing that goes on in the political classes in these parts of the world. Most likely nothing but hot air but the region is very significant historically for being a hotbed for the kind of mischief that starts wars and revolution previously, it was Serbian Nationalists who shot the Austrian prince Franz Ferdinand and started World War 1, which really happened mainly because eastern europeans were tired of being lorded over by Austrians and Hungarians.

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We can't stop here! This is Whale country!