• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly considers what it takes to be a credible journalist.
• Centauri Dreams considers the study of planets orbiting brown dwarfs.
• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper considering if Sedna was captured from another star.
• The Dragon's Tales wonders if orbital probes can detect volcanism on Venus.
• A Fistful of Euros' Alex ( Read more... )

• Centauri Dreams notes how the New Horizons probe is maneuvering into mapping orbits of Ceres.
• Crooked Timber examines the decline of inter-generational mobility and class mobility.
• The Dragon's Gaze reports on Jupiter analog HIP 11915b.
• The Dragon's Tales notes Russian claims in the Arctic and links to a comparison of Chinese and American statements ( Read more... )

Transitions Online hosts an article by one Antonela Riha looking at how the Serbian mass media chose not to cover the massacres following the fall of Srebrenica, and why.

[B]y merely browsing the most influential dailies and weeklies, such as Politika, Vecernje Novosti, Politika Ekspres, Nasa Borba, NIN, Vreme, Duga, and Intervju, as well as news ( Read more... )

Srdja Pavlović's March Open Democracy essay looks at the continuing internal conflicts in Serbia over the country's orientation.

In an interview for CNN in August 2014, the Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić, reiterated that his country "supports and respects the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine and Crimea as a part of Ukraine." He ( Read more... )

• Centauri Dreams explores Pluto and its worlds.
• Crooked Timber considers the question of how to organize vast quantities of data.
• The Dragon's Gaze links to two papers on exoplanet habitability, noting that the composition of exoplanets influences their habitability and suggests exomoons need to be relatively massive to be habitable.
• Geocurrents notes ( Read more... )

Window on Eurasia summarizes the arguments of a Russian analyst that the friendly Russian-Serbian relationship might break down on account of the Russian state's overly-close relationship with one grouping on the Serbian political spectrum.

Russia and Serbia have a long history of warm and close ties, reflecting their similar situations and ( Read more... )

Michael Petrou of MacLean's notes the relative success of the Islamic State in finding recruits in Kosovo.

An April report by the Kosovo Center for Security Studies (KCSS) reveals that as of January, some 232 Kosovars have joined Islamist militant groups in Syria and Iraq, a rate of 125 recruits for every one million people living in the country. ( Read more... )

The Toronto Star's Jacques Gallant looks in detail at how controversies over church politics and personal behaviour have led to Bishop Georgije Djokic being removed from his position as head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Canada.

The decision came after the gathering listened to accusations for three days, and one day for Djokic’s defence, said ( Read more... )

Open Democracy's Vassilis Petsinis looks at how Macedonia's embattled president has managed to slip from pro-Western to pro-Russian camps because of his very neoconservative slipperiness.

Following the unrest in Kumanovo and the massive anti-government protests, FYR Macedonia has captivated the interest of the international press. The most recent ( Read more... )

Leonid Bershidsky of Bloomberg View reports on Western-Russian competition in Macedonia, noting that a Russian policy that depends on weak and corrupt government is fragile.

Macedonia is a poor, landlocked Balkan country of about 2 million. To the Kremlin, it's also the newest front in an ideological battle, with the U.S. fomenting regime change ( Read more... )