Alexander Sirois

"I just drank poison" -- With these words, the twenty-five-year mandate of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) came to an abrupt end. The words, last spoken by former Bosnian Croat General Slobodan Praljak,…
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With every rubbled Raqqa street, the US-backed Kurdish and Arab Free Syrian Army inches closer towards victory over the so-called Islamic State (IS). As the Salafist group lives out its final days in the Middle East, the world prepares for…
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March 1st, 2017 marked the 25th jubilee of Bosnian and Herzegovinian (BiH) independence. Not much has changed in the way the national holiday is celebrated over the past quarter decade. The predominately Serbian Republika Srpska entity does…
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Violence has engulfed the Donbas as conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists gains a new lease on life; Estonians arm themselves in fear of a Russian onslaught. Meanwhile, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina the ceasefire…
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At the annual celebration of the Russian Geographical Society in Saint Petersburg last November, Russian President Vladimir Putin engaged in topographical discourse with a nine-year-old boy who claimed he knew every border in the world. The…
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The past few weeks have been highly satisfying for the Kremlin. With Donald Trump soon to take over the Oval Office there is hope for a warming of relations between Moscow and Washington. Trump’s inauguration could mark the beginning of an…
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On the 16th of October, Montenegro held its second parliamentary election since independence from Serbia in 2006. Political pundits from London to Moscow labeled these elections as a historical moment in the country’s path. The contest pit …
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The past week will be remembered as a historical landmark in Bosnia and Herzegovina's (BiH) accession to the European Union. Or at least it would have been had there not been an anti-constitutional referendum held by one of the state's two…
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When the Nürnberg and Tokyo trials held Goering and Tojo to the stand, they were not only sentencing select criminals, but more importantly an entire ideology. The Nazi and Imperial Japanese regime were tried in a system of moral values…
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Politicians and Priests preaching from a stage to a sea of enraged folk, military tents scattered along the dug up cobblestone, EU and Russian flags from end to end - contrary to the resemblance, this is not Kiev's Euromaidan, but…
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Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw - all are major Polish cities that saw protests on Saturday held to protect freedom of speech after the new conservative government led by Law and Justice (PiS) began reshaping the Polish media scene. The 20,000…
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On September 30th, the Kremlin issued orders for the beginning of Russia’s ongoing military intervention in Syria. Since then, Russian planes have carried out 934 outings and destroyed 819 targets in the process. As Russia proceeds to take…
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From a public perspective, it seems as though there is never any peace within the European Union. For the past 5 years, over and over again we have watched crisis after crisis unravel; yet somehow things pull through in the fourth quarter.…
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