Fatos Nano and Sali Berisha, two sworn enemies who are poles apart in Albanian politics, have both confronted challenges from their younger colleagues. The battle has been hard - and has already claimed one casualty.
Police violence against anti-regime protestors in Belgrade escalated further on Thursday night, but opposition leaders are urging their followers to stand firm in the face of the batons.
Romania and Bulgaria, both candidates for early European Union accession talks, have traded insults in the past week over what their media have called the "power war".
For weeks a 'dictatorship' of state-appointed deans and chancellors ensured that Serbia's universities failed to live up to their rebellious reputation and stayed out of the opposition's current anti-regime protest campaign.
The stand off at Podgorica airport last week highlighted a stream of small-scale confrontations between Belgrade and Podgorica that is increasingly successfully undermining Montenegro's efforts to make its own way in the Balkans.
Albania is reluctant to openly support the Kosovo Albanian demands for independence but Albanians on both sides of the border threw themselves into celebrations for Albania's first official Independence Day on November 28.
With the demise of its President, Croatia has a chance break with the past and move politically out of the Balkans and into Western Europe. But Franjo Tuijman's legacy will make the years to come difficult ones...
Slobodan Milosevic mocks the tribunal in his dramatic appearance at The Hague court
Serbia-Montenegro says no to US request for non-extradition arrangement.
Expert witness chronicles Serb destruction of mosques and Catholic churches.
