A final closure would leave Bosnia as Europe’s only country without a national broadcaster at a time when it is preparing for national elections in October and still struggling with post-war ethnic divisions

International News via Reuters:

Bosnia’s state broadcaster BHRT shut down its programmes on Thursday in protest at a funding crisis that it said could close the TV and radio service that was meant to unify the country after years of war.

It broadcast a black screen with a short statement reading: “This is not a malfunction. This is a warning about potential shutdown of the BHRT.”

A final closure would leave Bosnia as Europe’s only country without a national broadcaster at a time when it is preparing for national elections in October and still struggling with post-war ethnic divisions.

The broadcaster’s bank account was empty, BHRT deputy director Lejla A. Babovic told private N1 TV. “As of tomorrow we will not be able to plan our activities,” she said. It needed a loan which it would repay by suing its debtors, she added.

BHRT employs about 700 people and broadcasts news, politics, films and art shows across the country.

Postwar Bosnia’s two autonomous regions – the Serb Republic and the Federation shared by Croats and Bosniaks – run their own broadcasters funded by licence fees added to electricity bills.

Half of those fees should finance BHRT under a system set up after the 1990s war with international support to unify three wartime ethnic broadcasters and curb nationalist rhetoric.

But Serb and Croat nationalist parties have long opposed a single state broadcaster.

The Serb Republic’s broadcaster, RTRS, has stopped transferring fees to BHRT since 2017, despite nearly a dozen court rulings, racking up debt of more than 104 million Bosnian marka ($62.96 million).

Many Croats in the Federation also refuse to pay licence fees.

BHRT owes around 100 million Bosnian marka for expenses including services by other media and benefits for employees, its accounts show.

Earlier this month, the head of the European Union delegation to Bosnia, Luigi Soreca, said on X that the collapse of BHRT would represent a major setback for the country’s candidacy for joining the bloc.

Sarajevo-based journalist Najra Krvavac said its collapse “would be a devastating and final proof of a lack of care for an integral part of the country’s identity”.

Others said the broadcaster’s significance was fading as its audience aged and streaming services attracted younger viewers.

“If it stops broadcasting, the damage would be mainly symbolic,” Omer Hasic, a 56-year-old clerk from Sarajevo, said. “Younger people are not into TV any more, everything is on internet.”

In November, BHRT went on air from an improvised tent studio in bitter winter cold outside parliament, urging the government to prevent its collapse in what it called a “final warning”.

($1 = 1.6519 marka)

Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Andrew Heavens

Brende, who became president of the WEF in 2017, announced his decision in a statement following disclosures from the U.S. Justice Department

International News via Reuters:

The president and CEO of the World Economic Forum, Borge Brende, said he was stepping down on Thursday, a few weeks after the forum launched an independent investigation into his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Brende, who became president of the WEF in 2017, announced his decision in a statement following disclosures from the U.S. Justice Department that showed the Norwegian had three business dinners with Epstein and had also communicated with the disgraced financier via email and text message.

“After careful consideration, I have decided to step down as President and CEO of the World Economic Forum. My time here, spanning 8-1/2 years, has been profoundly rewarding,” Brende said. The statement made no mention of Epstein.

“I am grateful for the incredible collaboration with my colleagues, partners, and constituents, and I believe now is the right moment for the Forum to continue its important work without distractions,” added Brende, a former Norwegian foreign minister.

Brende has said he was unaware of Epstein’s past and criminal activities before first meeting him in 2018, and that he regretted not having investigated him more thoroughly.

Brende’s decision to quit follows a series of revelations relating to Epstein, who in 2008 was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor. The revelations have roiled business and political elites, and even the British royal family.

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In a separate statement, Andre Hoffmann and Larry Fink, co-chairs of the Geneva-based forum that organises the annual Davos summit, said the independent review conducted by outside counsel into Brende’s ties with Epstein had concluded.

The findings stated there were no additional concerns beyond what has been previously disclosed, it added.

The co-chairs said the WEF’s Alois Zwinggi will serve as interim president and CEO, and that the forum’s Board of Trustees will oversee the leadership transition, including a plan to drive a process to identify a permanent successor.

The U.S. Justice Department has released more than 3 million pages of documents relating to Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.

His ties to a long list of business and political leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Tesla CEO Elon Musk are under close scrutiny.

Overseas, the revelations have prompted criminal investigations of Britain’s Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Duke of York, and other prominent figures.

Reporting by Dave Graham, editing by Thomas Seythal and Alex Richardson

Legal pathways for migration are shrinking, pushing more people into the hands of smugglers, the International Organization for Migration said

International News via Reuters:

Almost 8,000 people died or went missing last year on perilous migration routes such as across the Mediterranean and Horn of Africa, but the real toll is likely far higher as cuts in funding have hit humanitarian access and tracking of deaths, a U.N. agency said.

Legal pathways for migration are shrinking, pushing more people into the hands of smugglers, the International Organization for Migration said, as Europe, the U.S. and other regions ramp up enforcement and invest heavily in deterrence.

“The continued loss of life on migration routes is a global failure we cannot accept as normal,” IOM Director General Amy Pope said in a statement published on Thursday.

“These deaths are not inevitable. When safe pathways are out of reach, people are forced into dangerous journeys and into the hands of smugglers and traffickers. We must act now to expand safe and regular routes and ensure people in need can be protected, regardless of their status.”

Although deaths along migration routes fell to 7,667 in 2025 from nearly 9,200 in 2024 as fewer people attempted dangerous irregular journeys — particularly across the Americas — the decline reflects shrinking access to information and funding shortfalls that have hampered efforts to track fatalities, the IOM said.

The Geneva‑based organisation is among several aid groups hit by major U.S. funding cuts, forcing it to scale back or close programmes in ways it says will severely impact migrants.

Sea routes remained among the most lethal journeys, with at least 2,108 people dead or missing in the Mediterranean last year and 1,047 on the Atlantic route to Spain’s Canary Islands, the agency said.

Some 3,000 migrant deaths were recorded in Asia, more than half of them Afghans, and 922 died crossing the Horn of Africa from Yemen to the Gulf States, in a sharp increase on the previous year. Almost all of them were Ethiopians, many of whom died in three mass shipwrecks.

The trend has continued into 2026, with migrant deaths in the Mediterranean reaching 606 by February 24, the IOM added.

Reporting by Amina Ismail; Editing by Alexandra Hudson