In their analysis of China’s influence in the region, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies underline that the strengthening of China’s influence in the Western Balkan countries is causing increasingly greater headaches for the European Union, and they warn that the growing influence of China in the countries of the Western Balkans is actually distancing these countries from the EU membership. At the same time, the president of the BiH entity Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik, who is declaratory in favor of BiH’s European path, evaluates the cooperation with the Chinese as “good”, stressing that he is “completely convinced that it will be continued”.

The report states that the mayor of the Municipality of Kiseljak has "established partnership connections" with the companies Bar-Floor and Ceste Company, thereby enabling the acquisition of financial resources, such as the illegal exploitation of river sand and gravel during the execution of works in the Municipality of Kiseljak. These materials are transported from the Sports and Recreation Zone (a project of the Municipality of Kiseljak) to other locations.

It is not only domestic stakeholders who are writing to the local judicial institutions. A petition was submitted to the Municipal Court of Travnik seeking determination of a temporary measure to prohibit the disposal of funds and to identify the assets due to the suspicion of embezzlement, fraud and money laundering in the process of purchasing Vitezit

Forty years after the Winter Olympic Games, the venues of competitions, the mountains near Sarajevo, Trebević, Bjelašnica, Jahorina, and Igman have become venues of fast-paced construction of tourist resorts, hotels and apartments. The forest is being cleared for construction of private buildings, apartments and hotels, with questionable validity of the permits issued by the municipalities. The origin of the money that is being used for what some are already calling ecocide and urbicide is a mystery for some investors.

Minister of Energy and Mining of RS, Petar Đokić, recently deemed the demands of Chinese companies, which submitted bids for the construction of the Buk Bijela hydroelectric power plant, as unfair, particularly regarding responses related to disputes before the Constitutional Court of BiH and UNESCO. However, such a move is expected, as the business logic of the Chinese mostly involves seeking state property with "clean" documents as collateral. Journal's interlocutors analyze the Chinese interest in BiH and the region, whether China is a political actor in these areas, why corrosive Chinese capital is controversial, and how opacity creates a certain level of suspicion and mistrust.

For over a year, the citizens of Kakanj have been warning that due to mining activities in Vareš, the Municipality of Kakanj will be left without drinking water. The concern of the citizens is even greater because they learned about the presence of heavy metals in the water not from the relevant institutions but through social media

At the beginning of 2024, absolute freedom has acquired something akin to an official slogan - "the symbol of freedom." It has actually been so all these years only for those who unquestionably accepted and still accept the orders of the prime minister, the president, a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Daddy Milorad Dodik. In the heart of Europe, in the 21st century, absolute freedom absolutely does not exist for, for example, other citizens.

While standing in front of the citizens, talking about the new face of the city and announcing a decade of construction, Mayor Draško Stanivuković forgot to mention that he didn't obtain the necessary building permits before starting the works. He does it casually, while the construction is well underway. The Journal didn't receive a response regarding whether citizens can do the same.

In 2018, the OSCE Mission in BiH warned about poorly crafted indictments and their hasty confirmation, with Damjan Ožegović noting that nothing has changed since then. A former employee of SIPA claims that prosecutors handle public funds without any authorization. The Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor's Office of Sarajevo Canton, Sabina Sarajlija, emphasizes the importance of the quality of indictments, and the significant role of pre-trial judges, and acknowledges that in individual cases, we can discuss certain shortcomings on the part of prosecutors.

Residents of several villages near Tušnica in Livno are concerned about the concession granted for the exploration and exploitation of mineral resources, fearing the loss of drinking water. While the residents fight to preserve their water sources, authorities in Livno turn a blind eye to the report of the Government of Canton 10's working body, which explicitly lists all the shortcomings from the initial exploration permit in 2006 to the first concession in 2012, and its transfer to another company in 2018.

An apparent challenge for Dodik and those around him is the lack of support among the people in Republika Srpska, unlike what they had, for example, in 2006 when Dodik rose to political heights, replacing the rhetoric of a moderate social democrat with a radical nationalist narrative. Since then, Dodik's policies have not brought anything good to the citizens of Republika Srpska.

Some residents of the Hrasno neighbourhood in Sarajevo and the Municipality of Novo Sarajevo cannot agree on the fate of the currently abandoned building at 56 Aleja Lipa. Municipal services, along with other relevant institutions and at the request of the company Senabil, are working on adopting changes to the zoning plan that would allow the demolition of the existing building and the construction of a new residential-commercial building of much larger proportions. Residents of surrounding buildings are concerned, believing that the proposed interventions could jeopardize the stability of their buildings, the quality of life, and the health of the inhabitants. Unofficially, Žurnal learns that there is currently no majority in the Municipal Council to approve the proposed changes.

Research on the radioactivity of brown coal in Tušnica and the presence of uranium seems to have interested only a few people who see profit in it. With the current price of uranium at $120 per kilogram, it's no surprise that there are growing stories about foreign investors being interested in this Livno mine. The health of the population in several villages beneath Tušnica, surviving illegally by extracting this coal, seems to be disregarded, and no one has warned them about its radioactivity.

The guidelines of Erdoğan’s foreign policy that originated on boosting of the influence in the areas that were part of the Ottoman Empire can be found in the book of former Prime Minister of Türkiye and former AKP President Ahmet Davutoğlu “Strategic depth – Türkiye’s international position”.

In the objections raised against the Plan, owners of existing properties on Jahorina point out that the proposed solutions close off access to some houses, and multi-story buildings are planned in areas that have served as parking lots until now, exacerbating the issue of parking shortages during the winter months in the tourist season. The road is expanding towards ski slopes, the route of ski slopes is narrowing, and the plots of existing business properties are expanding up to ten times. This includes the enclosure and fencing of existing cottages.

Strikes and protests of the miners in mines of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s entity Federation are becoming a customary event. Their salaries are late, and they neither have health insurance nor contribution payments for retirement. The debts have exceed one billion Convertible Marks. This sector was managed by SDA and Party for BiH and SDP and Democratic Front, individually or in coalitions. They have been continuously ignoring the problem for the sake of alleged social peace.

Despite little concrete evidence of malign Chinese influence, Chinese business dealings in Bosnia and Herzegovina demonstrate how Chinese economic investments are intertwined with politics, and their lack of transparency fuels the already pervasive corruption in the country, according to analyses and research. Chinese companies have become one of the favourite business partners of Milorad Dodik and his associates, with the Chinese currently facing virtually no competition on major construction sites in this entity. On the other hand, authorities accommodate them by approving deadline extensions, contracting additional work, and granting natural resources, even though some Chinese companies have been proven to engage in fraud, placed on blacklists, engaged in bribery, and operated illegally...

The calculation is simple – for just over 7,000 officials who work in state institutions from 8 am to 4 pm, and from 6 pm they are expected to block the entity border at the "Border Exists" protest, and whom RS President Milorad Dodik would reward for leaving those same institutions, he would need to provide 328,936,667 KM. The methods - Dodik did not explain. By the end of this year alone, he must find another half a billion KM for loan instalments.

While Republika Srpska continues to borrow hundreds of millions of KM day by day, the political leadership of SNSD (Alliance of Independent Social Democrats) in the entity has not disclosed to the citizens how they have been extracting money from the budget for years through closely connected private companies. Through tenders and direct agreements, they have secured sums ranging from several hundred million to several billion marks in their accounts.