The first serious working week after the summer holidays has already produced a wealth of stories here in the western Balkans. Some are more serious than others, unless of course you live here, when they are all deadly serious. Here is a roundup of some of them.

Outside the old Yugoslav Federal Parliament building in the Serbian capital they are rolling up the red carpet which had been unrolled to welcome delegates to the 50th birthday bash of the Non-Aligned Movement, which I have written about here. Serbia, which hosted the gathering, is not a member, but never mind that. It finds it useful to lobby over the Kosovo issue and for business.

In the aftermath of the meeting, Serbian papers are reporting that two countries which had hitherto been understood to have recognised Kosovo, now say that actually, they didn't. Oman says it just, kind of, um ah, kind of said it wanted Kosovo in the United Nations, but that is totally different. The West African state of Guinea Bissau claims that recognition was held up in parliament.

Vuk Jeremic, Serbia's foreign minister adds that a criminal investigation has begun in one African country against a senior official. He said:

"There are founded suspicions that he received a bribe from an Albanian businessman from Kosovo in order to start the procedure to recognize Kosovo independence. If that investigation gives results we expect, this country will also withdraw its recognition of Kosovo independence."

In the piece I wrote in this week's print edition I noted that many countries find the Non-Aligned Movement's meetings useful because they enable countries to lobby and network. However in a stinging commentary (behind a paywall,) at Balkan Insight Milan Misic, the Washington correspondent of the Serbian daily Politika, argues that the whole shebang was mounted because Belgrade "needed something to boost its confidence". It was just a show of nostalgia for all its participants argues Mr Misic and "dwelled on the past achievements of the movement. "

At the meeting the ex-Yugoslavs all sat together. They had better be careful. People (specifically Croatia's Nova television) are asking questions. Why Ivo (Josipovic, the president of Croatia) was spending so much time with Boris (Tadic, the president of Serbia). Two men of the same age, same background, same jobs, same problems, what a scandal...

Meanwhile, as some Croatian journalists were obsessing about Ivo and Boris a small Croatian paper, the Makarska Kronika, appears to have a world-beating scoop, if true of course. In February I wrote about the close connections between the former Yugoslavia and Colonel Qaddafi. The press then wrote that his wife Safiya was originally Sofija Farkas, a Croat with Hungarian roots from Mostar in Hercegovina. According to the paper, Mrs Qaddafi has recently been trying to buy land and property in Igrane on the Croatian Adriatic coast not far from Mostar.

Mrs Qaddafi and some of the family are now in Algeria. This summer the Balkan press has been full of stories of various celebs in various stages of inebriation or undress, from Prince Harry to Beyoncé, who have been holidaying in Croatia. Whether Mrs Qaddafi fits the profile the Croats want, I am not sure, but, if she is really a Bosnian Croat she has every right to a Croatian passport and hence visa free travel throughout Europe.

On a more sombre note, Dimitar Bechev of the Sofia office of the European Council on Foreign Relations writes about the "protracted death of democratic Albania." Discussing the political conflict that has paralysed Albania for the last two years he says that both Edi Rama, the leader of the opposition Socialists and Sali Berisha, the prime minister are to blame. However Mr Berisha "must take the lion's share." He is hell bent, says Mr Bechev, on gaining control of all the Albanian institutions which still remain beyond his grip.

Why are ordinary Albanians willing to allow such de-democratisation? One reason could be that, unlike other former Communist states, ordinary people see in the EU nothing different from Albania. To one side, across the Mediterranean, is Italy, with its unique brand of game-show politics; to the south, over the mountain ranges, lies bankrupt Greece. If this is what it means to be an EU state, many Albanian politicians can be excused for thinking they already live in one, or should qualify for membership."

Not quite as dramatic, but still, alarm bells have begun to ring in Montenegro too. Thomas Roser, of the Austrian daily Die Presse has written about the spate of attacks on vehicles belonging to Vijesti, one of the country's main dailies. Four have been torched in the last couple of months. Zeljko Ivanovic, the paper's managing editor says that the media situation in the country is dire and that the attacks are messages from people connected to orgainised crime which in Montenengro have always been believed to overlap with political interests that "they are stronger than the state" and thus Vijesti's reporting about such issues is pointless. Who cares about the world economy when you can worry about media freedom in Montenegro. Watch this space.