Tennis and politics
Band-Aid on Djokovic
It may have been the last dance in Melbourne. Novak Djokovic says he does not know if he will play again in the place where he won a record ten titles.
In the final of the Australian Open, he played an impeccable first set against the young lion Carlos Alcaraz, and then he was completely speechless. At the press conference, shaken, he hinted at certain problems, probably health-related, but did not want to go into details.
In the end, Alcaraz easily turned the match and showed why he is the best player today. Djokovic, who turns 39 in May, has eternity left. And maybe a few more opportunities to win the 25th Grand Slam in his career and thus separate himself from Margaret Court, who played in another tennis era.
During the final, President Aleksandar Vučić "addressed" Pink, obviously to dilute the news. Tabloid portals close to the government pushed Đoković somewhere, while Vučić was the hot topic.
The president said that he wholeheartedly supports Djokovic, but it is hard to believe him. The best tennis player of all time was denounced in his native country, labeled as a "blockader" and "Ustasha". Vučić could have stopped all that with one call, but he didn't.
At the end of the press conference, Djokovic said: "A message for our people in Serbia - justice and truth always win, let them persevere."
Pricelist
Tell me, do you remember the margin?
When something wants to be slandered, then, under the carpet, it is published in the "Official Gazette" and nowhere else. Few people read the official gazette, except perhaps the journalists of "Vremen". We were the first to report that the government practically buried the famous "limitation of margins" in supermarkets.
At the end of January, the regulation from September 2025 was softened for the fifth time - the freezing of food purchase prices was lifted. Although the margin limit of 20 percent remains, now purchase prices can jump, and this is all passed on to consumers.
"There will certainly be price corrections for some goods," says economist Dragovan Milićević. "The reductions brought about by the Regulation were very small anyway, which we could see from the statistics and by simply going to the store."
According to the data of the Republic Institute of Statistics, in December 2025, compared to a year ago, the prices of vegetables, a little bread and oil fell solidly, and the prices of meat, fish and dairy products almost imperceptibly. The prices of drinks and fruit, and coffee and cocoa, have risen significantly by almost 24 percent, which is a global problem.
Presidential appearances with a supermarket basket, detergent and salami, and harsh words to supposedly sleazy traders now seem like ancient history. The entire ordinance expires at the beginning of February and there is no indication that it will be extended. She did not help the people.
photo: jadranka ilić / tanjug...
Justice
Caddies and judges
The days are turbulent in the regime's reckoning with the remains of an independent judiciary. After some wrangling, President Vučić signed the "Mrdić Laws". They will concentrate power in the Belgrade High Prosecutor's Office, which is led by the loyal Nenad Stefanović, and will cripple the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime (TOK), which leads several processes against the elite.
Then the President of the Constitutional Court, Vladan Petrov, stood out again in his understanding of the law, calling for the dismissal of colleagues who criticize the regime. "It is a conflict of interest that must and can be sanctioned by the loss of the judge's office. The only problem is that the crow does not take its eyes off the crow," said Petrov for "Politika".
Petrov works less well in the Constitutional Court, which traditionally has a pile of accumulated cases and pretends to be dead when he has to evaluate the unconstitutional moves of the government, but that's why he finds time to praise Vučić on television. Recently, he admired, for example, Vučić's charisma and performance on TikTok.
The President of the Syndicate of the Judiciary, Nemanja Đurić, tells "Vreme" that the government is afraid of the reaction of judges and prosecutors to "Mrdić's laws". They stopped working in several cities on Monday. "Laws were adopted that benefit the mafia and the closest associates of President Aleksandar Vučić who are on the docks, as well as laws that lead to the abolition of the TOK, and therefore to the abolition of the judiciary," says Đurić. As he adds, Petrov now wants to intimidate judges and prosecutors so that they do not continue to suspend their work.
At the same time, the head of the TOK, Mladen Nenadić, announced at a public forum that a coup d'état had almost happened in Serbia because the police did not implement the orders of the prosecution. He said that in the case of "Nadstrešnica" there is no cooperation with the directors of the police, the Tax Administration and the Directorate for the Prevention of Money Laundering.
Or that, as Petrov would say, a crow doesn't pry its eyes out.
SPC
Who is the heretic here?
When they die, there will be no Orthodox funeral for the faithful Christians Blagoj Pantelić and Vukašin Milićević. These two - the first a theologian, the second until recently a priest and formerly an assistant professor at the Orthodox Theological Faculty - were officially excluded from the Serbian Orthodox Church.
The decision was made by the Ecclesiastical Court of the Archdiocese of Belgrade-Karlova after a strange process which, it seems, ended before it began. Milićević and Pantelić are among the very few people of faith and the church who harshly criticized Patriarch Porfiri and his entourage.
Milićević ironically tells "Vreme" that he is "very honored" by the decision and promises that he will continue to point out "the hypocrisy of the current top of the Serbian Orthodox Church, their heresy and shameful actions by which they cause immense damage to the church, which, in cooperation with the mafia regime, they completely usurped and subjugated to serve their criminal and warmongering goals."
Theologian Blagoje Pantelić wrote on social networks that he will appeal to a higher church authority.
The process was reminiscent of Kafka's novels. It is still not clear where the SPC found that these two violated some canon. While heartily condemning the student protests, Patriarch Porphyry did not find time to explain the anathematization of the two critics.
Image theft
Race for I climb.
In broad daylight, in the center of Belgrade, at the end of January, a painting was stolen Sleep Zdravko Vučinić. The painting was part of the traditional exhibition of the oldest members of the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia (ULUS).
The young man and the girl walked through the gallery, took a larger picture (dimensions 70x50 centimeters) and ran away. The gallery has no cameras or security. The police do not inform ULUS or the artist about the investigation.
"I can't know why they took my picture, possibly because it was near the exit," Vučinić told "Vreme". "I don't think they're art lovers, but they're not thieves either. It's more likely that it's hanging."
He says he feels sorry for the technician from the gallery who ran after the thieves through Knez Mihailova. "He was very upset about that theft. Don't worry, there will be pictures, I told him, but I didn't console him."
Art thefts are rare in Serbia. One remembers the one from 1996, when it was taken from the National Museum Bather Auguste Renoir, and the one from 2021, when 41 objects worth around 300.000 euros were taken from the Museum of Applied Arts.
Bather was quickly found, maybe it will be Sleep. Images are not provided. Last year, the Ministry of Culture did not allocate dinars for ULUS programs, salaries are barely paid, Mirjana Vilić Odić, vice-president of the ULUS Board of Directors, told Vreme.
For everything that ULUS manages to put on its feet, it can be thanked to enthusiasm, not to the system, she says, adding in a sharp joke that stealing a painting is a "great" thing. "In this misery of ours, we got a lot of PR for free."
photo: tanja valič / tanjug...
The Epstein dossier
Milo doesn't know.
It's been more than six years since Jeffrey Epstein, financial magnate, serial rapist and pimp of minors, allegedly hanged himself in his prison cell, but his case still doesn't leave the American public. It's no wonder - documents and correspondence of a man whose perverse and criminal "parties" were attended by various people, and who cultivated friendship with Donald Trump himself, are being published on a spoonful basis.
In the last round, three million documents were published and all are searchable in a file on the Internet. Former Montenegrin president Milo Đukanović and Slovakian diplomat Miroslav Lajčak, long active in the Balkans, are mentioned there.
Lajčak and Epstein corresponded in the year before their arrest and apparently agreed on a visit to Montenegro for an unclear reason. Lajčak wrote that the President of Montenegro "looks forward to our visit", to which Epstein replies: "Maybe he should give refuge to Donald", and Lajčak: "Montenegro is Donald's weak point".
During the correspondence, Epstein sent Lajčak a link to a text about Montenegro and a picture of Kotor, to which Lajčak replied: "I told you that Montenegro is great."
After a few days of silence, Đukanović wrote on Twitter that he had no idea what it was about, that he did not know Epstein or ever communicated with him. And I guess it's ironic that he can't tell "some media people" how Epstein came to the conclusion that Đukanović is a great character. "I recommend that, if they meet him somewhere before me, they must check it out and inform the public about his position."
