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MOSCOW — The United States Army has begun a broad review of procedures used to supply security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq with foreign arms, prompted by an allegation of fraud and questions about the competence of the main private supplier of ammunition to Afghanistan. The company, AEY Inc. of Miami Beach, was suspended last month after Army investigators accused it of shipping aged Chinese rifle cartridges and claiming they were Hungarian. The Army decided to review its contracting procedures as several arms-industry officials said that long before the suspension, it was clear the Army had erred by not recognizing...

Cindy McCain's hair is a mess. An icy wind whips through it as she tromps across hillsides still slick from snow on the Albanian border, wearing well-worn hiking boots and carrying her Prada purse. She's looking out at mine fields and visiting schools where children must thread their way around left-over munitions. One headmaster told her he uncovered a cluster bomb when he had gone out to plant a tree. At another school, the principal said that work on a new sports field was halted when workers found more than a dozen unexploded bombs.

LAREDO, Texas — An immigrant smuggler who was leading authorities on a high-speed chase when his SUV slammed into a steel post in a wreck that killed five passengers was sentenced to 30 years in prison, officials said Tuesday. There is no possibility of parole for Fernando Lemus-Gonzalez, 33, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas. In February 2007 Border Patrol agents tried to stop Lemus-Gonzalez on suspicion of smuggling illegal immigrants. He led authorities on a chase through Hebbronville before losing control of the SUV and hitting the post. Five of the nine illegal...

BELGRADE- The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has released a new report that the axis between South American drug cartels and the Albanian mafia have reached "alarming proportions". According to reports by several intelligence agencies, Kosovo is a distribution center on the crossroads of global routes and pathways of drug trafficking. “This represents reason for concern, primarily because of the new pathways of drug trafficking, and inclusion of cocaine in the range of products offered by the groups that are active along the Balkan drug route.... The Albanian mafia has recently begun taking over the control of...

At the end of The Pickwick Papers, Samuel Pickwick decides to retire. He had founded the Pickwick Club in order to mix “with different varieties and shades of human character … Nearly the whole of my previous life having been devoted to business and the pursuit of wealth.” His curiosity satisfied at last, he declares the club dissolved. The Pickwick Club then ceases to exist. This is an unusual turn of events in human affairs. Clubs, societies, organizations, leagues, and alliances, once born, rarely die other than by violence. An uncle of mine was a pillar of a club called...

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryApril 5, 2008 President's Radio Address   President's Radio Address  Audio  En Español       In Focus: NATOTHE PRESIDENT: Good morning. I'm speaking to you from Europe, where I attended the NATO summit and witnessed the hopeful progress of the continent's youngest democracies. The summit was held in Romania, one of the 10 liberated nations that have joined the ranks of NATO since the end of the Cold War. After decades of tyranny and oppression, today Romania is an important member of an international alliance dedicated to liberty, and it is setting a bold example for other...

Former Chief Prosecutor at the International Court of Justice in the Hague has given details of suspected atrocities by ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999. Carla Del Ponte's book 'The Hunt: Me and War crimes' claims that before killing Serbs and members of other ethnic communities, Kosovo Albanians removed their organs to sell for transplants. According to Del Ponte, a one-time prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the kidnapped Serbs were given a medical test. Those who passed were treated well, fed and looked after until they were brought under the surgeon’s knife. From several concentration...

UPI Outside View Commentator PITTSBURGH, March 20 (UPI) -- Fighting in northern Kosovo this week between Serbs and NATO-led troops shows that the independence engineered by the Bush administration for the breakaway Balkan province is not going according to plan. When U.S. officials encouraged the unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia by Kosovo's Albanians Feb. 17, we were told that an EU mission would replace the United Nations in Kosovo, and everyone would then build a multiethnic, democratic society with respect for rights of the Serbs, a minority in the province as a whole. That is not happening. The Serbs...

Moscow, March 18 (RIA Novosti) Russia has said that the recent violence in Tibet is linked with the recognition by some states of the independence of Serbia's breakaway province, Kosovo. In an interview published Tuesday in the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the recognition of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence by many countries, including the US and the majority of the European Union (EU) states, had 'already reverberated in many regions.' He said that the Kosovo issue was linked to recent riots in Tibet and demands for greater autonomy by ethnic Albanians in Macedonia. 'There are...

Defence minister quits over Albania army base blast Mar 17, 2008 By Benet Koleka TIRANA, March 17 (Reuters) - Albania's Defence Minister resigned on Monday, taking "moral responsibility" for a huge explosion at an ammunition dump that killed 16 people and injured more than 300 at the weekend. "Although I have no personal responsibility, I handed over my resignation to the prime minister," Defence Minister Fatmir Mediu said. "My resignation is an act of political reflection. These were the most difficult 72 hours of my life." The string of blasts started when workers were moving stocks of old Chinese and...

TIRANA (AFP) — Powerful explosions rocked an army munitions depot near Vora, 12 kilometres (eight miles) north of the capital Tirana on Saturday, witnesses reported, injuring at least 155 people, mostly civilians. Many of the casualties arriving at local hospitals for treatment were women and children covered with blood and one doctor appealed for local people to donate blood to help the casualties. The blasts, which occurred at intervals for around an hour, blew in all the windows of the terminal building at the city's airport, just over a kilometre from the base. The initial blast was so loud it...

One hundred and sixty people, many of them Americans, are feared dead or injured after a series of large explosions at an army base on the outskirts of Tirana, the capital of Albania, officials have said. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/15/nato ____________________________________________________ Many people are feared dead after a massive explosion at an Albanian Army Base. The shockwave was so powerful it damaged the city's nearby international airport, and blew out windows in houses six miles away. The blast set off a number of further blasts in ammunition stored at the army depot near Tirana. Local journalist Altin Kodra told Sky News: "The area...

Today there seems to be little if any national memory of history to influence the foreign policy of the American super-power – merely what appears to be the most expedient at the moment, whether it conforms to international law and a United Nations organization established to act as a moderating force among nations, or not. How else to view Washington’s latest project to foist a second Albanian state on the international community: Kosovo, which has been torn out of Serbian territory rich in historic meaning and tradition to a Slav Orthodox Christian people who consider it to be the very...

12 March 2008 Skopje _ The Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA, the key Albanian partner in the ruling centre-right coalition lead by VMRO-DPMNE, is leaving government, the party leader told media Wednesday. Menduh Taci explained that the party leadership will confirm its decision by the end of the day. The move comes after Prime Minister and VMRO-DPMNE head Nikola Gruevski previously rejected a list of demands the DPA chief, had given him on Monday. “If you ask me, the decision is definite,” Taci told media, after he informed the United States and European Union ambassadors, Gillian Milovanovic and Erwan Fouere...

...“One comment,” writes Malic, “on the bottom of the first page, caught my eye. I reproduce it here, because there is no direct link to it. It is from PaulAndrewKirk of Redmond, Wa.”: I have served two tours in Kosovo with the US Military and I can tell you the following as factual: 1. Almost all facets and levels of the provisional government in Kosovo are corrupt. In fact its the worst I’ve ever seen and I’ve had to deal with some pretty corrupt governments during my career. 2. Supervised independence or even full independence will not improve the miserable...

WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) - The newly independent state of Kosovo will need an estimated $2 billion dollars in foreign aid over the next few years, about half of which should be provided by Europe, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday. The rest of the money could come from the United States and such institutions as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried said. He was testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Helping the fledgling state, which declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17 with strong backing from Washington, will require top-level...

Restitution of Serbian Orthodox Church Property in Kosovo-Metohia ProvinceSerbian Orthodox Church is the legal owner of 5,300 hectares of land in Kosovo province. The word Metohia, an integral part of the name of southern Serbian province, is derived from the Greek word "metoch", denoting the land owned by the Church. Photo: Pec Patriarchate built in 1260, the seat of Serbian Orthodox Church, Kosovo-Metohia, Serbia. Raska and Prizren Diocese (encompassing Raska region and the province of Kosovo and Metohia) of the Serbian Orthodox Church will soon receive a decision stating the return of 5,300 hectares of land (13,097 acres) that was...

Hopes for a peaceful conclusion to the declaration of Kosovo's independence were fading as the European Union announced it had withdrawn its staff from the north of the fledgling country in the face of increasingly angry Serb protests. The civilian staff were meant to be preparing for the EU to take over responsibility for security in Kosovo from the United Nations. The announcement of the withdrawal came as the United States - which backed Kosovo's drive for independence - began to evacuate its American staff and their families from Serbia, offering US citizens the chance to join a convoy of...

BELGRADE, Serbia - A handful of protesters broke into the U.S. embassy in Belgrade on Thursday, cheered on by crowds outside, in a protest at U.S. support for Kosovo's independence.

SEVERAL hundred protesters threw stones and flares at riot police protecting the US embassy in Belgrade today after Kosovo's declaration of independence, witnesses said. One policeman was injured during scuffles as riot police fought to keep the protesters, mainly hardline football fans, away from the embassy building, the witnesses said. One embassy window was smashed. The protesters marched through the middle of the capital towards the US embassy chanting "Kosovo is Serbia" and anti-American slogans. They waved Serbian flags and vowed to protest "until Kosovo is returned to Serbia". After the scuffles, protesters dispersed in nearby streets, while the police...