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<p>"NatWest handed Al Qaeda terrorist 100% mortgage to buy £93,000 home he turned into a bomb factory"</p> <p>SNIPPET: "A bank has sparked outrage by handing over a 100 per cent mortgage to an Al Qaeda terrorist who smuggled himself into Britain.</p>

* Print * ShareThis A suspected Albanian gangster carrying a loaded pistol and silencer has been arrested outside the home of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, police have said, Sky News reported. There was no threat to Blair's safety, it is understood. The suspect, 56, was stopped in his car as he drove in Connaught Street, central London, on Monday at 11.15 p.m. local time. Officers on patrol became suspicious and arrested him for alleged traffic and documentation offences. About 25 minutes later, a passer-by approached a uniformed officer on guard outside Blair's £3.5m Connaught Square townhouse. He handed the...

Not much media attention focuses on the leveling of Christian sanctuaries. After all, it’s just a "Christian story." However, the latest mosque burnt to the ground gets plenty of newsfeed with narrative and copious photographs.

Inevitably, some extraordinary security measures were taken in Kosovo's capital in connection with William Jefferson Clinton's recent visit. The former president of the United States undertook a long journey to the middle of the Balkans in order to take a look at his own figure standing twelve feet above the rest of humanity. There could be little doubt that those extraordinary measures added additional tension in the life of the current and former residents of the area. Let's clear up a possible confusion: many of the current Albanian residents of Pristina live in the houses of the former Serbian owners...

Albania wants the remains of Nobel Peace laureate Mother Teresa and the only post-independence monarch to be returned to the country, the prime minister has said. Mother Teresa's remains are in India and King Ahmet Zog's in France. Prime minister Sali Berisha's government has asked India for the Roman Catholic nun's to be returned by the 100th anniversary of her birth in August. Berisha yesterday said Albania has started negotiations with India's government,which "will be intensified this year". Macedonia and Albania have been engaged in a dispute over the national identity of Mother Teresa, who was born in Macedonia to...

SNIPPET: "Arabic language schools in Nasr City are doing well and many Salafists come to Egypt in to learn the language of the Koran. Many deeply religious students from Europe come to Egypt to learn Arabic. The question is: are these European Salafists coming to study the language of the Koran or to prepare terrorist attacks?" SNIPPET: "In addition to language lessons, they usually follow courses in Islamic law offered by teachers ranging from the renowned Al-Azhar University to clandestine imams without permits. "Religious fanatics want to be taken seriously," says Walid al-Gohari, founder and director of the Al-Fajr institute,...

It is so refreshing to see that our own government helped create an Islamic stronghold within the Balkan Peninsula. Serbia jails 4 Muslims for plotting terror attack Tue Sep 8, 2009 12:28 BELGRADE, Sept 8 (Reuters) - A Serbian court on Tuesday sentenced four Muslims to prison terms ranging from four to eight years for plotting to attack a football stadium in a southern town of Novi Pazar, a spokeswoman said.

The EU rule of law mission in Kosovo, EULEX, has confirmed that it is now involved in the investigation into allegations that three Serbs attempted to secure false testimony about organ trafficking. Christophe Lamfalussy told Balkan Insight that a mixed team of Kosovo and EULEX prosecutors in Pristina were now investigating the case. Three Serbs were arrested in June by Kosovo police, accused of trying to bribe Kosovo Serbs to falsely testify that they were victims of organ harvesting during the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict. EULEX was not involved in the initial arrests. Milutin Radanovic and Predrag Zelkovic are Serbian citizens....

A spectacular 61km section of highway through mountainous northern Albania opens on Thursday, creating a strategic link with fellow ethnic Albanians in landlocked Kosovo. For Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia last year, the modern four-lane route is a vital commercial link through a friendly country. At more than €600m (£510m, $840m) the new stretch of road will cut the eight-hour journey between Tirana and Pristina by at least two hours, according to Ernest Noka, Albania’s deputy transport minister. It was the toughest construction challenge on a corridor linking Albania’s Adriatic port of Durres with the Balkan interior and pan-European...

MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is concerned over the rising tensions between the Serb and Albanian population in Kosovo, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. "The use of international police and activities against Serbs is unacceptable," spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said. Nesterenko said that there is a growth in the destabilization of northern Kosovo that could lead to an escalation of tensions throughout the region, adding that "balanced actions in the interests of all parties are needed." Kosovo's minority Serb population, which is dominant in the north of the territory, began to protest last week in Brdjani, an Albanian...

WARSAW, April 25 (RIA Novosti) - The Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha is due to visit Prague on April 28, where he is expected to submit an application on EU candidate status, Czech media said on Saturday. Albania along with Croatia became NATO members in April. The Czech government's press service has made no official comments on the reports, but said that during the Albanian premier's visit to Prague "journalists were indeed in for a surprise." Berisha has said EU membership is a key aim for the once-isolated country in the run up to parliamentary elections in June. EU enlargement...

WASHINGTON, April 9, 2009 – For NATO’s two newest members, a National Guard program contributed to their April 1 accession into the alliance. Albania and Croatia have been members of the National Guard’s State Partnership Program for more than a decade. Along with other initiatives such as NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, the National Guard’s State Partnership Program helped the countries prepare for NATO membership, National Guard Bureau officials said. Established in 1949 as a defense pact against the former Soviet Union and now 28 members strong, NATO celebrated its 60th anniversary April 4. A dozen countries founded NATO...

Note from Ravnagora: The following was written back on February 17, 2008, the day Kosovo was handed its "independence". It gives a terrific overview of the "Albanian" issue. The author was born in Istanbul. The Greeks understand well... American and European foreign policy in the Balkans, suffering from a terminal form of historical amnesia, is bankrupt. The results of those bankrupt policies are visibly on display today as Kosovor Albanians declare themselves independent and a second Muslim state is now established on the European continent. The stage is now set for the a regime led by elements of the Kosovo...

It is a year since Kosovo, with NATO backing, made a unilateral declaration of independence, breaking away from Serbia. Fifty countries, most of which have little knowledge of the political intricacies of the Balkans and even less about the complicated historical interplay between the various ethnic and religious groups living in the area supported the move. As a state it is doubtful whether Kosovo can survive. It has virtually no industry, no service sector, tourism is non existent and agricultural exports minimal. The economy has been propped up artificially by the presence of NATO KFOR troops and foreign aid. Its...

A largely Muslim nation this month is hosting an exhibition highlighting a chapter of world history that has received little public exposure until now: how some Muslims risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. It is well known that Islamic leaders, including the grand mufti of Jerusalem, collaborated with the Nazis in divining anti-Semitic propaganda and recruiting Arab officials to support Adolph Hitler's war against Jews. Many of today's Mideast leaders, such as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are notorious for their outspoken denial of the Holocaust. Often overlooked, however, are scores of Albanian...

MITROVICA, Kosovo (AP): Several thousand Serbs are protesting in Kosovo's north against the formation of an ethnic Albanian security force. The protesters claim the new Kosovo Security Force is designed to harass the Serb minority, and say they will not allow the NATO-trained force to deploy in the Serb-dominated north. They are urging Serbia's government to hold a Feb. 17 session in Kosovo as the former Serbian province marks its first anniversary of independence. Serbia rejects Kosovo's statehood. Kosovo's security force is dominated by ethnic-Albanians and commanded by a former rebel leader that fought Serbia during the 1998-99 war. It...

Managers at the World Bank provided false information to the agency's board of directors about a $39 million, politically-connected European "coastal cleanup" project that led to the destruction and destitution of a powerless village in Albania in 2007 — and then spent nearly two years trying to cover it up, FOX News has learned. Bank insiders also misled and stonewalled a panel of independent investigators commissioned by the board to investigate the scandal, according to the investigators themselves. World Bank sources tell FOX News that the panel's report, submitted to the 24-member board in late November, is one of the...

Managers at the World Bank provided false information to the agency's board of directors about a $39 million, politically-connected European "coastal cleanup" project that led to the destruction and destitution of a powerless village in Albania in 2007 — and then spent nearly two years trying to cover it up, FOX News has learned. Bank insiders also misled and stonewalled a panel of independent investigators commissioned by the board to investigate the scandal, according to the investigators themselves. World Bank sources tell FOX News that the panel's report, submitted to the 24-member board in late November, is one of the...

Zagreb. U.S. President Barack Obama might visit Croatia and Albania in April, the Croatian Jutarnji List writes on its Internet site. According to anonymous White House sources Obama will most probably visit Zagreb and Tirana immediately after the NATO summit in Strasbourg. If Obama does not visit the two countries on organizational grounds, the prime ministers of the two NATO newcomers will visit the White House, the Jutarnji List says.

FUSHE-KRUJE, Albania (Reuters) - At the "George W. Bush" cafe in this little Albanian town, owner Festim Cela gives a solemn reply when asked if it will change its name when the U.S. President leaves office Tuesday. Many beyond U.S. shores may welcome the end of Bush's presidency, but in zealously pro-American Albania, he is feted as a hero. "As long as this building stands, its name will be George W. Bush," Cela said as he watched television pictures of Bush's farewell speech the week before Barack Obama succeeds him. Below the TV is a table where Bush sat to...