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Thursday May 8, 2008 Police said yesterday they had smashed a gang of 16 robbers believed to be responsible for nearly 50 burglaries with a total haul worth hundreds of thousands of euros. The gang is suspected of having broken into 15 homes, 19 cars and 14 company offices recently, according to a police source. “It is one of the largest Albanian gangs that have been operating in the country,” the source added. Authorities have arrested five of the total number of suspects, all aged between 15 and 30, and are searching for the remaining gang members. No information was...

http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/10/12102001123602.asp RFE/RL Weekday Magazine 12 October 2001 Albania: Blood Feuds -- 'Blood For Blood' (Part 1) By Jolyon Naegele In Albania, one of Europe's poorest countries, the centuries-old tradition of blood vengeance has seen a resurgence over the past decade. The law-and-order vacuum created by the collapse of communism has sent many Albanians back to the oral common laws of their tribal roots -- laws that include the right to murder to avenge an earlier killing. In a three-part series, RFE/RL correspondent Jolyon Naegele reports from Tirana on the return of the ancient tradition of "gjakmarrja" -- and its devastating ...

A GROUP of doormen stamped and kicked a man to death after refusing him entry into a club for looking too young, a court heard on Monday. Lee Rayner, 30, of Franklin Road, Hornchurch, who was due to get married, was beaten and trampled as he lay helpless on the ground following a confrontation with doormen at the Opium Lounge in North Street, Romford, on June 16 last year. The blows were so savage his skull was almost fractured in half and he later died from brain damage. Doormen Johnives Kalu, 23, and Albanian Rustem Geca, 24, are standing trial...

April 23, 2008 Police believe they've found those responsible for the so-called "Ninja Burglaries" on Staten Island, but they're short of evidence, so they're turning to immigration authorities to throw the suspects out of the country. Investigators say they have closed the book on the so-called Ninja Burglar case,without making any arrests. Police sources say an effort is underway to deport a group of illegal immigrants from Albania. Investigators say they don't have enough evidence to charge them, but the men have been arrested for other burglaries in the past. A string of 19 burglaries began last May. The ninja...

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo's former prime minister urged ethnic Albanians on Tuesday to reach out to the Serb minority in an effort to overcome objections to Kosovo's declaration of independence. Ramush Haradinaj's comments come less than a month since a U.N. war crimes tribunal acquitted him of the murder and torture of Serbs in the 1990s. In an interview with The Associated Press, the 39-year-old former guerrilla commander said Serbs in Kosovo's north should be given social and economic incentives to join Kosovo's ethnic Albanian-dominated institutions. "At this stage, we should present a proper offer, as well as interpret...

Lawrence Eagleburger, Jimmy Carter’s ambassador to Belgrade and George Bush Sr.’s Secretary of State, has been a busy bee lately, weighing in on the right side of the Kosovo issue repeatedly in recent months. As opposed to the past nine years, when his influential input might have had some effect on policy. While we take what allies we can get on the dissenting side of the Kosovo surrender — an underappreciated catalyst for the demise of Western civilization – this is not a case of ‘better late than never’. Considering the influence this man could have had with a brand...

(Translation) INTERVIEW: Scott Taylor, Regarding a Secret Plan by the Western Alliance for Kosovo NATO is preparing a "blitzkrieg." During the next few weeks there will be an artificially provoked attack, bigger than March 17th, the borders around Kosovska Mitrovica will be closed, Serbian leaders arrested, the Serbs disarmed, the city handed over to the Albanians in the KPS, claims a well-known Canadian reporter, Scott Taylor, author of a number of books about the Balkans. - "NATO is preparing a blitzkrieg on Kosovo which will enable them to tear down the Serbian resistance in the whole area, and as early...

Well well well. For perhaps the first time in history, the mainstream media have deemed the dismemberment of Serbs newsworthy. More accurately, they have deemed newsworthy the dismemberment of the Serb and non-Serb victims of our friends, and almost all living Albanians’ great heroes, the KLA. (Recall the crowds cheering “KLA! KLA! KLA!” last month from Tirana to Pristina to Times Square. Below is just a taste of one of the many KLA activities they were cheering.) The new information is revealed in the forthcoming book The Hunt by Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor for the Hague Tribunal. A...

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA -- Kosovska Mitrovica was in turmoil this morning after UNMIK and KFOR stormed a local court to arrest Serbs. Beta news agency says that several hundred soldiers at 05:30 CET surrounded the court, where Serb judicial workers, demanding to return to their jobs, were protesting since Friday. They first handcuffed the men, and then tied the women's hands with ropes. The workers were not resisting the arrest. When the troops moved outside to take them away, a large group of citizens blocked the road. The citizens, local Serbs in the divided town, then started throwing stones at UNMIK....

BELGRADE -- Belgrade has demanded assistance from the World Health Organization over a crisis in Kosovo. A shipment of medicines and medical supplies, worth RSD 3.5mn, has been confiscated by the Kosovo Albanians and UNMIK in the province as it reached Kosovska Mitrovica. It was destined for the isolated Serb enclaves, where hospital officials are now warning they are running out of medicines. Health Minister Tomica Milosavljević has reacted today by saying the government will ask the WHO to intervene. The representatives of the UN mission in the province, UNMIK, said they "will not comment" on the increasingly difficult circumstances...

“U.S. offering friendship to Serbia” 14 February 2008 | 11:49 | Source: Beta, Tanjug WASHINGTON -- Condoleezza Rice says that America hopes Serbia will accept the solution for Kosovo’s future status. Condoleezza Rice (FoNet) The U.S. secretary of state told Congress yesterday that America was offering friendship to Serbia at a time when Kosovo Albanian leaders were preparing to declare independence from Serbia. Association Press reiterated that Serbia had stated that it would never recognize the independence of the province, which has an Albanian population of some 90 percent. AP adds that the U.S. and a majority of EU member-states...

"He (McCain) did everything that we asked of him, including arming the KLA", said Albanian lobbyist Joe DioGuardi. The Albanians collected one million dollars for the presidential campaign of this senator.Americans of Albanian heritage collected a million dollars in one evening for the presidential campaign of Republican Senator John McCain, said the Albanian American Civic League yesterday, the lobby group headed by former Congressman Joe DioGuardi. A reception for McCain was held January 22 at the Saint Regis Hotel in Manhattan, and the senator, who is now leading in the runoff for the Republican party candidacy in the November elections,...

BELGRADE -- Vojislav Koštunica says "Kosovo has no price" and that Serbia won’t approve its independence by signing an agreement with the EU. "With its decision to send a mission to implement Kosovo’s unilateral independence, the EU has twisted United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 which explicitly guarantees respect for Serbia’s territorial integrity," the prime minister said in a statement for the Tanjug news agency. Koštunica said that, in so doing, the EU was grossly violating the UN Charter and was re-tailoring Serbia’s internationally recognized borders by sending a mission. "Certainly it would suit the EU most if Serbia, in...

WASHINGTON -- The Kosovo debate has been resurrected within the White House, says a former U.S. ambassador to the UN. “You still have a number of people in the administration that do not support the policy of automatic recognition of Kosovo independence. I think that that debate has now resurfaced within the administration itself, and, I hope, in the Foreign Ministries of European countries,” John Bolton told Voice of America. Bolton said that it was to difficult to predict the outcome of that debate, as conflicting views were being expressed, but it was no longer just the domain of the...

Hashim Thaci, one-time guerrilla turned PM of Kosovo, has promised to break away from Serbia. It's independence, Jim, but not as we know it.Hashim Thaci, the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrilla leader, has been formally installed as the prime minister of Kosovo. Ruling over a new coalition government, he has promised to declare the province’s independence from Serbia within weeks. The United States and Germany have agreed to recognise Kosovo, and to get the rest of Europe to follow suit. However, Kosovo’s long anticipated declaration of independence will not create an independent state. Rather, it confirms that Kosovo will...

BELGRADE, Serbia: More than 160 Kosovo Albanians are under investigation in Serbia for alleged war crimes during the 1998-99 conflict, a prosecutor's office said. The suspects are being investigated in connection with kidnappings, torture and killings of Serbs and other non-Albanians in the U.N.-run region, said Bruno Vekaric, the spokesman for Serbia's war crimes prosecutor. "The families of the victims have the right to find out the truth, especially if we have information on who is behind the crimes," Vekaric said in Belgrade. Serbia's war crimes prosecutor has won international praise for efforts to prosecute those responsible for atrocities committed...

At least eight members of an armed criminal group have been killed in a police action, Interior Ministry spokesman Ivo Kotevski told the MIA state news agency. He said no police officers were injured and confirmed special forces were still in the area. Locals from the village of Brodec, a Šar Mountain village north of Tetovo, have confirmed a shooutout between police and armed groups in the village. A spokesman for NATO peacekeepers in neighbouring Kosovo told a news conference a helicopter had crashed but there was no information on casualties. Macedonian police denied that report. "There is no helicopter...

PRISTINA, Serbia (AFP) — A strong blast in the Kosovo capital Pristina killed two people and injured 11 on Monday amid renewed tensions arising from the future of the UN-administered Serbian province. A double-storey business centre on Bill Clinton Boulevard was severely damaged by the explosion at 2:10 am (0010 GMT), which damaged at least a dozen shops, cafes and restaurants at the premises, police said. One person was immediately killed, the other died of injuries in a hospital, while another victim was in critical condition, local police and medical authorities said, adding that the others' lives were not threatened....

One man was killed and another wounded after being shot in Queens late Tuesday by a contractor who told investigators that the men had demanded $20,000 from him and threatened to harm his wife, law enforcement officials said. The contractor, Lulzim Kupi, 42, told investigators he shot the men in self-defense. He was expected to be charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon, the police said. One man who was shot, Redinel Dervishaj, 32, was in stable condition at Elmhurst Hospital Center with gunshot wounds to the arm and torso, law enforcement officials said. The other man,...

A local politician in southern Sweden has been fined 18,000 kronor for writing a motion claiming that 95 percent of all heroin brought in to Sweden comes via Kosovo. Dahn Pettersson, a councillor for the local Alliance Party, presented the motion to Burlöv council last year. The main subject of the motion was homelessness in the town. He said that drugs were a major reason for homelessness, adding: "Is it surprising that rough sleepers are growing in number when we import this drug, due to the fact that [former immigration minister Birgit ] Friggebo gave 46,000 Kosovo Albanians permanent residency?...