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Sarajevo, 6 August (AKI) – The Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, once a symbol of ethnic diversity, has become an entirely Muslim city, a Croat deputy in the Bosnian Parliament, Branko Zrno, said on Wednesday. “Sarajevo definitely isn’t a multi-ethnic city, but the city of one group, the Bosniacs (Muslims), " Zrno told local media. He pointed out that Serbs and Croats in Sarajevo have no institutional protection, and continue to leave the capital. Zrno echoed allegations from Bosnian Serb leaders, including Serb entity Prime Minister Milorad Dodik, that non-Muslims in Sarajevo suffered discrimination and were denied their rights. Zrno said...

Karadzic demands Holbrooke, Albright appear in court AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic demanded on Wednesday that former U.S. peace mediator Richard Holbrooke and ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright appear at the U.N. war crimes tribunal to back his claims of an immunity offer from the United States. Karadzic, who was transferred to the Hague's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia last week to face war crimes and genocide charges after 11 years on the run, challenged the legality of the case against him, a filing released by the tribunal showed. In the document, Karadzic repeated...

Podgorica, 5 August (AKI) - A court in the small Balkan country of Montenegro on Tuesday convicted 12 ethnic Albanians, including four US citizens, of plotting a rebellion when the republic became independent of Serbia in 2006. Judge Ivica Stankovic also convicted five other members of the group from Montenegro's Albanian minority of possessing illegal weapons. He sentenced the 17 defendants to prison terms ranging from three months to six and a half years for planning a rebellion and the Americans received some of the toughest sentences. The ethnic Albanians were arrested on terrorism charges in September 2006, but the...

2008-08-06 11:11:02 - BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) - Serbia's Justice Ministry says it has received no formal U.S. request to extradite or prosecute a Serb student wanted on assault charges in New York. U.S. police say 20-year-old Miladin Kovacevic severely beat fellow college student Bryan Steinhauer during a bar fight in May and then fled to Serbia in June to avoid prosecution. Washington reportedly has demanded that Serbia return Kovacevic by Aug. 1. But Serbian Justice Ministry says in a statement released Wednesday the United States has not made a formal request for Kovacevic's extradition to the U.S. or trial in...

BELGRADE, ZAGREB -- Today marks the 13th anniversary of Operation Storm that led to the exodus of over 200,000 Serbs from Croatia. Storm began on August 4,1995 with an offensive by the Croatian army and police in the region of Banija, Lika, Kordun, and northern Dalmatia. A day later, the Croatian Army entered a practically deserted Knin and raised the Croatian flag. The number of victims during the operation has never been established. According to the Veritas Center for documentation and statistics, 1,900 Serbs either died or disappeared during Storm, while the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights claims that...

JURIST Special Guest Columnist William Montgomery, US Ambassador to Yugoslavia (later Serbia and Montenegro) from 2001-2004, says that as the euphoria over the arrest of Radovan Karadzic fades and reality sets in, it's clear that his case poses continuing challenges for the Serbian government, the European Union, and of course the prosecutors and judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia who wish to avoid the damage done to the local credibility of that court by the trials of Slobodan Milosevic and Vojslav Seselj... _________________________ In 1996 and early 1997, as Special Advisor to the President and Secretary...

Imagine what would happen to a handful of Jewish veterans of the Israel Defense Forces who tried to move from Tel Aviv to an Arab country to open a bistro and bar. In only a few countries could they even get through the airport without being deported or, more likely, arrested. If they were somehow able to finagle a permit from the bureaucracy and operate openly as Israelis in an Arab capital, they wouldn’t last long. Somebody would almost certainly kill them even if the state left them alone. Kosovo is a Muslim-majority country, but it isn’t Arab. The ethnic...

Michael Palin's New Europe has been rapped by the BBC Trust's editorial standards committee over its portrayal of the role of Serbia in the Balkan conflict in the 1990s. Palin's most recent travelogue was "political commentary rather than a travel series" and gave an inaccurate account of the war in the 1990s Balkan conflict, according to one complainant. Comments made by Palin about the destruction of a bridge at Mostar, Bosnia in 1993 came in for criticism from the complainant. Palin's comments were made in 'War and Peace', the first episode of the series, which was broadcast on BBC1 in...

Radovan Karadzic was living under US protection until the CIA caught him breaking an agreement to stay out of politics, a Serbian newspaper has claimed. Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader who was last week indicted for genocide and war crimes, enjoyed the protection from the Dayton peace accord in 1995 until 2000, according to a "well-informed US intelligence source". The Belgrade daily Blic claims that Karadzic was secretly granted immunity in return for promising to keep a low profile, but that in 2000 "the CIA intercepted a telephone conversation that clearly proved he personally chaired a meeting of his...

Belgrade, 1 August (AKI) – Bosnia's wartime president Radovan Karadzic may testify "embarrassing" secrets to the UN's Hague war crimes tribunal, a former senior international representative, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, said on Friday . "I believe Karadzic knows certain things which in any case aren’t pleasant for the international community,” Christian Schwarz-Schilling (photo) told German radio on Friday. “I suppose that he, having been involved in the events, will have to say some new things which were unknown until now,” Schwartz-Schilling said. Schwarz-Schilling, a German diplomat, was appointed High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina and as the European Union's special representative in...

BELGRADE, Serbia, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- Serbian Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac says Belgrade is set to sign a security agreement with NATO soon.

National Post, April 08, 2004 We bombed the wrong side? by Lewis MacKenzie Five years ago our television screens were dominated by pictures of Kosovo-Albanian refugees escaping across Kosovo's borders to the sanctuaries of Macedonia and Albania. Shrill reports indicated that Slobodan Milosevic's security forces were conducting a campaign of genocide and that at least 100,000 Kosovo-Albanians had been exterminated and buried in mass graves throughout the Serbian province. NATO sprung into action and, in spite of the fact no member nation of the alliance was threatened, commenced bombing not only Kosovo, but the infrastructure and population of Serbia itself...

Lt. Gen. Fabio Mini "International law has been grossly violated in Kosovo," Lt. Gen. Fabio Mini UNMIK Pretends it Doesn't Know International Law is Violated in Kosovo Province Former KFOR Commander, Lieutenant General Fabio Mini has said that it is very dangerous to look for legal framework for Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohia outside the UN Security Council Resolution 1244, stressing that the resolution was grossly violated by the Pristina separatists' declaration of independence. "International law has been violated in Kosovo, because the international law is what Resolution 1244 says and no other interpretations are possible. The view that...

ZAGREB -- Croatia’s Jewish community has objected to the way the funeral of a WW2 Ustasha camp commander was organized. Dinko Šakić, a former commander at the Jasenovac death camp, died on July 20. “Burying the commander of the Jasenovac death camp in his Ustasha uniform, and the speech by the priest Vjekoslav Lasić, who said that the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was the foundation of today’s ‘Croatian Homeland’, have impelled us to bring to the attention of the Croatian public and government that a funeral is a public gathering, and that several transgressions took place during that funeral,”...

The United States, Britain, the European Union, the Vatican and a grossly perverse mass media machine will have a lot to answer for when the full extent of their anti-Serb bias is revealed. That’s not going to happen soon. The minds of a gullible public are being shaped to demonize one individual and the ethnic group he represents and, through him, to heap upon them the collective sins of opposing political forces still seeking their own selfish gain from the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Believe it or not, it was the revival of the old German dream of European...

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There is nothing that better reflects the cowardly, obsequious performance “I tell you only what you want to hear” Barack Obama gave during his European tour last week than the fact that right smack in the middle of the continent, he never mentioned the real lessons of Bosnia. Of course, that omission didn’t surprise those of us who understand that the “agent of change” who never misses an opportunity to vacuously boast “this is our moment, this is our time” is nothing more than a made in Chicago retread liberal. No, unlike Belfast’s Telegraph, we weren’t foolish enough to believe...

THE HAGUE (AFP) — Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic stood before the UN war crimes court Thursday to face genocide charges, in his first public appearance since his arrest after nearly 13 years on the run. Shorn of the beard and long hair he had used as a disguise until his capture on July 21, Karadzic was again recognisable as the man who became one of the most reviled figures in the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s. Wearing a dark jacket and tie, Karazdic appeared before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to hear the 11...

The detention room Radovan Karadjic has in The Hague is likely to include PC and internet access because he is conducting his defence himself. That is uncommon. All the prisoners may use the phone and watch television. A room for conjugal visits is also provided as well as medical care

BELGRADE — Stone-throwing hooligans clashed in Belgrade Tuesday with Serbian riot police who replied with rubber bullets and tear gas after a rally against Radovan Karadzic’s looming war crimes transfer. The violence erupted at the end of the ultra-nationalist protest rally in Belgrade’s main downtown square, which drew more than 15,000 hardliners opposed to the arrest a week ago of the Bosnian Serb genocide suspect. Karadzic, in custody in a Belgrade prison cell after his arrest in the capital on July 21, is fighting a legal battle against his transfer to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. But...

Boris Tadic, the pro-Western President of Serbia, appealed for calm ahead of the demonstration. He has received death threats after the arrest of Dr Karadzic, not least from a Radical MP who compared him to Zoran Djindjic, Mr Tadic’s predecessor as head of the Democratic Party, who was assassinated in 2003 in revenge for the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic, the wartime President. By 7pm, about 15,000 flag-waving demonstrators had gathered in Republic Square, chanting the name of Dr Karadzic. The stage was decorated with a huge blue canvas with the inscription,“Freedom for Serbia, freedom for Radovan." ... A group of...

Lord Ashdown's warning about the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina � which was intended to rouse Europe's capitals from their "comfortable slumber" � certainly dampened the optimism that accompanied last week's arrest of Radovan Karadzic. However, in attributing the problems facing Bosnia and Herzegovina to the actions of Bosnia's Serbs, Lord Ashdown overlooked � intentionally or not � several broader issues that continue to undermine the state's viability. From the fiscal frailty of one of Bosnia and Herzegovina's two entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to persistent discord amongst Bosnia's Croats, the country is beset by a number of...

Sarajevo _ Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic robbed the Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska of at least €18 million in 1997, a US diplomat claims. Back in 1997 at a time when Radovan Karadzic had already abandoned the political scene and was in hiding, he still managed to take on two occasions a total of €18 million from the Republika Srpska Central Bank in Banja Luka, United States diplomat and deputy top international envoy for Bosnia, Raffi Gregorian, said in a statement to Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz published on Friday. The same accusation was made by Republika Srpska...

Serbia's interior minister says officials found copies of Bosnian Serb government documents in the Belgrade apartment where former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic lived prior to his arrest last week. Ivica Dacic said the documents included materials on Bosnian Serb military staff meetings during the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s. He said officials turned the materials over to Serbia's war crimes court. Meanwhile, court officials say the court has not yet received Karadzic's appeal against a judicial order authorizing his extradition to the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Karadzic's lawyer, Svetozar Vujacic says he mailed out...

This brief history, based on authoritative published sources, is intended to provide readers with an objective and reasonably concise history of the hundreds of years of struggle between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo. Interested readers are strongly encouraged to consult the sources cited for a much fuller treatment of the subject. At the end of the historical summary implications of what is happening in Kosovo for the global jihad and the eventual Islamization of Europe are considered. History Prior to 19th Century The earliest known inhabitants of Kosovo were called Illyrians by both Greeks and Romans. Albanians today claim to...

Radovan Karadzic was arrested after information provided to investigators by the Hague's other most wanted man, Ratko Mladic, German intelligence sources have revealed. General Mladic, who was Karadzic's military commander and led Bosnian Serb troops during the massacre at Srebrenica, is one of two Balkans war crimes suspects still on the run. His capture is expected within weeks as his political support network crumbles and the European Union continues to pressure Serbia to hand him over. But according to German intelligence sources, Mladic has been negotiating with those hunting him over the terms of his capture, and "gave information on...

Radovan Karadzic is accused of the most heinous crimes against humanity, from the siege of Sarajevo to the Srebrenica massacre. He is charged with having the blood of 20,000 lives on his hands and of bringing an entire country down by ethnic hatred. Today relatives of the thousands of victims said they had been waiting for this moment of justice for 13 years.

.....Radovan Karadzic will be duly convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity, and he will not come out of jail alive. The verdict is already written, but it reflects a fundamental imbalance. It ignores the essence of the Bosnian war—the Serbs’ striving not to be forced into secession—while remaining mute about the culpability of the other two sides for a series of unconstitutional, illegitimate and illegal political decisions that caused the war. The judgment against Karadzic at the U.S.-sponsored and largely U.S.-funded tribunal at The Hague will be built on this flawed foundation. It will be neither fair or just,...

Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic has been arrested in Serbia, presidential and government sources in Belgrade say. The Bosnian Serb wartime political leader disappeared in 1996 and was subsequently indicted by the UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. He is accused of war crimes and genocide over the massacre of 7,500 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. His wartime military leader, Ratko Mladic, remains at large.

On July 17, 1946, sixty-two years ago, the life of General Draza Mihailovich came to an end. Why should we care? Why did his life and death matter? He was a military officer who lived at a time in history when his dedication to democratic ideals would bring him into conflict with the fascists, the Nazis and, in the end, the communists. It would be the communists who would finally silence him, but not before he and his people fought valiantly to prevent his country, Yugoslavia, from falling into communist hands after the war. It would be too easy to...

8 July 2008 | 16:36 | Source: Beta PRIŠTINA -- Representatives of civil society in Kosovo will start lobbying for Kosovo's recognition, write Priština media. Daily Koha Ditore claims that there is financial support from George Soros and the Kosovo Fund for Open Society: “The lobbying group will include Veton Suroi and Blerim Shala, the coordinator of the former Kosovo negotiating team, Luan Shllaku, the director of the Kosovo Fund for Open Society, and Muhamet Mustafa, the dean of the Reinvest University.� The group‘s work will be based on the plan and recommendations of former international envoy to Kosovo Martti...

S ixty prominent leaders from Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Qatar, and Iraq have supported development of closer ties with Kosovo and fast recognition of Kosovo independence by the Arab states. The conclusion came from the conference “Kosova and the Arab world� organized in Amman, Jordan, by the Al Quds Center for Political Studies and Forum 2015 from Prishtina. Speakers at the conference were Kosovo intellectuals like Veton Surroi, Muhamet Mustafa and Qemalj Morina, and influential intellectuals and civil society leaders from the Arab world. “Kosovo topic arose interest among the Arab participants at the conference, who saw it important to...

16 July 2008 Gjakova _ The UN authorities in Kosovo have pledged to hold talks with council officials in Gjakova after it emerged a park is being built over the remains of a Serbian Orthodox Church. Local Serb radio KIM found that the construction of the park in Gjakova (known in Serbian as Djakovica), an overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian town in western Kosovo, is now in its final stages. A metre of soil was placed on top of the church’s foundations and trees and flowers planted over it. Some 20 workers from the Bala construction company were finishing work at the...

Last update: 3:22 p.m. EDT July 17, 2008 GRACANICA, Serbia, July 17, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The following statement was issued today by His Grace ARTEMIJE, Bishop of Ras and Prizren, and pastor of Orthodox Christians in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija: "On July 21, President George W. Bush is scheduled to meet with Hashim Thaci, styled by some 'Prime Minister' of the separatist Albanian Muslim administration in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija. As pastor of the Orthodox Christian people of Kosovo, I protest to the fullest possible degree the fact that President Bush would...

YPSILANTI, MICHIGAN (WTOL) - As we celebrate Independence Day, four veterans of World War II want to thank those who kept them safe in enemy territory years ago. They were recently reunited at the Yankee Air Museum in Ypsilanti thanks to the Experimental Aircraft Association. News 11's Jennifer Boresz was there and has their story. These men are called the 'Forgotten 500' in a published book. As more and more people hear the story, however, they're hoping the daring rescue mission and the men behind it will never be forgotten again. "When they said pull that rip cord, I started...

The travel section of the paper featured a story on Kosovo the other day with a recommendation that readers visit this latest "must see" spot on the globe. It made me laugh. Almost forty years ago--1971 to be exact -- I traveled in what was then called Yugoslavia and is now called Kosovo. The memories of that trip remain so vivid and so utterly at odds with this report.

On February 17, 2008, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia. Some are concerned about what NATO, the United Nations, and the European Union have nurtured there since the military and humanitarian intervention in 1999. James Jatras, a U.S.-based advocate for the Serbian Orthodox Community, put it bluntly last year when he said Kosovo was a “a beachhead into the rest of Europe” for “radical Muslims” and “terrorist elements.” It’s an assertion without evidence. “We’ve been here for so long,” said United States Army Sergeant Zachary Gore in Eastern Kosovo, “and not seen any evidence of it, that we’ve reached the assumption...

Professor John P. Maher reviews "July 1914: Soldiers, Statesmen, and the Coming of the Great War: A Brief Documentary History." Edited by Samuel R. Williamson and Russel Van Wyk. 2003. Bedford / St Martin's Press. A commonplace in recent books on the Balkans is to draw parallels between 1990s Serbia and the Third Reich. Williamson and Van Wyk confirm the consensus view that that Germany and Austria-Hungary started the Great War, but fail to pursue another parallel. They say nothing about activities of Germany and Austria in the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. But policy and press in those...

24 June 2008 Zagreb _ A former US ambassador to Croatia has accused Zagreb of plotting and sanctioning the exodus of Serbs in 1995 to create an "ethnically clean" country. Peter Galbraith told The Hague war crimes trial of three Croatian generals, that the leadership headed by late President Franjo Tudjman used ‘Operation Storm’ to ‘cleanse’ Croatia of Serbs. “Croatian authorities either ordered or allowed a mass destruction of the Serb property in former (Serb-held region of) Krajina to prevent the return of the population. I consider that to have been a thought through policy,” he said, testifying at the...

Pristina _ Spain is lobbying against Kosovo's independence in the countries of Latin America, a former British Minister for Europe says. In a comment in today's Independent newspaper, published in London, Denis Macshane writes that “key European Union nations like Spain, Greece, Romania and Slovakia weaken the unity of Europe by refusing to recognise Kosovo”. “Greece blocks Macedonia’s EU and NATO ambitions, while Spain lobbies in Latin America against recognition of Kosovo”, writes MacShane, adding that “this bodes ill for the notion that a united EU diplomacy of weight can develop”. MacShane outlined some of the recent developments that have...

MOSCOW, June 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is not opposed to an EU mission replacing the UN force in Kosovo, but the move should have the formal backing of the UN Security Council and Serbia, a senior Russian diplomat said on Monday. "We are not opposed to the European Union taking on part of the responsibility for what is happening in Kosovo," Vladimir Chizhov, envoy to the European Communities, said adding a European mission should be approved by a UN Security Council resolution and Belgrade. Chizhov said UN Security Council Resolution 1244 was currently the only legal basis for an...

In her book "The Hunt: Me and War Criminals," Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor at The Hague, reveals the gruesome details of the hundreds of Serb prisoners whose bodies were stripped of their organs during the Kosovo war. According to her sources, senior figures in the KLA were aware of the scheme, in which hundreds of young Serbs were reportedly taken by truck from Kosovo to northern Albania, where their organs were removed. Miss Del Ponte provides grim details of the reported organ harvesting and of how some prisoners were sewn up after having kidneys removed. Miss Del Ponte...

(UNITED NATIONS) - The United States on Friday defended UN chief Ban Ki-moon's plans to transfer some powers from the UN mission in Kosovo to the European Union despite opposition from Serbia and its ally Russia. US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad told the Security Council that Washington backed Ban's plan to reconfigure the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) by transferring responsibilities in the areas of police, justice and customs to a EU mission. He told Ban that despite objections raised by Serbia and Russia, "You have to act. 1244 gives you that discretion," referring to the Security Council...

PARIS: It was time for another French Open women's final, and though four-time winner Justine Hénin was still on the grounds, she was no longer on the clay. This year, with Hénin retired and watching from the front row, it would be time for a new Grand Slam champion, and it turned out to be the same young, elegant Serbian who had let her nerves get the best of her against Hénin in last year's flop of a final. Ana Ivanovic is a better, fitter, more composed contender now, and on Saturday, she filled the void at the top of...

"Stolen Kosovo" Documentary Censored in Czech Republic: Suffering of Kosovo Serbs Cannot be Shown on National TV That there can be no freedom of expression under the dictatorial regimes was confirmed yet again by the state-owned Czech TV, supposedly a "public service" which took part in the financing of the Vaclav Dvorak's documentary "Stolen Kosovo" prior to Czech Government's recognition of the mafia state on Serbian territory, but now, after their FM announced recognition of the fake state, refused to air it. According to the Czech daily Aktualne, the representatives of the state television justify their refusal to show the...

Kosovo Muslims arrest Serbs over t'shirts SERBIANNA June 3, 2008 Brothers Miomir and Milos Stojanovic from Gnjilane have been arrested on the regional road from Gnjilane to Bujanovac for wearing t-shirts saying Kosovo is Serbia, stated official of the Kosovo Ministry Milorad Todorovic. He told the Serbian news agency Beta that two youths were arrested and brought before the municipal prosecutor in Gnjilane. The Islamic judge decided that the brothers, who are Christian, must either pay 250 Euros each or to spend 60 days in jail.

One dead, 8 injured during Macedonia voting 1 June 2008 | 11:04 -> 15:33 | Source: Beta SKOPJE -- An ethnic Albanian is dead after a shootout with police at a polling station in Macedonia, it has been confirmed. The man, identified as Naser Aivazi, 40, opened fire at police officers this morning in the village of Aracinovo near Skopje, Macedonia's MUP says. Naivazi is said to have been a Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) supporter. At least five others were injured during the incident, none of them police officers, spokesman Ivo Kotevski told a news conference in the Macedonian...

Britain is now more dangerous than the Balkans, it was revealed yesterday. You are more likely to be assaulted, robbed and burgled in Britain than in the region of southeast Europe once synonymous with war and gangsters, according to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Your car is at least ten times more likely to be stolen in Britain than in Albania, Croatia or the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Western Europe suffers from double the amount of burglary, over four times as much assault, and 15 times as much robbery as the Balkans, the...

BELGRADE, Serbia - The Balkans, a hotbed of crime and violence during the Yugoslav wars and the chaotic transition from communism, has become one of the safest areas in Europe to live, according to a U.N. report released Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT The report concluded that nine Balkan countries — including Bosnia and Croatia, which saw vicious ethnic bloodletting in the 1990s — now boast lower levels of homicide, robbery and rape than Western Europe. "Surprising as it may be, the Balkan region is one of the safest in Europe," the report said. "The Balkans is departing from an era when demagogues,...

BELGRADE, Serbia - A United Nations report released Thursday says the Balkans, a region once known as a hotbed of crime and violence, has become one of the safest zones in Europe. "The vicious circle of political instability leading to crime, and vice versa, that plagued the Balkans in the 1990s has been broken," said Antonio Maria Costa, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which compiled the report. However, Costa warned in the report's summary that the region remains vulnerable because of enduring connections between business, politics and organized crime. The region includes 10 countries: Albania,...