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What could be easily predicted on the eve of the beginning of Mrs Clinton’s service in her capacity of diplomat number one of the United States is the fact that the Balkans won’t be in the focus of her attention. Obviously, according to her, everything in the Balkans is in order, and true to the principle “if something isn’t broken don’t try to fix it”, the dynamic Madam Secretary won’t pay attention to the area unless something dramatic happen,( as a new massacre, for instance). The only context, within which such important and volatile area as the Balkans has been...

"Bosnia and Kosovo have largely disappeared from public view. Washington and Brussels are hoping the promise of European Union accession will ultimately triumph over remaining ethnic tensions in the region. Would that this were so. Rather, a divided EU is allowing the Balkans to slide toward greater instability, while the U.S. remains mostly on the sidelines. America's massive investment in the region in the 1990s may go the way of the subprime market..." AN ANTI-SERBIAN VANDETTA Serbian Bishop responds to Abramowitz and Serwer From "Letters" The Wall Street Journal January 20, 2009 ...Instead of calling for a renewal of the...

PRISTINA, Kosovo -- Kosovo armed forces took over security duties on Wednesday, less than a year after the territory declared independence from Serbia, officials said. The Kosovo Protection Force replaces a 3,000-strong civilian emergency organization formed out of the disbanded ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army that fought Serbia in the 1998-99 war. New commander Lt. Gen. Sylejman Selimi, a former rebel fighter, said the 2,500 lightly armed troops would fulfill security duties in the fledgling nation, but would remain under the supervision of NATO's 15,000 peacekeepers in charge of overall security. It will be trained by British NATO officers, wear...

The following is a book review and testimony from American professor and veteran of the U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC), John Peter Maher, who visited the former Yugoslavia several times during the 1990s, both before the wars there began and during them. His observations remain essential for any truthful historical review on what really went on over there, as opposed to the "facts" that were fed to the public via the media. Ravnagora. _________________________ Here’s a novelty. An honest book on the Yugoslav war has managed to get into print. An Irish Army officer Brendan O’Shea has published “The Modern...

Here is another book on the phenomenon of radical Islam in Europe although it is less of an indictment of the British government than Londonistan (2006) by Melanie Phillips. Both books carry a photograph of Abu Hamza al-Masri on the title page. Together with Umar Bakri, Al Masri was the single most effective advocate of Al Qaeda’s worldview in the UK and attracted jihadis from all parts of Europe because of his brazen attack on what the Western political system stood for. He is interesting for us because he inspired expatriate Pakistanis in the UK and, from his Finsbury Mosque,...

The head of the German Parliament Norbert Lammert met yesterday with the President of Kosovo Fatmir Sejdiu with whom he discussed about the further deepening of cooperation between the two countries. The head of the German Parliament on this occasion spoke about the engagement of his government in the process of recognitions for the independent state of Kosovo. He also expressed his displeasure with the manner in which the three German BND secret service agents were arrested. The focus of yesterday’s meeting between Lammert and Sejdiu were the interstate relations. President Sejdiu on this occasion thanked the head of German...

Rome – Mauro Del Vecchio, former General of Italian Army who led the unit of 7,000 soldiers that entered Kosovo in June of 1999 after end of NATO air strikes on Serbia told Italian ‘Panorama’ weekly that during the first three weeks of the mandate ‘reports on the found bodies of killed Serbs and Romas arrived on his table each morning’, but that was a taboo topic they were not allowed to speak about with journalists. ‘The killing continued later but not so frequently. Those that have not fled Kosovo were under permanent risk to be killed or raped. Deserted...

26 December 2008 | 09:37 -> 17:34 PREŠEVO -- The Interior Ministry (MUP) has arrested 10 former KLA members in Preševo on charges of war crimes committed against civilians in Gnjilane, Kosovo. MUP Gendarmes bring one of the arrested ex-KLA members to the MUP HQ in Belgrade (Tanjug) The suspects were transferred to MUP HQ in central Belgrade at 16:09 CET, and were led into the building one by one, in the presence of numerous reporters. Nine of the former KLA members were taken into the building, while a tenth remains in police custody in Vranje, pending further investigation. Interior...

Kosovo decided Wednesday to name a central street of its capital Pristina after outgoing US President George W. Bush for his support of the territory's split from Serbia. Backed unanimously by Kosovo's cabinet, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said the move was "a sign of the huge state and national respect and appreciation" for the United States' contribution to independence, declared earlier this year. Located in Pristina's downtown area, Bush Street is to be linked to the main thoroughfare named after Mother Teresa, the 1979 Nobel Peace Laureate of Albanian origin. Separately, the government pledged 5,000 euros (7,000 dollars) towards a...

Fort Dix five guilty of conspiracy to kill soldiers by John P. Martin/The Star-Ledger Monday December 22, 2008, 1:30 PM Five Muslim immigrants from South Jersey were convicted today of plotting to kill American soldiers, a crime that prosecutors said demonstrated how Al Qaeda was using the Internet to recruit, train and incite supporters for attacks in the United States and around the world. The jurors, however, acquitted the men of an additional charge of attempted murder. The verdicts represented a victory for prosecutors and validation of tactics the FBI has increasingly used nationwide to detect and disrupt suspected terror...

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia's coalition government was deeply divided Thursday over an energy deal with Moscow in which Serbia would sell its oil monopoly to Russia in return for the construction of a strategic pipeline through the Balkan country. Economy Minister Mladjan Dinkic said Serbia should sell its state energy company, NIS, only if Russia signs firm guarantees that the South Stream natural gas pipeline will be built. But Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Dacic said Serbia should sell the company even without Moscow's guarantees or risk losing the support of its key political ally. Dinkic offered to resign Thursday...

A Russian church for a Saudi mosque? Belief Blog (View Blog) POSTED December 03 2008 12:11 PM BY Julia Duin This delightful story just came in thanks to getreligion.org: The Saudis have recently asked permission to build a mosque in Moscow, a city where there are only four mosques and 2 million Muslims. The Russians, however, are saying they want, in return, an Orthodox church in Saudi Arabia. As we all know, the Saudis have a habit of constructing mosques in dozens of world capitals while forbidding houses of worship for any religion whatsoever outside its Wahabist brand of Islam....

South Side native George Vujnovich, 93, appeared at a ceremony in New York yesterday to accept an award as a hero in World War II's Operation Halyard. Never heard of it? Few have, despite the release last year of "The Forgotten 500," the first book about the daring mission to rescue 500 downed airmen in occupied Yugoslavia. Mr. Vujnovich, a Pittsburgh boy who became head of the Office of Strategic Services in Bari, Italy, organized what has been called the greatest air rescue of the war.

Pristina. The Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanis has said that Greece would soon recognize the independence of Kosovo, the Serbian TV channel Studio B reports, citing Kosovo press. In an interview for the Albanian TV channel Vision Plus Bakoyannis has said that the exact date for the recognition is still not clear, but it would happen soon. According to the Minister the Kosovo problem was one of the oldest on the Balkans.

....At any given time, 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners were said to be somewhere in the Chinese penal system. Like most numbers coming out of China, these were crude estimates, further rendered unreliable by the chatter of claim and counterclaim. But one point is beyond dispute: The repression of Falun Gong spun out of control. Arrests, sentencing, and whatever took place in the detention centers, psychiatric institutions, and labor camps were not following any established legal procedure or restraint. As an act of passive resistance, or simply to avoid trouble for their families, many Falun Gong began withholding their names from...

Vatican has no plans t recognize Kosovo nor will it tackle that question says the state secretariat at the Holy See. Kosovo separatist media reported on Friday that a Vatican representative at the Un allegedly told Skender Hyseni that it will consider recognizing Kosovo. “We believe that the question [of Kosovo] is still open, it is discussed at the UN. New proposals are still set forth and plans that need to be implemented,� government of Vatican was quoted as saying. Vatican seeks to improve its relationship with the Orthodox Church and views the Serbian Orthodox Church as an ally with...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2008 – Hanging from the walls of restaurants in Belgrade, Serbia, are the flags of the state of Ohio. Other restaurants advertise when they will re-broadcast the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns football games. As you walk through the streets, you see children wearing red-and-white Ohio State sweatshirts. What’s up with this? Since when did Ohio become so important in Serbia? The answer lies with the military. The Ohio National Guard is the state partner of the Serbian military. The military-to-military contacts between the two organizations have blossomed into a cultural phenomenon in Serbia. “We are very...

BELGRADE, Serbia-Nikola Kavaja, who hijacked a U.S. passenger jet in 1979 with the intention of crashing it into Yugoslav Communist Party headquarters, has died. Kavaja, 76, died of a heart attack at his home in Belgrade late Monday, the Blic daily newspaper said. Other local media also reported his death. The self-declared anti-communist hijacked an American Airlines Boeing 707 in New York and flew it over the Atlantic with the aim of crashing it into the party headquarters in a high-rise in the Serbian capital, Belgrade. He abandoned his hijack mission in Ireland, saying at the time he was not...

BELGRADE -- Lufti Dervishi, a urologist from Kosovo, has been arrested on suspicion of performing illegal kidney transplants, daily Blic writes. One witness in the investigation into the trafficking of organs of Serb prisoners from Kosovo in 1998, mentioned the doctor’s name in regards to the case, according to Blic. “The witness told Serbian war crimes prosecutors that he saw Doctor Ljutvi Dervishi at locations where it was suspected that organs had been extracted from civilian prisoners and sold later,” Blic’s source stated. “He was now arrested with a scalpel in his hand, and it's obvious that they have continued...

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia's war crimes prosecutor wants to travel to Albania to probe allegations that Kosovo guerillas killed Serb prisoners there years ago and sold their organs. Prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said Thursday his office has asked Albanian prosecutors to look into the case and talks are under way to determine when he will go there himself. Albania could have mass graves containing the remains of slain Serbs, he added. Kosovo and Albania have denied any knowledge of the crimes, while the EU has said it would investigate the claims. Allegations of organ-trafficking involving Serbs killed during Kosovo's 1998-99...

Belgrade, 24 Oct. (AKI) – The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church and Serb spiritual leader, Patriarch Pavle, on Friday announced he would be standing down due to illness and old age, church officials said. Pavle, 94, who has headed the Serbian Orthodox Church for the past 18 years, has asked the Church’s Holy Synod to relieve him of his duties at its next meeting on 11 November. Patriarch Pavle, adored by his countrymen and religious brethren has been called by many Serbs “a living saint�. But Pavle said he could no longer efficiently perform his duties “because of poor...

Admiral Mike Mullen is first chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff to visit Serbia. Mullen on Monday described the military relationship between the two countries as "a friendship that has weathered many trials and has grown stronger and stronger." Mullen and his counterpart, General Zdravko Ponos, both praised the growing numbers of Serbian military officers attending war colleges in the United States, as well as an unusual program in which the Ohio National Guard trains with units from here. But the two top officers agreed that Kosovo was a divisive issue - one better left to politicians to...

Blasts were heard and ambulances streaming out of the centre of Montenegro's capital as pro-Serb demonstrators clashed with police during a rally against Montenegro's recognition of Kosovo's independence. Some 10,000 pro-Serbian protesters took to the streets of Podgorica for a rally against the government's decision last week to recognise the independence of Kosovo, as the opposition harshly criticised the ruling coalition for "stabbing Serbia in the back." The protesters chanted "Treason! Treason!" and "Kosovo is Serbia!", as opposition leaders gave Premier Milo Djukanovic a 48 hour deadline to annul the recognition of Kosovo, or face a referendum on the issue....

GORA -- Kosovo Albanian authorities have torn down a school built from the Serbian government funds in the Gora area. Beta news agency reported on Saturday that the school, financed by the National Investment Plan (NIP), was located in the village of Mlike, inhabited by one of the province's minorities, the Goranis. Gora municipal president Alija Abdi said that citizens unsuccessfully tried to prevent bulldozers, accompanied by KFOR soldiers and Kosovo Albanian inspectors, from demolishing the premises, including new toilets and an IT classroom. The justification for this act, Abdi said, was that the reconstruction and building works on the...

Hundreds of Kosovar Albanians gather on Sundays to attend religious services in a still unfinished red-brick church in the Kosovo town of Klina. Turning away from the majority Muslim faith imposed by the Ottoman Turks centuries ago, these worshippers are part of a revival of Catholicism in the newly independent Balkan state. "We have been living a dual life. In our homes we were Catholics but in public we were good Muslims," said Ismet Sopi. "We don't call this converting. It is the continuity of the family's belief." Sopi has commuted 40 km (25 miles) every Sunday from central Kosovo...

Serbia won't recognise Georgian regions-minister Serbia will not follow Russia in recognizing breakaway Georgian regions as independent states despite Russia's support for Serbia, Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic was quoted as saying on Wednesday. "We will not do that," Jeremic said in an interview with Austrian newspaper Die Presse. Russia is a long-time Serbian ally and used its veto in the U.N. Security Council to try to block Kosovo's independence which has the backing of the United States and European powers. Moscow recognized the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states after its brief war with Georgia...

The majority of ethnic Albanians were forcibly converted to Islam, mostly through the imposition of high taxes on Catholics, when the Ottoman Empire ruled the Balkans. For centuries, many remembered their Christian roots and lived as what they call "Catholics in hiding". Some, nearly a century after the Ottomans left the Balkans, now see the chance to reveal their true beliefs. "Fifty or sixty percent of the population are linked emotionally with the Roman Catholic religion. This is because of feelings about what our ancestors believed," said Muhamet Mala, a professor who teaches History of Religion at Pristina Public University....

Tanaskovic brought in village Druzetici daughter-in-law from Skadar, Albania. While older people are surprissed, bachelors from village are inquiring are there more girls willing to com In village. In house of tanaskovic, soon, a Albanian bride will arrive for older son, as well. Gornji Milanovac, Serbia After the long years of wishing and secretly hoping that they will finally get daughter-in-law, these days wishes came trough for felthy farmer Radic Tanaskovic(72) and his wife Dusanka. Their son Mico (36) brought in the house a bride Merita from Skadar, Albania, and with little luck, in a few month his brother Rados...

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The UN General Assembly is to debate Serbia's call for an opinion by the International Court of Justice on Kosovo's independence, a spokesman said Friday. Enrique Yeves told AFP that the 192-member assembly approved a recommendation of its general committee to have the issue put on the agenda of the assembly's 63rd session, which formally opened Tuesday, SNIP Ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo, a UN-run province of Serbia since 1999 when it was wrested from Belgrade's control in a NATO air war, unilaterally seceded from Belgrade on February 17. Its statehood has been recognised by 46 countries, including...

Belgrade, 19 Sept. (AKI) - Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has said that the disintegration of Bosnia-Herzegovina, torn by internal disputes between its Muslims, Serbs and Croat population, would not be a tragedy. “The tragedy would be if such disagreements evolve into violence,� Dodik told Radio Free Europe. Thirteen years after the 1992-1995 civil war, the mistrust and quarrels between the three ethnic groups have not subsided and are on the rise again ahead of the 5 October municipal elections. For the past thirteen years, majority Muslims with the support of the international community, have been pressing for the creation...

September 17, 2008 SERBIANNA Serbian infants, some in incubators, are on a verge of death because of lack of oxygen that is deliberately held back until Kosovo Serbs recognize Kosovo as an independent state. "If you want your babies and elderly to live, if you want oxygen, recognize independent Kosovo," quotes a message Dr. Stojan Sekulic from the General Hospital in Gracanica received. Dr. Sekulic says that the separatist authorities in the province have seized oxygen bottles sent to his hospital from Belgrade and have told him that they will be delivered only when Serbs recognize Kosovo. Spokesman for UNMIK...

The Centre needs from 10 to 15 50-liter bottles of oxygen daily. The current reserves are running out and are kept for emergency cases only. The director of the Health Centre in Gracanica, Rada Trajkovic, appealed to Kosovo authorities to permanently resolve the problem of supply of medicines and medical equipment to Serb communities in Kosmet. Administration must not cause the suffering of people depending on health institutions in Serb enclaves, she said commenting on a decision of the southern Mitrovica customs to retain 10 bottles with oxygen intended for the clinical and hospital centre in Gracanica, central Kosmet, due...

Kosovska Mitrovica, Kosovo - In Kosovo, the gulf between majority Albanians and minority Serbs is nowhere more visible than in the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica. But that hasn't stopped the town from being a magnet for criminals of all backgrounds willing to work together for an illicit buck. Kosovska Mitrovica, 50 kilometres north-west of the Kosovo's capital Pristina, is a no-holds-barred frontier town without proper police or courts. It is split in half by the ethnic division that sheared Kosovo away from its Serbian past earlier this year - the part of the town north of the Ibar river...

THE HAGUE- The former leader of Bosnia's Muslim army, Rasim Delic, was jailed for three years yesterday by the Hague Tribunal for allowing the torture of Bosnian Serb soldiers by a Mujahideen unit in 1995. By majority decision, Delic, who was the chief of staff of the Bosnian Army in 1995, was found guilty of violating customs and laws of war, when he did nothing to prevent cruel treatment of Serb prisoners by a Mujahideen unit under his command. Judge Bakone Justice Moloto, citing the "appalling brutal" mistreatment meted out by Islamic foreign fighters, said that tribunal judges had decided...

Two decades have passed since the dissolution of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia began destabilizing southeast Europe, but there is still little reason to proclaim that the region has reached the point of no return for ethnic conflicts and wars. Until recently, many pundits blamed the unresolved issue of Kosovo as the main cause for enduring instability. Yet, even after the overwhelmingly Albanian majority in this Serbian province declared independence on 17 February, 2008—a unilateral move sponsored and micro-managed for the most part by the United States—there is no evidence that the political endgame in the region has started....

Serbian government officials insisted Friday that an energy deal with Russia is of the utmost national interest, but the opposition Liberals described it as humiliating. The multibillion-dollar agreement envisages that part of a pan-European gas pipeline will run through Serbia, and that Russia will buy Serbia's state oil monopoly, NIS. Serbia and Russia signed the agreement in January, but it must be approved in parliament before it can be fully implemented. The deal has sparked criticism from some pro-Western officials in Serbia who have said that the price of €400 million (US$580 million) offered by the Russians for the majority...

Sarajevo, 2 Sept. (AKI) – A Canadian firm will begin exploring potential oil reserves in northeastern Bosnia worth an estimated 80 billion dollars, Sarajevo daily Oslobodjenje said on Tuesday. Preliminary research has indicated that some 50 million tonnes of crude oil may be lying near the northeastern town of Tuzla and further research will start this month. Representatives from the Canadian company, Seedrock Capital Partners, are due in Bosnia this month to seek agreement on the terms of an exploration agreement with the government, the paper said. The company is reportedly ready to invest 40 million euros in initial research...

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AFP)--Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik warned Tuesday that Bosnia could break apart if Muslim leaders questioned the existence of his entity, a local weekly reported. "Republika Srpska (or RS) is being challenged by the Muslim political elite," Dodik told the Fokus weekly. "We are facing on daily basis attacks by officials of Bosnia's Islamic religious community and their conception on how to annul RS." The Dayton peace accords, which ended the 1992-95 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, divided the erstwhile Yugoslav republic into two entities which make up Bosnia - the Serbs' Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. Dodik...

Barack Obama, the Democratic Party’s candidate for US president, indulged in a campaign swing through Europe. His vice-presidential running partner, Joe Biden, if tempted to do the same, may as well avoid Belgrade. Memories run deep in the Balkans, but among Serbian nationalists, uppermost on their minds is that long-term senator and foreign policy committee figure Biden was strongly in favour of the 1990s bombing of Belgrade. Popular Serbian newspaper Blic reminded its readers on August 28 that Biden was one of those who proposed resolution on bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. “He also believes that all changes in Serbia...

The Russo-Georgian war was rooted in broad geopolitical processes. In large part it was simply the result of the cyclical reassertion of Russian power. The Russian empire — czarist and Soviet — expanded to its borders in the 17th and 19th centuries. It collapsed in 1992. The Western powers wanted to make the disintegration permanent. It was inevitable that Russia would, in due course, want to reassert its claims. That it happened in Georgia was simply the result of circumstance. There is, however, another context within which to view this, the context of Russian perceptions of U.S. and European intentions...

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...

Memories run deep in the Balkans, but among Serbian nationalists, uppermost on their minds is that long-term senator and foreign policy committee figure Biden was strongly in favour of the 1990s bombing of Belgrade. Popular Serbian newspaper Blic reminded its readers on August 28 that Biden was one of those who proposed resolution on bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. “He also believes that all changes in Serbia are the result of pressure from Washington.� The newspaper quoted Obrad Kesic, an analyst in the US of Serbian origin, as saying the choice of Biden was especially bad for Serbia. “I am...

Strategic shortsightedness—defined as mistaking problems and issues of secondary or tertiary importance for those of vital importance, and being unable to foresee the predictable consequences of specific actions—is becoming a chronic malaise in Washington. So characteristic of U.S. policy in the Balkans in the 1990s and the more recent Iraq tragedy, it is now again apparent in U.S. actions with regard to Kosovo, and their spillover effects in the Caucasus. American policy makers had repeatedly told us that Kosovo was supposed to be a “unique” case, but apparently Vladimir Putin didn’t get the memo. The ghosts of our Balkan problems,...

28 August 2008 Belgrade _ The French Foreign Minister says Serbia has a right to seek a world court ruling on the legality of Kosovo’s independence but warned the EU would not fully accept it. In a statement to Serbia’s state news agency Tanjug in Paris, Bernard Kouchner warned that “if eventually the International Court of Justice will consider the case, something I am not certain about, it would have to take into account all relevant elements.� “Do not forget that are international agreements, the United Nations and international community stand (on the issue)… The court will take all of...

Switzerland: Ethnic Albanians keep a grip on heroin supplyEthnic Albanian criminal gangs continue to pose a serious security threat, dominating the transit and supply of heroin to Switzerland, warns a federal police expert. By Simon Bradley for swissinfo (27/08/08) Three members of the same Kosovo family are currently on trial in Switzerland accused of operating one of Europe's largest heroin wholesale operations. Prosecutors say the 69-year-old father and his two sons, aged 42 and 28, used their base in the southeast European country to import 1.5 tons of heroin from Turkey for sale elsewhere. "[The clan] has been one of...

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia's foreign minister said the link is clear — U.S. and Western support for Kosovo's secession from Serbia has helped fuel tensions in Georgia's separatist province of South Ossetia. Minister Vuk Jeremic was quoted by the Vecernje Novosti daily on Thursday as saying the recognition of Kosovo's independence on Feb. 17 by the United States and its NATO allies has "destabilized" other parts of the world. "We have pointed out to the international community from the very start that the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo could present a dangerous precedent," Vuk Jeremic was quoted as...

Poland, Ukraine and the Baltics Nervous neighbours Aug 21st 2008 | MOSCOW AND WARSAW NOBODY has watched the war in Georgia more anxiously than Russia’s western neighbours. Recently the Russians have been bellicose towards Ukraine, the three Baltic states and Poland. It was no surprise when leaders from the other four flew with the Polish president to Tbilisi to express solidarity with Georgia’s Mikheil Saakashvili. It was also no coincidence that Poland signed a deal with the Americans to host missile-defence interceptors. The deal marks the end of a game of hardball, with the Poles turning down many American offers...

Belgrade, 20 August (AKI) – Two Serbian government ministers on Wednesday visited the grave of Slobodan Milosevic to pay respects to the former president on the anniversary of his birth. Zarko Obradovic and Milutin Mrkonjic, the Education and Infrastructure ministers from Milosevic's Socialist Party, laid a wreath on the tombstone of the late autocratic leader in his hometown, Pozarevac, east of Belgrade. The Socialists joined forces with their former bitter rivals, the Democratic Party of President Boris Tadic, to create a coalition government on 7 July. Obradovic, Education Minister, said that his party needed to "point out the values" once...

20 August 2008 Belgrade _ Slovakia’s Prime Minister says his country will not recognise Kosovo’s independence anytime soon nor will it recognise Kosovo’s new passports. Speaking to Slovakia’s STA agency, Robert Fico added Slovakia would not recognise Kosovo’s passports because “it would be ridiculous not to recognise the state, but to recognise the passports.� Kosovo introduced new passports on July 30, and so far they have been accepted by many countries, including Macedonia which has not yet recognised Kosovo as an independent state, Read more: http://balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/12194 “In the case of Kosovo as an independent state, international law has been seriously...

BUCHAREST, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- What happened with Kosovo foreshadows a similar direction in South Ossetia, the visiting Romanian President Traian Basescu said on Wednesday in Chisinau. "At present, sovereign and independent countries are dismantled in the name of collective rights of the minorities," Basescu said when talking with his Moldovan counterpart Vladimir Voronin. "This is what happened with Kosovo and Serbia lost a part of its territory, and the things foreshadow a similar direction in South Ossetia and, should I dare say it, in Abkhazia," the Romanian president stressed. "You know that Romania is among the countries that did...