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Turkey's energy minister has declared a gas pipeline a "peace corridor" linking the Caucasus with the Balkans. "We open the project as a peace corridor that is the result of 15 years hard work by Turkey and Azerbaijan. Through the South Caucasus pipeline and its backbone, the Trans-Anatolia pipeline, we connect the Caucasus with the Balkans. I wish every country could understand the true value of these projects and contribute with us," Taner Yıldız said while speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony of the South Caucasus pipeline in Baku on Sept. 20. The minister said energy security "ranks as one of...

Hoping some Freepers might take interest in this local race in west Kentucky. My candidate is running for judge executive in Marshall County, Kentucky. His name is Kevin Neal, and he's a decorated U.S. Marine. During his 20 years of service he served security tours in Bosnia and Haiti and three combat tours in Iraq. During his time in Iraq he led five 6-man sniper teams on 50 Guardian Angel missions as a Scout Sniper Sergeant. He was wounded in a mortar attack in 2004. He returned to Iraq in 2006. His medals include the Purple Heart and the USO...

The 19th anniversary of Serb exodus from Croatia in Operation Storm was marked in Serbia and the Serb Republic (RS) in Bosnia on Monday [August 4, 2014].The victims of the continuation of the military operation that took place in the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, known as Operation Mistral, were also remembered. In St. Marko's Church in Belgrade, Bishop Jovan of Slavonia headed the memorial service honoring slaughtered Serb civilians and soldiers. The memorial was co-served by priests of the Serbian Orthodox Church. In the speech delivered after the service, Bishop Jovan said that nobody can say that they seized Lika, Banija...

War On Terror: The death of skilled diplomat Richard Holbrooke is said to be a devastating blow to our Afghan war effort. But diplomats don't win wars; they do, unfortunately, often lose them. 'A huge vacuum." "A major void." "A towering, one-of-a-kind presence." These are some of the extravagant descriptions bandied about after the unexpected death Monday of the 69-year-old Obama administration envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, "AfPak czar" Richard Holbrooke. The media love personalities, so it's no surprise to see this foreign policy adviser to four Democratic presidents rendered larger than life, especially since he'd been expected to become...

Dino Dizdarevic, whose family had fled to Kentucky from Banja Luka, Bosnia, in 1995 as war refugees, had no wallet when he was found. It wasn't until he was reported missing to Philadelphia police over the weekend that cops in Chester were able to identify his body. Just what drew the handsome, raven-haired chemical engineer - who moved from Louisville to a North Philly loft with his boyfriend in August - to the gritty town 18 miles south is a mystery. Neither his sister nor his boyfriend of nearly two years, Nick McBee, could imagine why he'd go to Chester,...

Could the Balkans, rather than previously accepted areas such as the Strait of Gibralter, have been the entry point for the first men in Europe? ORESHETZ, Bulgaria (AFP) - A team of 20 Bulgarian and French archeologists are trying to prove this theory after 11 years of excavation and research in the Kozarnika cave in northwestern Bulgaria. The digging up at this mountainous site of traces of human activity dating back 1.4 to 1.6 million years throws into question theories about when and where man first set foot in Europe. According to current theories, the Europeans' prehistoric ancestors came into...

Angelina Jolie, is like the criminal in a low budget film who always returns to the scene of the crime. Jolie is shameless in returning to Bosnia after her propagandized rape movie entitled, In The Land of Blood and Honey—an irresponsible piece of film footage costing $50 million to produce that has failed miserably at the box office earning less then $5 million. Did she return to Srebrenica to mourn the dead or to rehabilitate her damaged career? Bringing with her William Hague, the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is like bringing a fox to a...

Bosnia’s decision to include preventing sexual violence in military training is “groundbreaking” and should become the standard for U.N. peacekeeping missions, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Angelina Jolie said Friday. “Warzone rape has been a taboo subject in all countries. You are helping to break down those taboos and redefining soldiering in the 21st century,” Jolie said as the two addressed a conference on sexual violence in war organized in Sarajevo by Bosnia’s Defence Ministry.

It's happening in Ukraine, Venezuela, Thailand, Bosnia, Syria, and beyond. Revolutions, unrest, and riots are sweeping the globe. The near-simultaneous eruption of violent protest can seem random and chaotic; inevitable symptoms of an unstable world. But there's at least one common thread between the disparate nations, cultures, and people in conflict, one element that has demonstrably proven to make these uprisings more likely: high global food prices. Just over a year ago, complex systems theorists at the New England Complex Systems Institute warned us that if food prices continued to climb, so too would the likelihood that there would be...

Earlier this month a young, female Bosnian judge was photographed from nearby offices working out and sunbathing in the nude on her office desk... Once the above snapshot was handed to Sarajevo police, an internal investigation at the court building found her to be a justice on Bosnia's High Court(!) She was promptly fired when the image hit the newspapers and her identity revealed- but in Saudi Arabia they'd have boiled her in oil... And they've got a dark/naughty sense of humor over there, too: Three men die on Christmas Eve, an Englishman, an Italian and a Bosnian, and they all go to...

A protester outside a government building in Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, during protests over job losses. Photograph: Dado Ruvic/Reuters Thousands of Bosnian protesters took to the streets in the centre of Sarajevo on Friday, setting fire to the presidency building and hurling rocks and stones at police as fury at the country's political and economic stagnation spread rapidly around the country. As many as 200 people were injured in protests that took place in about 20 towns and cities. Government buildings were set on fire in three of the largest centres – Sarajevo, Tuzla and Zenica. At one point in the central...

Demonstrators in Bosnia-Hercegovina have set fire to government buildings, in the worst unrest since the end of the 1992-95 war. Hundreds of people have been injured in three days of protests over high unemployment and perceived inability of politicians to improve the situation. Police used rubber bullets and tear gas to quell unrest in the capital Sarajevo and the northern town of Tuzla.

Sensational confession of Ibran Mustafic, Bosnian Muslim war veteran and politician: "We were killing our own people in Srebrenica."At least 1,000 Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica were killed by their compatriots during the breakthrough to Tuzla in July 1995, because there were lists of those who ” have to be prevented from reaching the freedom,at any cost” said one of the founders of the SDA in Srebrenica, Ibran Mustafic. ** Ibran Mustafic is the author of the book “Planned Chaos” whereas some of the crimes committed by soldiers of the (Muslim) Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina against Serbs are for the...

Delegates at the U.N. General Assembly applauded enthusiastically on Monday as the Palestinian representative to the world body for the first time cast a vote on behalf of the “State of Palestine.” The vote itself—for a judge to serve on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)—was a relatively minor one, but Palestinian delegate Riyad Mansour called it symbolically significant. … The modern-day State of Israel came into being as a result of a U.N. resolution in 1947, which partitioned the then-British mandated territory into a Jewish and an Arab state. The resolution was accepted by the Jewish...

Two decades after Serb soldiers conducted house-to-house searches in a campaign of ethnic killings in Bosnia, forensic scientists are digging up what could turn out to be the largest mass grave from the 1992-95 war.

The government of George Bush Sr's planned bombing of Bosnia and Herzegovina , Serbia and Montenegro , according to a secret CIA document from which the recently declassified "top secret " BELGRADE - thoroughly prepared plan. The government of George Bush the Elder early in 1993. had planned the bombing of Bosnia and Herzegovina , Serbia and Montenegro , according to secret documents from the CIA which was recently declassified "top secret " . Bombing campaign was the official name of the "Plan Three " , and included the air attacks on military and industrial targets and the institutions of...

Bosnian War (1992-1995 Bosnia, Intelligence and Clinton's Presidency CIA, State Department, Department of Defense & White House Files2,346 pages of CIA, State Department, DOD, National Security Council and White House files concerning the Bosnian War, CIA Intelligence, Clinton Administration's policy decisions, and the Dayton Peace Accords.This collection includes many documents that were not released by the CIA until October 1, 2013. The documents date from 1990 to 1997. The focus of this collection of files is a set of documents which reveal the role of the intelligence services in informing the Clinton Administration about the war in the Balkans. The...

The DF-21D is China’s answer to America’s carriers, with an unusual origin in the Kosovo War In 1999, the U.S. was engaged in an air and missile war with Serbia. As NATO bombs exploded around Belgrade — part of a campaign to force an end to the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians by Serb forces — several U.S. missiles slammed into the Chinese embassy. It was the most controversial U.S. action of the war. China’s leaders were outraged, but could do little in response. The result? The bombing became a pivotal moment in the decision to pursue a sophisticated weapons project: a ballistic missile...

Wielding hammers, Croatian war veterans have torn down signs written in the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet that were put up on official buildings to boost minority rights in the new EU nation. … Vukovar has a sizable Serb minority and having official signs in both the Croatian Latin alphabet and Serbian Cyrillic are in line with the country’s law on minority rights. …

Plan suggests more public spaces for inter-ethnic minglingThe Obama administration intends to leverage U.S. leadership in lowering racial tensions in the U.S. by making such ethnic-peacemaking expertise available globally. Obama’s most recent endeavor specifically wants to “increase constructive inter-ethnic cooperation and interaction” among people in the Balkans region of southeastern Europe. Although this approximately $15 million U.S. Agency for International Development venture arguably could benefit the minority Christian Serb population, its scope is notably miniscule in contrast to other ethnic and tribal peacemaking initiatives around the globe, particularly in Africa. In and around Nigeria, for example, USAID is engaged in...