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The leaders of Bosnia's main Muslim, Croat and Serb parties gave their support on Monday to a decentralisation plan for the ethnically divided country that fought a civil war from 1992-95. Details of the plan, which would be enacted as a revision to the constitution, remained sketchy, but it calls for a division of the country into four administrative units, officials said. It was unclear how this would fit with Bosnia's efforts to join the European Union (EU), which wants the Balkan country to strengthen its central state before it joins the 27-member bloc. "We agreed that Bosnia should be...

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...

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...

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...

Zeppo Marx as Horatio Jamison in the 1930 Marx Brothers Film Animal Crackers. As usual, Zeppo plays straight man to his brother Groucho.Growing up in the pre-cable TV era, our choices of programming were quite limited and local television stations had to rely on old movies and reruns due to the high cost of producing original broadcasting. Even though our selection was limited it was a blessing in disguise. Other than TCM buffs (like myself) and the annual Christmas showings of It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol (the one starring Alistair Sim is the best, by the way),...

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...

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...

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.

ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — The Croatian parliament has passed a law forcing shops to close on Sundays in a concession to the Roman Catholic church. The church has campaigned for years for Sundays to be devoted to family or Mass in Croatia, which is almost 90 percent Roman Catholic. But Croatians have begun spending weekends in shopping malls that have flourished across the country in the past few years and remain open seven days a week. The law adopted Tuesday and goes into effect Jan. 1. It allows Sunday shopping over the summer and Christmas holidays. The law also allows...

BELGRADE, Serbia-Fourteen former Serb fighters went on trial Thursday on charges that they killed 70 Croat civilians in 1991 after forcing some of them to walk through a minefield. The group includes former Yugoslav army soldiers and paramilitary fighters suspected of "torture, inhuman treatment and killing" of the Croats in a border town in Croatia during the war there. Croatian investigations have discovered dozens of bodies in mass graves in the village of Lovas, the remains of people apparently killed in October and November 1991 when Serbs controlled the area. The Serbian prosecutors charged the Serb fighters with killing 22...

SARAJEVO -- Richard Holbrooke maintains that he "never made a deal with Hague fugitive Radovan Karadžić". The American diplomat, who helped create the Dayton peace deal that ended the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, yesterday in Sarajevo denied allegations that he reached an agreement with the former Bosnian Serb president. The long-standing claim, recently repeated by the Hague Prosecution's former spokeswoman Florence Hartmann, says that Karadžić received guaranties he would never be arrested if he withdrew from Bosnia's political life. “I did not make any kind of deal with Karadžić, he is a war criminal. He is the Osama Bin Laden of...

PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP) — Official results released Tuesday confirmed President Filip Vujanovic's strong re-election win. Vujanovic of the Democratic Party of Socialists won 51.9 percent of the vote Sunday, according to results released by the Montenegrin State Electoral Commission. Andrija Mandic, who campaigned for closer economic and political ties with Serbia, won 19.5 percent. Liberal leader Nebojsa Medojevic won 16.6 percent, election authorities said. Turnout was 68 percent. The elections were Montenegro's first since peacefully ending its union with Serbia two years ago. The European Union congratulated Vujanovic on Tuesday and pledged to support Montenegro's bid to join the 27-nation...

The soldier of the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, led by Mladen Kruljac, were surprised by the fact that Bush shook hands will all 50 of them.ZAGREB, CROATIA - As a symbolic sign of support and gratitude, American President George Bush, wanted to spend last part of his visit in Croatia by taking photographs with the Croatian soldiers who are taking part in the ISAF peace mission in Afghanistan. Before taking pictures in front of the American presidential airplane Air Force One, President Bush shook hands with all 50 soldiers who, all together with the Croatian diplomatic delegation, came to Zagreb’s...

Serbia has formally proposed partitioning Kosovo along ethnic lines for the first time, asking the United Nations to ensure that Belgrade can control key institutions and functions in areas of the newly independent country where Serbs form a majority. In a document sent to the UN in New York, proposed to the UN in Kosovo last week and published in the Belgrade press yesterday, the government in Belgrade insists that Serbia be allowed to control the police, the courts, the judiciary and customs in the Serbian enclaves in Kosovo and in the northern strip around the tense Serb-controlled town of...

Serbia will never recognize Kosovo's independence because the unilateral declaration of the province's independence is illegitimate said Serbian President Boris Tadic during a discussion with the newly appointed Ambassadors to Serbia from Tunisia, Czech Republic, FYROM and Chile. "I support a continuation of the negotiations under the UN auspices with the goal to find a compromise-based solution to the future status of KiM. Serbia will continue fighting for its interests and respect for the international law, with all available political and diplomatic means, without the use of force," Tadic said. During talks with the Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, Libyan...

OTTAWA (AFP) — Canada on Tuesday formally recognized Kosovo's independence, but stressed it was not setting a precedent to be exploited by the Quebec separatist movement. The move swiftly triggered an angry response from Belgrade which recalled its ambassador to Ottawa in protest, as world powers called for calm after some of the worst violence since Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia last month. "Today, we joined the international community and recognized Kosovo as a new state," Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier told public broadcaster CBC, a day after Serbs clashed with UN police in the town of Kosovska Mitrovica....

In a response to the inquest on issues by the Serbian Unity Congress (SUC), Presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama says that as President he will work to assure Kosovo Serbs are protected, that he will support Bosnian Dayton Accords and the integration of Serbia into EU and Euro-Atlantic structures. "I also noted in my statement that Serbia and its people have suffered terribly over that past two decades and that Serbs deserve a more peaceful, prosperous, and hopeful future," says Obama. Barack Hussein Obama is a Senator from Illinois whose father is from Kenya. Obama said that, as President, he...

Zagreb, 14 Jan. (AKI) – The leader of minority Serbs in Croatia, Milorad Pupovac, said on Monday the formation of the country’s new government was an historic moment in the country's 16 years of independence. Pupovac, who as head of the Independent Serb Democratic Party (SDSS), became deputy vice-premier in prime minister Ivo Sanader’s government on Saturday. He said it was an important achievement in overcoming the traumas of Croatia’s war of secession from the former Yugoslavia in 1991-1995. “It is a historic moment because it is the first time since the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and the existence...

Zagreb, 31 August (AKI) – Croatia on Friday held a day of national mourning after six firemen died fighting a forest blaze on the central Adriatic archipelago of Kornati, local media reported. The tragedy occurred Thursday night when a forest fire encircled the firemen fighting a blaze, killing six and seriously injuring another seven. The ages of three of those killed ranged from 17 to 18 years old. Another 14 firemen escaped with light burns, the reports said. Prime minister Ivo Sanader and President Stipe Mesic called for an investigation whether the fire was started deliberately and asked for severe...

Croatian President Stjepan Mesic has accepted governmental proposal on supplying humanitarian aid to Greece. Croatian government has reached a decision at today`s sitting via telephone on forwarding Canadair fire-fighting plane to Greece, along with members of the Croatian Armed Forces, including two crews and four technicians, in order to provide humanitarian aid. Croatian President Stjepan Mesic accepted the governmental proposal on forwarding Armed Forces members to Greece, it is stated in the President`s PR office release.

Slovenian officials estimate that a mass grave found near Maribor will most likely prove to be the largest in Europe, surpassing even that of Srebrenica. A mass grave in Slovenia could turn out to be the largest in Europe, bigger even than that of Srebrenica. Exhumations in Tezno, a residential district of Slovenia's second-largest city Maribor, are likely to uncover the remains of thousands of victims of purges carried out immediately following World War II, according to Slovenian government officials. "It just might be that the greatest crime of the period following World War II will be uncovered in the...

When America's top commanders in Iraq held a conference with their British counterparts recently, Major General Jonathan Shaw - Britain's senior officer in Basra - was quick to share his views on how best to conduct counter-insurgency operations. For much of the last four years, the Americans in the room would have listened carefully, used to deferring to their British colleagues' long experience in Northern Ireland. This time, however, eyes that would once have been attentive simply rolled. Few were in the mood for a lecture about British superiority, when they fear that Downing Street's planned pull-out from Basra will...

The US, EU and Russia will allow partition to break the impasse, writes Daniel McLaughlin. The United States, the European Union and Russia will allow Kosovo to be divided to resolve its bid for independence from Serbia, reversing a long-held position that the region must not be split up along ethnic lines. Frustrated by the lack of common ground between Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders, who demand full sovereignty, and a Belgrade that refuses to countenance anything more than broad autonomy for the province, a "troika" of envoys representing Washington, Brussels and Moscow have said all options - including partition -...

A moderate European Muslim leader -- in Seattle this weekend to attend the annual conference of the Congress of North American Bosniaks -- drew upon a deep affection for the United States before cautioning Americans, "Don't cease to believe that you are good." The gentle warning from Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric -- the supreme Islamic cleric for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia -- followed the second day of meetings of the Bosniak congress attended by about 1,000 people from around the continent. About 7,000 Bosniaks came to the Seattle area after genocidal violence that ripped the former Yugoslavian province in the...

Six prominent wartime Bosnian Croat officials have gone on trial at the United Nations tribunal in The Hague for alleged war crimes. They all deny charges of masterminding a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Bosnian Muslims during the early 1990s. Jadranko Prlic, the one-time president of the self-proclaimed Bosnian Croat mini-state, is the chief suspect. Correspondents say the handling of the trial - the largest of its kind at the tribunal - will face close scrutiny. The charges relate to 11 months in 1993-94 when Bosnian Croats and Muslims - who were allies for most of the 1992-95 war against...

A Bosnian Serb fugitive sentenced for crimes committed during the Bosnian war and wanted by a UN war crimes court has been arrested in Argentina. Police say Milan Lukic, who has been on the run for more than five years, was arrested in Buenos Aires. He was indicted by the UN's war crimes tribunal for crimes said to have been carried out during the Bosnian war. He is also wanted in Serbia, where he was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison for war crimes. 'Reign of terror'In 2003, a court in Belgrade found Lukic and three other men...

Bugojno - How much are books worth? Of course, before anything, it depends on the author, the contents, the subject and the market value of the book....but this seems to not be the case in Bugojno! As we learned from citizens of Bugojno, in one garbage container alone, we found 500 books by Croatian and Serbian authors near the Sports and Cultural Centre. The Bugojno City Library recently received funding to renew its contents from the Federal Government and the new books are all written in this new "Bosnian" language. Poor children in Bugojno who search through trash daily came...

Ahmed Halilovic's hand shot up to reply to a question from his teacher: "Can anyone tell the difference between Bosnian and Serbian?" Looking around the classroom in the Mesha Selimovic primary school here, it seemed that Ahmed, 7, was the only one to know. The other children could be forgiven: It is a question that many adults in this largely Muslim region of Serbia might find hard to answer.

The role of the Islamic religious Community in the war in former Yugoslavia The peculiarity of the war in former Yugoslavia (YU hereafter) cannot be understood without considering the role of the Islamic religious group in the period prior to it. However, the very mention of Islam can produce a confusing effect, because it is a very broad notion which implies many things and allows many different interpretations. It is a well-known that Muslims ruled parts of former YU and that some people, as a consequence, declared themselves members of that "nation" but later also stated publicly they were communist...

Stolac - Yesterday at 3pm in the afternoon, a group of Muslim youth in Stolac went to the town center to remove the Croat flag but were stopped by police. Scuffles ensued when the Muslim youth claimed that the flag was a terrorist one, and was on sacred Islamic land (Vakuf) and would remove it one way or another. Hundreds of Croats and Muslims quickly gathered in the town square where a fight was certain to arise. The Muslim crowd was led by Nerin Dizdar, President of Stolac Youth (Muslim organization), who removed the Croatian flag and the town flag...