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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....

Armed Islamists will attack pirates, says militant Last Updated: Friday, November 21, 2008 | 3:08 PM ET A group of armed Islamist militants is reportedly headed to a Somali port Friday to attack pirates holding hostage a massive Saudi Arabian oil tanker.Ships belonging to Muslim countries should not be seized, Abdelghafar Musa, a fighter with the Islamist group al-Shabab, told the Associated Press. This undated picture taken at an unknown location shows the Saudi oil supertanker MV Sirius Star, which has been hijacked by Somali pirates. (Christian Duys/Associated Press)"We are really sorry to hear that the Saudi ship has...

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.

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...

Thus, while Kosovo's status as part of Serbia is unquestionable, South Ossetia and Abkhazia can make a good case they were part of Soviet Georgia but never the current independent state of Georgia. (The same would apply to Transdniestria with respect to Moldova and Nagorno-Karabakh with respect to Azerbaijan. When will they follow suit?) In Kosovo, Washington sowed the wind, and now Georgia has reaped the whirlwind. Only a return to the negotiating table to address comprehensively Kosovo, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and similar trouble spots elsewhere can prevent this malignant precedent from spinning further out of control with incalculable consequences...

Skip to comments.(reprise) DFU SONG: End of the Innocence (end of the legacy...blame Clinton for 9/11) DFU SONG PARODIES | 2001 | Lyrics, Doug from Upland Posted on 03/24/2004 9:45:53 PM PST by doug from upland MIDI - END OF THE INNOCENCE For several years they sang his song…he was a hero to their cause In denial many lived…he placed himself up above the laws He knew all of the right things to say…down through…hell and then back believers would goIn eight long years he's done to us…more damage than you know For his neglect we would finally pay...

Revealed: Saudi women preaching hate in the British mosque that promised to clean up its act 18 months ago Last updated at 00:41am on 31.08.08   Hardline female ‘preachers of hate’ are radicalising Muslim women at one of Britain’s top mosques.The Saudi Arabian preachers were secretly filmed ordering women to murder gays and ex-Muslims. Undercover reporters from Channel 4’s Dispatches recorded the lectures in the women’s section of Regent’s Park Mosque in London.An unnamed Saudi woman is seen mocking other religions – labelling Christianity ‘vile’ and an ‘abomination’. Another, known as ‘Angelique’, claims Britain is a ‘land of evil’....

The arrest of Radovan Karadzic in Serbia on Tuesday has provided yet another occasion for all the tired old propaganda about the Balkans wars to be taken out of the cupboard and given one last airing. In particular, the war is presented as one between a Serb aggressor and an innocent victim, the Bosnian Muslims, and the former is accused of practising genocide against the latter. Even if one accepts that crimes against humanity were committed during the Balkan wars, it should be obvious that both these claims are absurd. First, the Serbs were no more the aggressors in the...

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...

Yesterday I saw the World Net Daily article suggesting Islamofascist terrorist organizations, including the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, will be providing security for Obama in Palestinian territory. Tony Blair, in a recent trip to Israel, cancelled a trip into Palestinian territory because the Palestinians intended that arrangement for him.I did not blog this then because I tend to want other sources to back up what World Net Daily says. Today, I think it is safe to say the Obama campaign confirmed the story in an indirect way.Major Garrett reports there is some squabbling over Obama's speech in Berlin. Obama wants...

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...

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.

American Deputy Secretary of State John Bolton believes the United States committed a serious mistake when it recognized the independence of Kosovo. He fears such policy may escalate tensions in the Balkans. In an interview for the Russian news agency Interfax, Mr. Bolton remarked that Washington’s policy was on autopilot since the regime of the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. But the situation has changed considerably after the democratic government took over, which, in Mr. Bolton’s opinion, makes support for Kosovo’s independence a pointless atavism.

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...

[JURIST] The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) [official website] announced Wednesday that it will prepare a report [press release] on allegations of organ trafficking in Kosovo. Former prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Carla Del Ponte [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] has alleged in a new book [JURIST report] that about 300 Serbian and other non-Albanian prisoners were victims of organ trafficking during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo, but that a 2003 probe by her ICTY team failed to obtain sufficient evidence to prosecute. In response, parliamentarians submitted a motion [text] in...

GRAFENWÖHR, Germany — Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment deployed to the Balkans earlier this year to provide Kosovo Forces with armored capabilities during Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia, according to Army officials. Information on the deployment was kept under wraps until now because of the mission’s sensitivity. In the days following Kosovo’s declaration of independence, protesters marched in the northern city of Kosovska Mitrovica. Kosovo Force troops and U.N. police closed the border with Serbia after hearing that protesters were being bused to Mitrovica to join the protest. During the deployment 1-4 soldiers were manning Bradley fighting...

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...