Free Republic

SKOPJE -- Skopje has no official information on the claims that there was trafficking of Albanians' organs through Macedonia during the Kosovo conflict. Albanian language media in Kosovo recently picked up articles in Macedonian papers in Albanian that the organs of Kosovo Albanians listed missing were "harvested and sold to Russians by Serbs". The Macedonian Interior Ministry (MUP) told the Beta news agency that this is the first time they have heard these allegations, and that there have been no demands for investigations. A similar statement was given by the Macedonian Foreign Ministry as well. The Albanian language daily Lajm,...

Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Zapatero has reaffirmed that Spain will not recognise Kosovo as independent, newspapers in Kosovo and Serbia reported on March 10 2009. "Spain's position on the unilateral declaration of Kosovo's independence is known - it is non-recognition," Zapatero was quoted as saying by Kosovo daily Koha Ditore. "We have maintained this position and we will continue to do so in the future." Addressing a joint news conference on March 9, Serbian president Tadic said that his country would never recognise Kosovo, which unilaterally declared itself as independent in February 2008. "Serbia will not give up on...

The fate of the 14th-century abbey, one of the best-preserved medieval churches in the Balkans, has been darkened by ethnic violence. Time stands still within the Visoki Decani Monastery, nestled among chestnut groves at the foot of the Prokletije Mountains in western Kosovo. Declared a World Heritage Site in 2004, Unesco cited the 14th-century abbey as an irreplaceable treasure, a place where "traditions of Romanesque architecture meet artistic patterns of the Byzantine world." The Serbian Orthodox monastery represents, according to art historian Bratislav Pantelic, author of a book on Decani's architecture, "the largest and best-preserved medieval church in the entire...

Del Ponte: SFOR Could Kill Karadzic Karadzic knows that he is in danger, because if they (SFOR, NATO) find him, he will not be transferred to the Hague alive, says del Ponte. On Monday, Banja Luka’s “Nezavisne Novine” (independent newspaper) reported the first part of the stenograph of the official talks of the prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal, Carla del Ponte from 2004, in Banja Luka, with the president of Republika Srpska at that time, Dragan Kalinic, in which Del Ponte warns that SFOR could kill Radovan Karadzic. “Since September 1999, Karadzic was in contact with our office. He talked...