Free Republic

On April 8, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Boston conference on ''media reform.'' She was joined by four other congressmen, a senator, two FCC commissioners, a Nobel laureate and numerous liberal journalists. The 2,500-person event was sponsored by a group called Free Press, one of more than 180 different media-related organizations that receives money from liberal billionaire George Soros. Soros, who first made a name for himself in investing and currency trading, now makes his name in politics and policy. Since the 2004 election, the controversial financier has used his influence and billions to push a laundry list...

Painting of Kaiser Wilhelm II by Max Koner 1890 Aleksandra's Note: It never ceases to amaze me how decades, and in this case an entire century, of cataclysmic change can run its course through the world and the history of its nations and peoples, but some things truly don't change. For the Serbs, "Deja Vu" has become a constant common denominator in the course of their history. This important bit of history from a 100 years ago should serve as a reminder to the Serbs that the passage of time, even a full century of time, really means nothing when...

Christ opening the gates of Dachau In 1945, a Paschal Liturgy like no other was performed. Just days after their liberation by the US military on April 29, 1945, hundreds of Orthodox Christian prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp gathered to celebrate the Resurrection service and to give thanks. The Dachau concentration camp was opened in 1933 in a former gunpowder factory. The first prisoners interred there were political opponents of Adolf Hitler, who had become German chancellor that same year. During the twelve years of the camp's existence, over 200,000 prisoners were brought there. The majority of prisoners at...

Curtis Diles (left), with a friend in Italy, 1945, returned to safety and survived the war after being rescued by the Mihailovich Serbs.There are those people in life that are born unto their destiny, that come into life to be something special. They choose not their path, nor do they accept it willingly, it just is for them, despite their not even seeking it. You cannot create these people; you cannot groom them for their destiny is contained within every cell of their being. They cannot be drawn into a comic book or cast into a made for TV movie...

On November the 16th the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) outrageously reversed convictions, acquitted and ordered immediate release of the Croatian Colonel General Ante Gotovina, commander of a military offensive known as Operation Storm (Oluja in Serbian), and Colonel General Mladen Markac, Operation Commander of the Special Police in Croatia. Gotovina was on the run until 2005, when he was arrested in Spain and transferred to the ICTY. Needless to say the acquitted generals returned to Zagreb to a hero’s welcome with the 100,000 large crowd chanting “Victory, Victory.” In Belgrade there was a...

U.S. Kosovo policy pits National Guard against Christian Serbs resisting rule by U.S.-backed Muslim Albanian mafia rewarded with independence; ethnic cleansing threatens.Always on hand to promote the American-made Muslim state of Kosovo, The Wall St. Journal praised Obama’s praise and rhapsodized in typical Slavophobic tones how in 1999 President Clinton “bypassed the United Nations and sent in the U.S. Air Force…President Bush stood up to Russian bluster and European ambivalence to push for its independence.…though Serbia and Russia have tried to undermine it.” The editorial closed with a straight-faced reference to something that elicits snickers among those in the know:...

Clinton-era Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, confronted by pro-Serbian protesters who called her a war criminal during a recent book signing in her native Prague, pushed them aside as "disgusting Serbs" in a confrontation going viral on the internet. Displaying her trademark feistiness, Albright is seen in the video as sternly shouting "get out, get out," to the protesters who arrived with a film crew. As they closed in on her, she stood up and said, "That's it! Get out," and soon walked away with an aide after saying, "they are disgusting Serbs." Albright, on a book tour to tout...

Beautiful Montenegro Source: http://www.discover-montenegro.com/ Aleksandra's Note: In the beginning of the first decade of the twentieth century, the Prime Minister of Serbia began talks with the other Balkan nations of Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro. When a pro-Russian government was formed in Bulgaria in March 1911, these talks became serious and evolved into a series of secret treaties. On March 13, 1912 a pact was signed between Serbia and Bulgaria. The plan was to jointly attack the Turks as soon as it was feasible to do so. On May 29, a military convention was signed between Bulgaria and Serbia, thus formalizing...

Aleksandra's Note: A great job by Nick Tintor in summarizing an often polarizing issue that is in need of resolution after all these years. I wanted to extend a special note of gratitude to The Jerusalem Post for publishing this important piece, and keeping it online despite the hostility it has evoked in some of the Post's readers. The Post is to be commended for this. Anyone who refers to Serbian "anti-Semitism" during WWII or General Mihailovich's alleged "collaboration with the Nazis" clearly is repeating the usual communist propaganda that has so infiltrated the historical record regarding the Chetnik movement...

Immobilized with fear, a 4-year-old British girl huddled for eight hours beneath the legs of her slain mother in the back of a car filled with corpses on a remote Alpine road — all while French investigators stood nearby, unaware the girl was there.

Julia Gorin Aleksandra's Note: Julia Gorin, an opinion columnist with a focus on the Balkans and consistent journalistic integrity, has put together yet another excellent response to the boilerplate musings of the Serb demonizers who never quit. This time she addresses the Washington Times editorial of Jeffrey T. Kuhner published on May 24, 2012 in response to the election of Serbia's new president, Tomislav Nikolic: "Did Serbia Vote for War: New ultranationalist president promotes instability". http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/24/did-serbia-vote-for-war/ Gorin tackles head on the analogy to the Mihailovich Serbs of WWII that Kuhner includes in his current hit piece. Because she incorporates a...

GAZIMESTAN, PRIŠTINA -- 16 Serb children were injured when Molotov cocktails were thrown at them as they were returning from the Vidovdan ceremonies in Gazimestan on Thursday.A man carries the Serbian flag surrounded by KPS members at Gra�anica on Thursday (Tanjug) The attack happened in Priština. B92 has learned that two Serbs received serious injuries and were treated in the nearby enclave on Gra�anica. Gra�anica Health Care Center Radmila Trajković told Tanjug that they treated 16 Serb children - between eight and 16 years of age - and that they were injured when their buses returning from Gazimestan came under...

BELGRADE -- The proceedings for rehabilitation of WWII General Dragoljub Mihailović resumed on Friday [May 11, 2012] before the Higher Court in Belgrade. Mihailović was a commander of the Chetnik movement during World War II who was sentenced to death in 1946. The court listened to audio recordings from the trial against Mihailović, provided by historian Slobodan Marković, specifically one part of his closing argument given on July 10, 1946. “By comparing stenographer's notes and transcripts of the audio recording, it is evident the former were cut short by 27 percent and the meaning of sentences was often changed,” Marković...

General Draza Mihailovich in the hills of Serbia, 1943 The famous bridge over the Drina River in Visegrad, Bosnia Note: The next Mihailovich Rehabilitation hearing is set for March 23, 2012 in Belgrade, Serbia. Aleksandra's note: As we await with great anticipation the official rehabilitation of General Draza Mihailovich we are reminded that on this day, March 13th, in 1946, the Yugoslav communist special security agents (OZNA) loyal to Marshal Josip Broz Tito finally captured the great General in the village of Drazevina near Visegrad in Bosnia. A short time later they publicly announced his capture and their intention to...

***** Charles L. Davis Lieutenant Colonel United States Air Force Born June 8, 1919 in Staten Island, NY Died February 17, 2012 in Falls Church, VA Dates of Service: May 26, 1942 - June 8, 1979 On June 6, 1944 Charlie Davis was in a B-24 and the target was Brazok, Romania when his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire. He parachuted out of the doomed B-24. Was missing in action in Nazi-occupied Serbia from June 6, 1944 until August of 1944. Was saved by the Serbs loyal to and under the command of General Draza Mihailovich.

Edward J. Derwinski Halyard Mission 50th anniversary 1994 Chicago, IL U.S.A. Photo by R. Rebic Aleksandra's Note: Americans and Serbs from all over the United States and Canada gathered together on May 31, 1994 in Chicago to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 'Halyard Mission' rescue operation and pay homage to the American veterans of World War II and the Serbs under the command of General Draza Mihailovich who had saved their lives. The 'Halyard Mission' was the name given to the greatest rescue of American and Allied lives from behind enemy lines in the history of warfare. It was...

The critics and movie-goers “doth protest too much.” Make that a silent protest because apparently they have better things to do than say much of anything about Angelina Jolie’s inaugural attempt at writing/directing “In the Land of Blood and Honey.” The first month’s box office take will likely not even amount to a .01-percent trickle of the $13 million blown on this celluloid cliché that promoters had tried to hype as a Romeo and Juliet tragedy set against the recent Bosnian war. By late January, the three-week mini-run that soaked $90,000 in ticket sales from gullible movie-goers is sputtering. Only...

DJAKOVICA -- An 82-year-old woman - one of only five remaining Serbs in the town of Djakovica in Kosovo - has died, it has been reported. Jela Mijovich and four other elderly women were the only Serbs left in the town after the March 2004 pogrom perpetrated by ethnic Albanians. They all lived in a rebuilt structure located in the yard of a Serbian Orthodox monastery in the town. Prior to 1999, several thousand Serbs lived in Djakovica. The four elderly women who still remain there live under 24-hour protection of the Kosovo police (KPS). One of them, 64-year-old Vasiljka...

Angelina Jolie has aroused praise and criticism in Bosnia with her first film as a director, a story of love and war set during the bloody Balkans conflict. ... But in the Balkans, another world from the star-studded American premieres and glitzy after-parties, the film is inflaming old and deeply-held emotions. ... Former Bosnian Muslim war prisoners and relatives of massacre victims, some of them initially critical, lauded In the Land of Blood and Honey after being invited to a private screening to allay earlier fears about the subject matter. But the leader of a Bosnian Serb prisoners group has...

Would Angeline Jolie make a movie about the rape, murder, and genocide of Armenian Chrisians perpetrated by Turkish Muslim Jihadists? Most likely not.Such a movie would not fit in with the propaganda agenda of the MSM/Leftist/Islamist alliance that is always happy to demonise and attack Serb Christians and Israelis.In fact it is an absolutely factual observation that the two countries in the world that are politically, [and wrongly] ,demonised and attacked the most are Israel and Serbia.Why?Because for the last 63 years since their re-establishment as a sovereign nation in their own land, Israel has been at the forefront standing against jihad terrorism.Israel is...

"Police in Kosovo are investigating who sprayed swastikas on dozens of tombstones in a Jewish cemetery recently restored by American and Kosovan students, a spokesman said Thursday. Brahim Sadrija said police had sealed off the cemetery in the capital, Kosovo, and are looking for clues. The vandalism is believed to have happened Tuesday. … In June, a group of students from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and their peers from the American University in Kosovo restored the neglected cemetery by clearing debris from around the graves and cutting overgrown grass. Rabbi Edward S. Boraz of the college’s Roth Center for...

Georgia National Guard soldiers stack behind a wall during training at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, Nov. 9, 2011. National Guard soldiers from several states -- including the Wisconsin Army National Guard's 157th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade -- are part of the KFOR 15 rotation preparing to deploy to Kosovo in upcoming months. U.S. Army photo by Lynn Davis WASHINGTON, Nov. 29, 2011 – A senior U.S. military leader in Europe condemned recent violence against NATO troops in Kosovo just as a Wisconsin Army National Guard unit prepares to take command of the 15th rotation of peacekeeping forces...

Tensions run high on Serbia's border with northern Kosovo, as neither of the conflicting sides is prepared to rule out a further escalation of violence. ­Local Serbs say NATO forces are to blame, for breaking an agreement by trying to remove a barricade blocking the way to one of a number of disputed checkpoints. The move prompted violent clashes that left dozens injured on both sides. Last night in Northern Kosovo passed without violence though this does not mean that the source of tensions has disappeared. On November 23 the NATO’s KFOR forces attempted to remove a barricade put up...

KLA Detention Camps In my late December essay in 2010 called Amorality of US Kosovo Policy: Friends with the Snake I have published reactions to the Council of Europe (CoE) 27-page report authored by the Swiss-Italian politician, senator and prosecuting lawyer Dick Marty. The report, after his two-year investigation, claimed that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) thugs headed by the current Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci, known as the “Snake,” abducted mostly Kosovo Serbs but also some Albanian so called “collaborators,” transported them to northern Albania, murdered them, extracted their organs like the kidneys, and sold them on the black...

BELGRADE -- Oliver Ivanović says he does not rule out the possibility that Serbs from northern Kosovo may "declare independence" of that part of the province. Oliver Ivanović (Beta, file) This could happen if the West continues to insist on the implementation of the agreement on customs stamps and other issues in Priština's favor, the Ministry for Kosovo state secretary said in Belgrade on Friday, after a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Kosovo and Metohija. Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in early 2008, but Serbia rejected it as an illegal act of secession. Serb north of the...

Thank goodness for those among us who remain vigilant against the lies... Review: “Tito’s War” by John Brown, World War II History Magazine, November, 2011, Volume 10, No. 7, pp. 54-61. Review by Carl Savich In the November, 2011 issue of the military history magazine "World War II History", published in Herndon, Virginia, an article entitled “Tito’s War” by Australian author John Brown purports to chronicle the conflict in Yugoslavia between Draza Mihailovich’s Chetnik guerrillas and Josip Broz Tito’s Communist Partisans during World War II. This account is fake. It is a phony history of World War II. John Brown...

Major Richard L. Felman U.S.A.F. May 29, 1921 - November 13, 1999 Major Richard Felman and Aleksandra Rebic General Mihailovich's 100th Birthday Celebration April 23, 1993 Chicago, IL U.S.A. He never stopped. It became his mission in life. For 55 years, over half a century, Major Richard L. Felman of the United States Air Force worked ceaselessly to do one thing: to repay a debt of gratitude and to say "Thank You" in a most meaningful way. As we in America just commemorated Veteran’s Day and are getting ready to celebrate our Thanksgiving, it is our turn to remember and...

BELGRADE -- More than 1,000 Serbs have been murdered in Kosovo since June 1999 - when the war ended and international forces were deployed in the province. This is according to Assistant Minister for Kosovo Kruna Kali�anin, who spoke in Belgrade on Thursday. She also noted that "almost nobody" was charged and put on trial for those crimes. The international community, in the meanwhile, showed a tendency to "minimize" the importance of Serb victims, Kali�anin added. These statements came a day after a Serb man was shot and killed, while two others were wounded in Kosovska Mitrovica. Kali�anin also accused...

In the three years since Kosovo, urged on by the United States, declared its unilateral independence, there has been no final resolution of this long-festering wound in the heart of the Balkans. After the expulsion of the Serbian military from Kosovo in 1999 there was a systematic purging of the non-Albanian population and a rampage of revenge killing, and destruction. In March, 2004, the Albanian mobs burned or dynamited more than 204 Christian churches and monasteries - some of them heritage structures dating back to the 14th century. This veritable orgy of devastation was accomplished under the watchful eyes of...

Kragujevac Memorial Park Introduction by Nebojsa MalicIn March 1941, the Yugoslav government signed a cooperation treaty with Nazi Germany, under threat of invasion. Two days later, it was toppled in a coup. Outraged, Hitler swore to "wipe Yugoslavia off the map," and delayed the planned invasion of the USSR for a stopover in the Balkans. By all military criteria, "Operation Punishment" was a cakewalk, wiping out resistance in seven days. Many willing collaborators eagerly helped the Nazis dismember the dysfunctional state. But within two months, not one but two resistance movements had sprung up, challenging the occupation, albeit in different...

NATO peacekeepers have used tear gas against Serb protesters in northern Kosovo. They dispersed the crowd in order to start dismantling barricades erected in a protest against deployment of customs checkpoints on the border. The tension has already spilled into violence in Kosovo, reports RT’s Maria Finoshina. One Serb was gunned down and two wounded near the city of Pec in the west of the province. The shooting was done by their Albanian neighbor, she says. Meanwhile some 300 Serbs tried to prevent the Kosovo peacekeeping force (KFOR) from tearing down the barricades in Kosovo’s north, but the soldiers were...

As the deadline for Serbs in northern Kosovo to dismantle their border barricades nears, they remain firm in their protest. The barricades are meant to stop attempts by Kosovan police, and NATO and EU forces to take over border crossings with Serbia. Stones and sand of the barricades are the only weapons the Serbs living in Kosovo have in their arsenal to make the others listen to them. The roadblocks they have set up throughout the northern part of the region are making headlines and getting feedback. Local resident Voityla is reading a leaflet that KFOR, a NATO-led international peacekeeping...

Islamic forces entered Europe from Asia and North Africa in order to enslave, convert, persecute and either completely destroy Christianity or to enforce dhimmitude. Before this process began you had the complete annihilation of Christianity in many parts of North Africa and in various parts of the Middle East it was one long sojourn into dhimmitude, pogroms and massacres. Christianity survived in some areas, for example in Egypt, however, numbers succumbed after Arab colonial and Islamic discrimination took route. Therefore, a complete Islamic inquisition took root in Arabia (modern day Saudi Arabia) and just like the Sunni Islamic inquisition against...

Since World War Two you have had three major conflicts in the Balkans involving Orthodox Christian communities and Islamic communities; this applies to Cyprus, Bosnia and Kosovo respectively. On all three occasions the United States supported the followers of Islam and maybe one day the same will happen to Orthodox Christians in Macedonia? Yet unlike the large Christian communities of Bosnia and Cyprus, it is the land of Kosovo which is being Islamized and Albanianized under NATO, the UN, and other international institutions who are meant to be neutral. The media in the West is once more turning a 'blind...

PRISTINA, KOSOVO — The trial of seven Kosovars accused of participating in an international organ trafficking ring opened here Tuesday. The suspects are accused of luring victims from Turkey and former Communist countries to Pristina to sell their kidneys with false promises of payments of up to €15,000, or nearly $20,000. The recipients, according to the indictment, paid between €80,000 and €100,000 for the organs. The case has threatened to tarnish the image of the new country as it struggles to establish international credibility three years after declaring independence, and as it seeks integration into the European Union. But the...

Recently, as I was bicycling to work, I became the victim of random, unprovoked violence as I was hit by a nearly full bottle of flavored water thrown by a passenger from a car that passed me. Due to my superior reflexes and conditioning I managed to stabilize my bike (and myself rom the initial shock) as the bottle bounced off of me. Nevertheless, why someone would waste a perfectly good, chilled bottle of sugared drink on a 40 degree Celsius day trying to injure someone they didn't even know was very perplexing to me. On another occasion, two speeding...

ZAGREB -- Croatia’s Interior Minister Tomislav Karamarko has banned a commemoration and revealing of a monument to Serbs victims who were killed from 1991 until 1995.Monument to killed Golubić Serbs (Tanjug) The minister stressed that the gathering would probably lead to significant violation of public law and order and that it would upset the citizens. He pointed out in the release that the “the ban has removed danger of bigger incidents and unrest”. The Croat authorities have also ordered St Stephen’s Church to remove the monument to Serb victims within three days. The Environment, Spatial Planning and Construction Ministry has...

KFor soldiers from the US stand guard at a barricade at the closed Serbia-Kosovo border crossing of Jarinje. Photograph: Marko Djurica/Reuters Cultural claims persist in regions as Belgrade refuses to acknowledge independence of Kosovo MILEVA PREMOVIC and her neighbours while away the afternoon in the shade of a broad tree. The unseasonable warmth makes it hard to imagine that the green Kapaonik mountains, rising up a few miles away in Serbia, will soon be white with snow and busy with skiers. It would also be hard to believe that bullets were fired and blood shed here just a few days...

NORTH MITROVICA, KOSOVO — Angry Serbs are still at the barricades here, blocking roads across northern Kosovo in an attempt to resist the recent deployment of police and customs officers from the Kosovar government to border crossings with Serbia. Although the protests have been peaceful so far, behind the anger a more fundamental issue is smoldering: Serbs here are being forced to finally contemplate a future under the Kosovar government in Pristina, which is dominated by ethnic Albanians. “It’s the very first time in 12 years that the pressure against the Serbs in the north has been so strong from...

MITROVICA/PRISTINA, Kosovo - At least 16 Kosovo Serbs and four NATO troops were injured in clashes at a disputed Kosovo-Serbian border crossing on Tuesday, NATO officials and local authorities said. Witnesses said troops from the NATO peacekeeping force KFOR responded with fire arms, teargas and rubber bullets to disperse a crowd rallying against the removal of a Serb-held barricade on a small road about 150 meters from the Jarinje border post. NATO spokesman Ralph Adametz said the incidents started when Serb protesters drove a vehicle at NATO troops and a soldier was injured. "During the incident an attempt was made...

NATO Tries to Force Christian Serbs to Submit to Criminal Albanian Muslim “Authority” September 27, 2011: Today, NATO forces in Kosovo opened fire on Serbian demonstrators protesting efforts by KFOR (NATO’s “Kosovo Force”) and the ironically designated European Union “rule of law” mission (“EULEX”) to force Serbs to submit to the illegal Albanian Muslim “authority” posing as an independent government in Priština. As summarized by retired U.S. diplomat Gerard Gallucci, who formerly served in Kosovo: On September 27, the NATO force in Kosovo (KFOR) lost completely its guise as UN peacekeepers and became a repressive, lawless military occupation force. After...

German chancellor Angela Merkel has received undeserved praise for adopting an uncompromising position regarding Kosovo in meetings with Serbian president Boris Tadic. The latest example of a laudatory reaction is the piece [3] by Morton Abramowitz and James Hooper. Abramowitz and Hooper are thrilled that she made it clear to Tadic that “Kosovo would not be partitioned” and that “the area inhabited by Serbs north of the Ibar River was Kosovo territory.” Further, she told the leader of a still-fragile democratic Serbia that the Kosovo issue “had to be resolved before Serbia could enter the EU.” Rather than meriting praise,...

As the son of Cuban exiles, junior Florida senator Marco Rubio should be particularly sensitive to attempts at painting a people as crazed criminals, often done in service of an underlying political agenda. But in his speech last week at the Jesse Helms Center in North Carolina, Senator Rubio said, “The American armed forces have been one of the greatest forces of good….They stopped Nazism and Communism and other evils such as Serbian ethnic cleansing.” A year after our leaders lied to us in 1999 about the particularly insidious but ultimately mythical “Operation Horseshoe” (the ethnic cleansing plan subsequently shown...

On September the 16th NATO forces, overstepping their UN Security Council (UNSC) mandates, amid tensions on the administrative border between Serbia and the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo, have fired the first shots at bare-handed Kosovo Serbs in the village of Zupce. The Kosovo Serbs have erected barricades, in a life or death situation, to defend themselves against the Muslim Albanian onslaughts which desire to forcefully incorporate northern Kosovo into the US/EU created Republic of Kosovo, an amputated province from the Republic of Serbia. The Albanian police, aided and assisted by NATO’s KFOR, have taken over two border crossings: Jarinje and...

If you reside in a parallel universe then welcome to Kosovo, the land of Albanianization and Islamization and all in the name of democracy. A flick back into history tells us that the Serbs were 98% of the population of Kosovo 600 years ago but today the Orthodox Christian Serbs are between 6% and 8% depending on various figures. Of course, the Kosovo Serbs became a minority because of the ravages of the Ottoman Empire, dhimmitude, Islamization, and Albanian support of fascism　during the German Nazi period. Communism in the old Yugoslavia was the final nail in the coffin because Albanian...

The terrorist Albanian National Army (ANA) threatened to carry out armed actions in north of Kosovo, if the Kosovo institutions do not set up Kosovo's military by the end of September, the Pristina electronic media reported citing the media in Tirana. The release, written by political spokesman of that mysterious organization Sazan Toplica, reads that the ANA has delivered an ultimatum to the Kosovo President and Prime Minister demanding formation of Kosovo's armed military by September 30. If the ANA demands are ignored, that terrorist formation, as he put it, will be forced to continue with its military actions in...

Ramush Haradinaj is the most senior ethnic Albanian indicted by the Hague tribunal Former Kosovan Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj is going back on trial at The Hague in its first-ever partial retrial for war crimes. He is due to re-appear before the UN War Crimes Tribunal after his 2008 acquittal was overturned on grounds of witness intimidation. The former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) fighter and two co-accused are being retried. It is the first partial retrial ordered by the UN War Crimes Tribunal. It follows an appeal by the prosecution against the acquittal in 2008 of Mr Haradinaj. The indictment...

BELGRADE -- Today marks the 16th anniversary since the beginning of Croatian army and police Operation Storm that led to the exodus of more than 200,000 Serbs from Croatia. Tadic and Krkobabic in attendance (Beta) Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Patriarch Irinej held a memorial service at St. Mark’s Church in downtown Belgrade for the victims of the 1995 military operation aimed against Serb areas of Croatia. The memorial service was attended by Serbian President Boris Tadic, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of refugee issues Jovan Krkobabic, and by other government officials. Representatives of more than 100 refugee and home clubs...

Zagreb/Belgrade 4 Aug. (AKI) - Croatia on Thursday celebrated the 16th anniversary of military operation “Storm” which crushed a Serb rebellion and sparked exodus of some 200,000 Serbs, while Serbia commemorated victims of what it calls the worst ethnic cleansing in Europe after World War Two. Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said operation “Storm” was a “brilliant military action” and a great victory which re-united the country. “The Day of Victory we celebrate in peace and freedom, taking our place in the European family of states and nations,” Kosor said. Serbiaian president Boris Tadic said the anniversary was a date...

Kosovo Serb orthodox priest conducts a religious service near the barricades in the village of Zupce near the town of Zubin Potok on August 1. Serbs vowed to press on with roadblocks and stop NATO's KFOR peacekeeping force from proceeding until Kosovo agrees not to station its police and customs officers at the sensitive border posts. Photo: Marko Djurica/Reuters ***** Paris NATO is sending several hundred German and Austrian troops to Kosovo to buttress peacekeeping forces there after border violence left a Kosovar policeman dead and inflamed tensions with Serbia. Fighting erupted after Kosovar special police units in armored cars...