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BELGRADE -- Today marks the 14th anniversary since the start of the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia, i.e. the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SRJ.A heating plant in New Belgrade is seen after being hit by NATO missiles (Tanjug, file) The bombing lasted 79 days and resulted in at least 2,500 deaths and more than 12,500 injuries. The attacks on Serbia started on March 24, 1999, and the last one took place near Kosovska Kamenica on June 10 at 13:15 CET. The death toll among the military and police forces reached 1,008, including 659 soldiers and 349 policemen. Around 6,000...

Moscow, January 30, Interfax - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has expressed concerns about the situation of residents of Kosovo and Metohija. "Serbs living in Kosovo and Metohija have found themselves pawns of a big geopolitical game. Many countries are indifferent to them and they have to live in closed enclaves in daily fear of their hostile environment, which realizes its impunity," the Patriarch said in an interview with the Serb newspaper Vecherniye Novosti, whose translation was published on the website of the Moscow patriarchate. "Our brothers in faith have great courage not to leave their long-suffering land...

SARAJEVO - US authorities on Tuesday extradited to Bosnia a Muslim ex-soldier accused of taking part in the mass murder of Croat civilians in southern Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Muslim-Croat conflict there in 1993, Bosnia's prosecutor's office said. Edin Dzeko, a 39-year-old naturalized US citizen who moved to the United States in 2001, agreed in November before a judge in Seattle to return to his native Bosnia to face charges that he participated in war crimes.

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...

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...

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...

The government of Serbia have arrested Ratko Mladic who was the former Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army and some people are claiming that this will end the chapter of this brutal civil war. However, Srebrenica is complex because events did not happen because of one factor but were based on the cold reality of a complex civil war where innocents were killed on all sides. However, which Srebrenica is “real” and which is “unreal?” ——————————————– Srebrenica in all its complexity ——————————————– This topic is very complex and it is abundantly clear that the mass media is still...

BELGRADE (Reuters) – Bosnian Serb wartime general Ratko Mladic was arrested in Serbia Thursday after years on the run from international genocide charges, opening the way for the once-pariah state to approach the European mainstream. Mladic, accused of orchestrating the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica and a brutal 43-month siege of Sarajevo during Bosnia's 1992-5 war, was found in a farmhouse owned by a cousin, a police official said. "Mladic was handcuffed and whisked away," said the official, who said he been cooperative during the arrest. The formerly burly and widely-feared general was...

Bosnian Islamic fighters during their Jihad which was blessed by President Bill Clinton I come from a member state of the European Union which is meant to uphold the rights of all religions, political ideologies, acknowledge national and cultural rights, and is meant to spread “European brotherhood.” However, it appears that this does not apply to the Orthodox Christians of Bosnia and Kosovo respectively because not only have they been abandoned but outside Islamic powers are stepping up their Islamization agenda in both Bosnia and Kosovo. In Kosovo the de-Christianization of the Orthodox Christian community continues and hundreds of Orthodox...

Radovan Karadzic defended the war fought by Bosnian Serbs as a "just and holy" attempt to stop his country being turned into an Islamic state. Ending a months-long boycott of his genocide trial in The Hague, the former Bosnian Serb leader used a belligerent opening statement this morning to claim that his forces had no choice but to go to war from 1992-95 to "defend the greatness of a small nation" against a Muslim plan to seize power. "Their aim was 100 per cent power as it was in the Ottoman Empire," said a heavier-looking Dr Karadzic, outlining his defence...

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is applauded after being awarded an honorary degree in law from McGill University Friday, Oct. 16, 2009 in Montreal. Workers install a monument to former U.S. President Bill Clinton on Bill Clinton Boulevard in Pristina, Kosovo October 12, 2009. The government of Kosovo said that Clinton's statue will be unveiled next month, with the former president expected to attend the ceremony. Picture taken October 12, 2009. Former President Bill Clinton, right, makes remarks as filmmaker Steven Spielberg, and Linda E. Johnson, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Constitution Center look on during the...

What has to be the most pro-American country on the globe outside of North America celebrated its first birthday on February 17. If George W. Bush ever needs a near fully-friendly venue, he can travel to Kosovo. As can Bill Clinton, whose giant visage beams down on Bill Clinton Boulevard in the capitol city of Pristina. Kosovars love America and Americans, or at least the vast, vast majority of them do. I spent three days with the men and women of the 40th Infantry Division at its base at Camp Bondsteel this past week, and in long travels with various...

SERBIANS marked the 10th anniversary of the start of a NATO blitz on the former federal republic of Yugoslavia on Tuesday with commemorations honouring over 3,000 victims. Air-raid sirens sounded at noon throughout the country, while schools opened classes with a minute's silence for the 89 children who were killed in the 78-day bombing campaign, which was initiated without UN security council backing. NATO claimed that it had launched Operation Allied Force in order to force then president Slobodan Milosevic to stop a military crackdown against Western-backed separatist insurgents in Kosovo province and pull out his troops. But the US...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States should not impose a cap-and-trade system to battle climate change this year because it amounts to a painful tax during a deep recession, a Republican lawmaker said Wednesday. "Now is not the time to put a national sales tax on every electric bill and every gasoline purchase," Republican Senator Lamar Alexander, who sits on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told reporters. "I'm open, as are several Republicans, to cap and trade, but it's getting increasingly difficult to think about it in the middle of a recession," said Alexander, who hails from Tennessee....

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,...

Belgrade, 11 August (AKI) – The deadly conflict between Russia and Georgia in the breakaway province of South Ossetia is an indirect result of Kosovo's declaration of independence in February, Serbian analysts and politicians said on Monday. “If there wasn’t a ‘Kosovo precedent’, as the greatest world powers headed by the United States called the secession of a part of Serbian territory, there wouldn’t have been a war in South Ossetia,” Oliver Ivanovic, Serbian government official in charge of Kosovo told the Belgrade daily Blic. Ivanovic said that Kosovo's example was “inspiring to South Ossetia, so they wanted to strain...

24 July 2008 Pristina _ The Islamic Community of Kosovo says that many Muslim states are to recognise Pristina’s independence from Serbia in the very near future. Naim Ternava, the head of Kosovo’s Islamic Community, said Thursday that this organisation is lobbying for the further recognition of Kosovo’s independence. “We are working hard, together with Kosovo’s institutions, to make sure many Islamic countries recognise Kosovo,” Ternava said. He made the comment after meeting Kosovo’s Parliament speaker Jakup Krasniqi. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17, an act that has been recognised by 43 countries so far. However recognitions have...

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.

Kosovo Muslims arrest Serbs over t'shirts SERBIANNA June 3, 2008 Brothers Miomir and Milos Stojanovic from Gnjilane have been arrested on the regional road from Gnjilane to Bujanovac for wearing t-shirts saying Kosovo is Serbia, stated official of the Kosovo Ministry Milorad Todorovic. He told the Serbian news agency Beta that two youths were arrested and brought before the municipal prosecutor in Gnjilane. The Islamic judge decided that the brothers, who are Christian, must either pay 250 Euros each or to spend 60 days in jail.