Free Republic

Other countries’ propagation of a stricter form of Islam in Albania is causing tensions with Christians and with other Muslims, a charity leader says. Peter Rettig, head of the South-East Europe Section of the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, said that young imams trained in Turkey and Saudi Arabia are spreading “a different form of Islam from what is customary” in Albania. The countries are strongly promoting the building of Islamic schools. “This is leading to tensions,” he told Aid to the Church in Need. The Catholic charity’s project partners have reported incidents that are “not dramatic”...

"The dogs bark, the caravan moves on." That Middle Eastern proverb could well describe the events surrounding production of the world's most-hyped dud firecracker, the Iraq Study Group Report. After immense agonies in the mainstream media (MSM), those like myself who predicted the report, once released, would largely be ignored by President George W. Bush, are being proven right and neoconservatives who support a continued commitment to the transformation of Iraq have exhibited renewed influence. Only a couple of lines in the report were worthy of comment. One appears on page 29 of the printed version: "Funding for the Sunni...

Kosovo stepped up security measures around "critical" infrastructure Saturday after an explosion at a key canal feeding two of its main power plants, as neighboring Serbia rejected accusations it had staged the blast. The explosion occurred Friday near the town of Zubin Potok in a Serb-dominated area in Kosovo's troubled north, damaging the canal supplying water to cooling systems at two coal-fired power plants that generate most of Kosovo's electricity. Visiting the site on Saturday, Prime Minister Albin Kurti announced that police had arrested several people in connection with the attack. Law enforcement "carried out searches" and "collected testimony and...

Armenians, a population in Western Asia historically inhabiting the Armenian highlands, were long believed to be descendants of Phrygian settlers from the Balkans. This theory originated largely from the accounts of the Greek historian Herodotus, who observed that Armenians were armed in Phrygian fashion when serving in the Persian army. Linguists further supported this theory, suggesting that the Armenian language shares ties with the Thraco-Phrygian subgroup of Indo-European languages.But the first whole-genome study challenges this long-held belief, revealing no significant genetic link between Armenians and the populations in the Balkan region. The study compares newly generated modern Armenian genomes and...

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said Sunday his country would transform the Tirana-based Bektashi Muslims, an Islamic Sufi order, into a sovereign state to promote moderation, tolerance and peaceful coexistence.

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/April/09-nsd-408.html Two Additional Defendants Sentenced for Conspiring to Kill U.S. Soldiers WASHINGTON – The remaining two men convicted of plotting to kill members of the U.S. military during an armed attack on a military base were sentenced today to federal prison terms of life for one defendant and 33 years for the other for conspiring to kill members of the U.S. military, Ralph J. Marra Jr., Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey; David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; and Janice K. Fedarcyk, Special Agent in Charge of the...

The 2023 census of Albania has shown a notable demographic change that marks a historic transformation in the religious scene of the nation. Muslims are no longer the majority of the population for the first time in more than 200 years. The Muslim count dropped to 45.7% based on the most recent census figures. This is a clear departure from past years when Muslims often accounted for the majority. On the other hand, the nonreligious population has grown somewhat steadily, reaching 23.4%. Furthermore, the Orthodox Christian community has expanded and now accounts for twenty percent of the population overall The...

FIRST ON FOX: Hunter Biden traveled to at least 13 countries with his then-vice president father when he was leading his now-defunct firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, a Fox News Digital review found. Video footage, which first aired on "Jesse Watters Primetime," along with Secret Service records and messages previously reported from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, show that Hunter, who co-founded Rosemont Seneca in 2009 with Devon Archer and Christopher Heinz, accompanied then-Vice President Joe Biden during official trips to Europe, Africa, Asia and Mexico. In April 2010, Hunter proposed meeting state officials in Serbia with his business associate Mark Doyle, who...

A group of university students on Friday launched a 24-hour blockade of a main street in Serbia’s capital during New Year’s holiday rush as protests continued in the troubled Balkan country after reports of irregularities that marred a recent election. ... The rally on Saturday is expected to draw thousands of people as political tensions are running high over the Dec. 17 ballot and subsequent incidents and arrests of opposition supporters at a protest last weekend. Populist President Aleksandar Vucic has accused the opposition of inciting violence with an aim to overthrow the government under instructions from abroad, which opposition...

Investigators found odd, little pills buried in the pockets of Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel on Oct. 7. They were later identified as the drug Captagon, a powerful, synthetic stimulant. Captagon gained international notoriety in 2015 when it was discovered to be used by ISIS fighters to suppress fear and fatigue prior to carrying out terrorist operations. Now, because it’s cheap, as well as easy to make and smuggle, Captagon and its counterfeits are likely to remain a favorite tool of extremist militant groups to enhance their soldiers’ violent tendencies. Some reports have even labeled Captagon as “the jihadists’ drug,”...

CNA Staff, Jul 5, 2023 / 15:10 pm Pope Francis met with former U.S. President Bill Clinton in a private audience at the Casa Santa Marta papal residence on Wednesday. Clinton’s delegation included several prominent Americans, including Alex Soros of the Open Society Foundations. Clinton, who now focuses his efforts on philanthropy and public affairs, had visited Albania July 3-4 and received from the Albanian prime minister a public gratitude medal for his support of Albania and for NATO's intervention in the Kosovo War, the news site Euractiv reports. Soros, son of the billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros, accompanied...

Jack Poso 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec BREAKING: RIC GRENELL IS EXPOSING THAT JACK SMITH USED PROSECUTIONS AT THE HAGUE TO BLOW UP TRUMP NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN KOSOVO AND SERBIA Real America's Voice (RAV) @RealAmVoice HUMAN EVENTS DAILY WITH JACK POSOBIEC EP 498 1:45 PM · Jun 19, 2023

The most circulated newspaper in Europe killed a major corruption story to please Joe Biden. A new report details how editors at Bild, the outlet in question, canned an extensive investigative piece on Albanian PM Edi Rama because he and the US president are friends and political allies.Per The Washington Examiner, Albania has become a narco-state over the last decade under Rama, and Bild was getting ready to expose him further.So, who is Rama? He’s the far-left leader of Albania’s Socialist Party. Accusations against him range from drug trafficking to money laundering, to extortion and vote buying.A few days ago,...

This is just a 16 second video clip to give you an indication of how serious things may be getting between Kosovo and Serbia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPwa-dXog5Y

There have been skirmishes between armed ethnic Serb protesters and Kosovo police. The reason is that a while ago, Kosovo ordered that drivers surrender Serbian-issued license plates and replace them with Kosovo plates. On Dec. 10, Serbs living in northern Kosovo started erecting barricades. Kosovo residents confronted them, and Kosovo police blocked the border checkpoints. A traffic jam ensued, and so did a small shootout, including the use of a stun grenade. The shooting has died down but the threats have mounted. A shootout over license plates may seem excessive, but this is the Balkans. It is a relatively small...

The situation in Kosovo is "on the brink of armed conflicts", Serbian prime minister Ana Brnabic said Wednesday, amid mounting tensions in former Belgrade province's volatile north. "We have to give our best, all of us together, to try to keep the peace. We are really on the brink of armed conflicts, thanks to unilateral moves from Pristina," Brnabic said during a meeting with Serbian NGOs. Ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence in 2008, but Belgrade still does not recognise it and encourages the territory's Serbs to defy Pristina's authority. Hundreds of ethnic Serbs, outraged over the arrest of an ex-police...

Charles McGonigal, the former head of counterintelligence at the FBI field office in New York City who was involved in the investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia during the 2016 election, has fallen under the scrutiny of a grand jury convened by U.S. attorneys late last year for his own ties with Russia and other foreign governments, reports Insider. The grand jury is reportedly investigating McGonigal’s business dealings with a top aide to Oleg Deripaska, the billionaire Russian oligarch who was at the center of allegations that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign, according to a recently obtained...

U.S. Frustrated By Elusive Justice Served to USS Cole Plotters May 04, 2008 It's been called "the forgotten attack" but it's one of the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history. Eight years after the USS Cole was attacked by a motorboat packed with explosives, all of the six men convicted of the strike have escaped from prison, or been freed by Yemeni officials. Seventeen sailors were killed and 40 more wounded in the strike, blamed on Usama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Jamal al-Badawi, who helped organize the Cole plot, has reportedly escaped from Yemeni prisons twice. He is supposedly...

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Russian ally Serbia took the delivery of a sophisticated Chinese anti-aircraft system in a veiled operation this weekend, amid Western concerns that an arms buildup in the Balkans at the time of the war in Ukraine could threaten the fragile peace in the region. Media and military experts said Sunday that six Chinese Air Force Y-20 transport planes landed at Belgrade’s civilian airport early Saturday, reportedly carrying HQ-22 surface-to-air missile systems for the Serbian military. The Chinese cargo planes with military markings were pictured at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport. Serbia’s defense ministry did not immediately respond...

A blind psychic who correctly predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the 9/11 attacks once claimed that president Vladimir Putin is to become 'Lord of the World'. Known as the Nostradamus of the Balkans, Baba Vanga, who died 25 years ago in 1996 aged 84, predicted in a 1979 interview that Russia was to dominate the world. She also made a frightening prediction about World War Three and the potential use of nuclear weapons. During the interview with writer Valentin Sidorov, she said Putin's 'glory' will remain 'untouched'. Known as the Nostradamus of the Balkans, Baba Vanga,...