Free Republic

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro, March 24 (UPI) -- A Serbian government official has accused the U.N. civilian mission in Kosovo of supporting ethnic Albanian separatists in the southern Serbian province. Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, president of the Serbian government coordinating committee for Kosovo, in a letter to Soren Jessen-Petersen, the chief of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, charged that Jessen-Petersen was one of the "most influential promoters of the goals of Albanian separatists." Raskovic-Ivic's letter was in reaction to Jessen-Petersen's call that Western countries ignore Serbia's arrest warrant on Agim Ceku, Kosovo's prime minister, for alleged war crimes in Kosovo in 1999. In March...

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Serbia's president proposed on Tuesday a 20-year grace period before deciding Kosovo's final status, a suggestion quickly dismissed by Kosovo's prime minister and Europeans. The dispute at a Security Council meeting on Kosovo illustrated the chasm between the two sides just days before long-awaited U.N.-organized talks begin in Vienna on Monday on the future of the Serbian province. Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since NATO bombs drove out Serb forces in 1999 during a campaign of ethnic cleansing under former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Serbian President Boris Tadic offered Kosovo wide...

LANCASTER - A man lost his left hand and the thumb and two fingers of his right hand to an exploding firework Sunday evening in the 3500 block of West Avenue K-13, according to Capt. John Haugh of Fire Station 134. Shannon Powers, 30, was injured about 7:30 p.m. The device, originally described as a firecracker, was much more than that, Haugh said. He described it as something large, adding of the man's injuries, "It was ugly." Haugh said Powers had "significant trauma as well as shrapnel injuries." Sgt. Greg McHenry of the Lancaster Sheriff's Station said Powers, who has...