Free Republic

I have recently returned to the U.S. from my trip through the Balkans which had an aim to see what the ever expanding Middle East into Europe looks like up close. Here is my after-action report for those who are interested in hearing about a situation which may chillingly parallel future events in America if we do not take action to prevent them today. I landed in Kosovo on a flight from Istanbul directly into the Kosovo capital city of Pristina. This city is a showpiece for the Kosovo Albanians who often take visiting dignitaries and American politicians through a...

<p>BELGRADE, Serbia: Serbia proposed near-complete independence for Kosovo on Sunday, urging the province's ethnic Albanian separatists to accept the offer of broad autonomy and drop their demand for formal secession.</p> <p>Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica described his vision of Kosovo's future as "supervised autonomy" — as opposed to the "supervised independence" recently proposed by a U.N. envoy. Either way, foreign civilian and military officials would supervise Kosovo for years to ensure peace and democracy in the tense province.</p>

MITROVICA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - NATO troops in Kosovo secured the fire-gutted Serbian church in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica on Saturday as dozens of Serbs crossed the bridge into the Albanian-dominated south to mark Orthodox Christmas. Split into Albanian and Serb halves, Mitrovica in northern Kosovo has seen some of the worst clashes since the end of the 1998-99 war and the town's division by French troops at the Ibar River. Serbs holding candles attend a service for Orthodox Christmas in the fire-gutted Serbian church in Mitrovica, 40 kilometres north of the Kosovo capital Pristina, January 7, 2006....