Free Republic

PRISTINA, Serbia (AFP) — A strong blast in the Kosovo capital Pristina killed two people and injured 11 on Monday amid renewed tensions arising from the future of the UN-administered Serbian province. A double-storey business centre on Bill Clinton Boulevard was severely damaged by the explosion at 2:10 am (0010 GMT), which damaged at least a dozen shops, cafes and restaurants at the premises, police said. One person was immediately killed, the other died of injuries in a hospital, while another victim was in critical condition, local police and medical authorities said, adding that the others' lives were not threatened....

Three dead in Macedonian shootout (1 policeman, 2 gunmen) SKOPJE, Macedonia, Sept. 10 Three men, including a police chief, were killed and another three, including two policemen, were injured in a shootout in northeastern Macedonia, police said. Three gunmen attacked a police car early Monday at the village of Vaksince, near the border with Serbia's mainly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo province, the Macedonian news agency MIA reported. Fatmir Alili, police chief of the Matejce village outside Kumanovo, was killed in the attack and two officers were slightly injured, the Serbian news agency Tanjug said. Macedonian police killed two attackers and injured a...

7 September 2007 | 16:58 | Source: SENSE THE HAGUE -- Former KLA quartermaster claims he twice saw Ramush Haradinaj shoot soldiers at point-blank range, unhappy with their loyalty. The witness could not tell the Hague Tribunal judges whether the wounded soldiers lived or not. After days in closed session, some of the hearing Thursday was finally held in open session at the trial of Ramush Haradinaj, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj. The witness did testify under a pseudonym, Witness 55, and with voice and image distortion, because of safety concerns he brought up repeatedly in his testimony. In early...

BELGRADE, Serbia: Serbia warned Friday that it would retaliate if Kosovo declares independence and if other nations recognize the breakaway province as a separate state. Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic did not specify how Serbia would respond if Kosovo's separatist ethnic Albanian officials carry out their threat to declare independence if a final push for a diplomatic settlement between now and Dec. 10 does not result in Kosovo's statehood. "Serbia will have no choice but to respond to acts that would jeopardize its sovereignty and territorial integrity," Jeremic said. "The unilateral declaration of independence would bring protracted instability to the region."...

Apart from being a clear-cut example of how migration, or rather population dumping by Third World countries, has become a tool for blackmail in the 21st century, this is a throwback to the age when Tripoli could extract payments from Europe. Sadly, Americans seem to have forgotten the lessons from this proud chapter in their history, when they refused to pay ransom to Muslims like the Europeans did and instead sent warships to the Mediterranean under the slogan "Millions for defense, not one penny for tribute!" Since WW2, we've had three major conflicts in the Balkans: In Cyprus, in Bosnia...

Balkans: Remember Kosovo? The restive Serbian province is little changed from 1999 as talks go on and warfare brews. Yet this is a reminder of the multilateralism that Democrats endorse. U.S. involvement in the Balkan wars occurred on President Clinton's watch, and we're still waiting for results. They hardly trump the progress we now seem to be making to win the war in Iraq. Back in 1999, Clinton ordered NATO to bomb Serb positions around the breakaway province for 78 days as the United Nations dithered. Then he passed the buck to the U.N. for final resolution of Kosovo's status....

23.8.2007 10:39 BANJA LUKA, (Tanjug) - The Republika Srpska (RS) Association of Prisoners of War will demand from the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to deprive Sarajevo director Danis Danovic of his Oscar award beacause of the ''fraud in his 'No Man's Land' picture, in which he presented the massacre over Serb civilians as a torture of Muslims.'' Former vice president of the Association and a deputy of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats in the Bosnia-Herzegovina parliament, Slavko Jovicic, said that the latest information on the Oscar winner's fraud was but a proof that ''instead of...

Serbia urges return of its military and police to Kosovo Friday, August 17, 2007 11:44 AM DUSAN STOJANOVIC BELGRADE, Serbia-Serbia urged the return of its army and police to Kosovo, an official said Friday, a move that could increase ethnic tensions in the breakaway province. "The time has come for the return" of some 1,000 Serbian security personnel to the province, said Aleksandar Simic, a spokesman for Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. In Kosovo, 90 percent of the 2 million people are ethnic Albanians. The U.N. administration in Kosovo refused to comment before it gets a formal request from the Serb...