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“The independence of Kosovo is a reality, so we demand recognition of Kosovo’s international subjectivity without any delays,” said Agim Ceku, its Prime Minister. The main parties in the elections are opposed to independence for Kosovo, regarded as the cradle of Serb history and culture. Russia, Serbia’s traditional Orthodox Christian ally, has made it clear that it would not support any plan for Kosovo that went against Belgrade’s wishes. “Russia believes it is unacceptable that a decision on the status of Kosovo be imposed from the outside,” said President Putin on Sunday. As a permanent member of the UN Security...

... Now that plan is in chaos. Milorad Dodik, the premier of the Republika Srpska, the Serb part of Bosnia, wants the same right to self-determination as that exercised by Montenegro last year, and possibly by Kosovo soon. The latter analogy is a powerful one. If a province of Serbia can decide its own future, he argues, why not his fief? ...

WASHINGTON -- Russia and the United States may be heading for another clash of wills as a United Nations mediator prepares to issue his recommendation today in Brussels over whether the province of Kosovo should break free from Serbia, a close ally of Moscow. U.S. and NATO peacekeepers are on heightened alert in Kosovo as U.N. Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari gives a closed-door briefing on Kosovo in Vienna, Austria, to the six-nation "Contact Group" trying to broker a diplomatic deal. Serbia has vowed to keep control of the province, whose overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian majority is demanding independence. Kosovo has been...

4 Bosnian Muslims convicted of plotting terror attacks in Europe4 Bosnian Muslims convicted of plotting terror attacks in Europe January 14, 2007 10:32 AM SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina-Four men were convicted Wednesday of plotting to blow up an unidentified European target and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, court officials said. Prosecutors said the four men, two Bosnians, a Swede and a Turkish citizen, were preparing to launch a terror attack a European country to force to pull foreign troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The exact target of the plot remains unclear. Police found a "suicide belt" rigged with a powerful homemade explosive...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- A U.S. diplomat in Washington said a solution to the future status of Serbia's mainly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo province could be decided by April. U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns told Voice of America that U.N. special envoy to Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari will begin a series of talks with Kosovo ethnic-Albanian leaders in Pristina and Serbian authorities in Belgrade soon after Serbia's parliamentary elections set for Jan. 21. Burns said he hoped the Kosovo solution could be found "one to two months" after the Serbian elections. He said Washington does not support any option nor...

In March 2007 it will be eight years since the Kosovo war and the US-led NATO intervention in gross violation of a host of international laws including the UN Charter. The Western part of the international community was determined to resolve the Kosovo status issue by the end of 2006. However, the UN Kosovo mediator, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, has delayed his proposal until after the Serbian parliamentary elections on January 21, 2007 in order to reinforce the democratic camp within Serbia. The Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija, Kosmet in Serbian but for brevity reduced to Kosovo in...

January 2, 2007 -- A Kosovo Serb, Vladimir Radosavljevic and his wife Bosiljka were shot at in the Kosovo Muslim Albanian stronghold of Klina after Radosavljevic filed papers with the Kosovo Housing and Property Directorate to have his illegally confiscated home returned. Radosavljevic's were asleep when unidentified gunmen fired a round from an automatic weapon at their temporary shelter in Kosovo town of Klina where they were awaiting the authorities to evict the illegal Muslim Albanian occupiers of their property. Police found 23 bullets among the broken glass and empty chargers in the street. The evidence, according to the police,...

Amid signs that the Bush administration may be backing away from unequivocal support for independence for Kosovo, the head of the Albanian American Civic League is appealing to the American Jewish community to advocate on behalf of Kosovo, a region of the former Yugoslavia that is predominantly inhabited by ethnic Albanians. “When Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic was massacring Albanians in Kosovo in 1998-99, the American Jewish community took the lead in pressing President [Bill] Clinton to bomb Serbia, because they instinctively understood the nature of genocide and were determined to keep it from being repeated,” said Joseph DioGuardi, a onetime...

15 Serbs face questions about past Accused of lying on immigration forms, they are asked about the '90s war. By LANE DEGREGORY Published December 13, 2006 ST. PETERSBURG - The immigration officers came before 5 a.m. Monday, pounding on the doors of 15 St. Petersburg homes. Slavko Krsmanovic, 17, woke to flashlights on his porch, eight agents pointing guns at his house. They wanted his dad. He told them his dad was driving his mom to work. So the agents waited until Strahinja Krsmanovic came home. "As soon as he got out of the car, they handcuffed him behind his...

Reaching a decision on the final status of the disputed Serbian province of Kosovo is becoming more difficult, because of Russian objections and a lack of consensus within the 25-nation European Union. VOA's Barry Wood has this report. A decision by the European Union on Kosovo's future has been in limbo sincethe end of NATO's bombing campaign in 1999. Coupled with a lack of Russian support, it seems a quick solution for the region is further out of reach, according to Kosovo expert Daniel Serwer. "I don't see the possibility of a peaceful, negotiated solution," he said. "Rather [I see]...

It's not so pristine in Pristina. That's still our problem. REMEMBER KOSOVO? The little statelet of 2 million, still technically an "integral part" of Serbia, was the inspiration for an unprecedented NATO campaign, the first of its kind: bombing, in those less sensitive times, Christian troops on Easter. The prevention of genocide and the resulting stability of the whole Balkan region were secured, peacekeepers took up their positions in and around the capital, Pristina, and no one lived happily ever after. Serbia threw out its mad leadership--that has to count for something--but the old wounds burn even for democratic Prime...

New York, 18 Dec. (AKI) - Serbs living in the United States are reported to be deeply disturbed and worried by recent arrests of fellow Serbs in connection with the 1990s Balkan wars, community leaders have said. In a six-state swoop, American agents arrested 13 Serb immigrants last week and are looking for another three who are still at large. One of those arrested, Nedjo Ikonic, is being investigated for allegedly having taken part in the massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica when it was overrun by Serb forces in...

Associated Press Balkan expert Tim Judah stated: "There is a real potential for renewed violence in Kosovo. If there is a delay or if the resolution is unclear, (Kosovo) Albanian hard-liners will start to lose patience." Since the United Nations and NATO began the international administration of Kosovo in 1999, similar Muslim Albanian violence has resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of non-Albanians, the destruction and desecration of hundreds of Serbian Orthodox churches and the deaths of thousands of non-Albanians. AntiWar.com columnist Christopher Deliso also reported on the rise of jihad terrorism in the Serbian province and the...

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Alexander Bogatyrev) - The other day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it would be counterproductive to introduce UN sanctions against either side in the Kosovo conflict. Before that, the Russian ambassador to Belgrade had said that Russia would veto any "harsh" UN Security Council resolution on Kosovo. The sanctions in question are directed against Serbia. According to the Kremlin, the Kosovo dispute can be resolved only at the negotiating table and there should be no deadlines. The sides involved in the conflict need time to resolve their problems. Criminal organizations have taken over the...

<p>"No general had the authority to command us, former Quaida activist Ali Hamad reports about his time as commander of a Mujaheddin unit in the war in Bosnia. In the Interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE the former terrorist warns of a sleeper network in the Balkan.</p>

The White House -- finally -- began pushing back against irresponsible charges that Bush "lied" to the American people in making the case for war. The garrulous Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., made many "Bush lied" accusations: "There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January [2003] to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud." And Kennedy later intoned on the Senate floor, "Before the war, week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after...

November 19, 2006: The United Nations Mission in Kosova (UNMIK) will probably leave Kosovo sometime in 2007. The UN intends to reach (or force) a decision on Kosovo's ultimate status. Serbia vehemently rejects Kosovo independence. The Kosovar government is demanding independence. November 17, 2006: Kosovo has decided to court the Russians. The Russians have objected to Kosovar independence from Serbia. Kosovo has decided to send a delegation to Moscow. Analysts have suggested that Kosovo intends to assure the Russians that Kosovo independence will not set a precedent for other independence movements in Europe. However, various ethnic groups and independence movements...

Pristina, 21 Nov. (AKI) - An explosive device went off early on Tuesday morning in a Serbian elementary school in the central Kosovo village of Ropotovo, but there were no casualties, police said. Kosovo police spokesman Veton Elsani said the device was placed in a storage cupboard. Fortunately, the classroom, which can hold up to 200 pupils, was empty, because the teacher didn’t show up for the classes and, apart from material damage, there were no injuries, he said. “By chance, due to the teacher’s absence, the fifth grade classroom in which the explosion took place was empty and the...

The Nov. 6 article “Training helps Guardsmen get Kosovo-savvy” deserves a response. The Stars and Stripes reporter states that ethnic Albanians in Kosovo make up 90 percent of the population. Actually, a more precise number is 97 percent. It is also necessary for your readers to understand just how the Kosovo (Muslim) Albanians became the majority — considering the Christian Serbs were once the majority until hundreds of thousands of them were either ethnically cleansed or killed by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi troops, followed by the communist Josip Broz Tito, who, in his hatred for the Christian Orthodox Serbs, encouraged Albanians...

Are the cases of missing persons in Kosovo science fiction or consciously closed files? Unexpectedly for many Kosovo crisis observers, proliferation of terrorism and violence resulted with huge number of cases of missing and kidnapped civilians, mostly non-Albanians (especially Serbs): in the summer of 1998, spring 1999 and during 2000. Actually, last reported kidnappings occurred in 2004. Although such acts of terror were well known to local population and local authorities, eccentric doubts could be summarized with only one question: If victims were held in hidden prisons and if after some time they were executed, where are the bodies? Searches,...