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rom the muddy fields and torched villages of Kosovo six years ago, the struggle of its Albanian majority for independence from Serbia is moving to the political battlegrounds of Washington. ADVERTISEMENT <A TARGET="_blank" HREF="http://ads.ft.com/event.ng/Type=click&FlightID=40451&AdID=57424&TargetID=18309&Segments=3099,6198,6235,9122,9179,9630,10158,11057,11059,11353,11471,11693,12817,13043,13212,13306,13522,13590,14052,14109,14316,15245,15536,15545,16157,18041,18316,18348,18446,18469,18489,18876,18952,18961,18962,19119,19313,19724&Targets=3099,15407,7972,6224,18699,20103,20316,18309,16107,19353,20096,19703,19845,18516,20511&Values=30,51,63,77,85,94,102,150,165,239,249,253,494,547,559,575,600,639,663,931,2155,3614,4431,4548,4570,4646,4704,5633,6186,6206,6380,6391,6396,6617,8072,8177,8179,8429,8453&RawValues=&Redirect=http://news.ft.com/Common/SiteTour/newspaper"><IMG SRC="http://www.image.ft.com/adimages/banner/marketingcontainermpu.gif" WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 BORDER=0></A> Although Martti Ahtisaari, the special United Nations envoy and former Finnish president, launched his shuttle diplomacy in the Balkans last week in a bid to negotiate a final settlement, all sides recognise the critical importance of lobbying the US now that the Bush administration has decided it will actively push the process to a resolution. All sides involved in the "final status"...

Kosovo: Clinton 'lied, people died'? ________________________________________ Posted: December 1, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 Laurence A. Elder 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...

LT. COL. SEL TESTIFIES ABOUT BELA CRKVA, CELINA, DONJI RETIMLJE, AND DAKOVICA November 30, 2005 Written by: Andy Wilcoxson The trial of Slobodan Milosevic resumed on Wednesday with the testimony of Janos Sel, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Yugoslav Army. Lt. Col. Sel, an ethnic-Hungarian from Vojovodina, was a company commander stationed at the Dakovica garrison in Kosovo from 1997 until the Yugoslav Army withdrew from the province in June of 1999. The witness gave evidence pertaining to specific allegations contained in the Kosovo indictment. Namely: Bela Crkva, Celina, Donji Retimlje, and Dakovica. The indictment alleges that Serbian troops attacked...

Rebels Threaten Violence Against Kosovo Capital Sherrie Gossett Staff Writer(CNSNews.com) Rebel forces in Kosovo have threatened to carry out an organized "military operation" against the capital city of Pristina by Wednesday night. Calling NATO and United Nations forces "modern occupiers," the Kosovo Independence Army (KIA) said it was lodging the threat because the Kosovo Assembly has not declared independence. The threat, carried by local media, follows increasing violence against international forces in Kosovo and may lead to an alliance between armed rebel groups and jihadist forces, according to a former security chief from the region.Rebels have blown up several vehicles...

PRISTINA -- Tuesday – About a thousand former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army protested yesterday in Pristina, demanding that the Hague Tribunal release former guerrilla commander Fatmir Limaj. After a peaceful protest march through the centre of the Kosovo capital, the former guerrillas gathered outside the Languages Faculty of Pristina University to read a letter demanding that the tribunal and the international community release Limaj. International police troops secured all entrances to the UN administration in the province and the Kosovo Assembly building during the protest, which passed without incident. Limaj is charged, together with Isak Musliu and Haradin...

BUJANOVAC -- Monday – The Albanian national holiday, Flag Day, was commemorated in Bujanovac today. A movie theatre hall in Bujanovac was packed to the brim today, and attended by Albanian officials from South Serbia and Kosovo. A declaration, which was written through the cooperation of all South Serbia’s Albanian political parties, was read out loud to the crowd today, and asks for the right to freely use Albanian national symbols in the region. Former commander of the Presevo, Medvedje and Bujanovac Liberation Army, Jonuz Musliju, gave a speech on the Albanian armed troops’ fight in South Serbia for a...

The Hague: Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic showed a video Thursday of the international community's high representative to Bosnia apparently inspecting weapons held by the Kosovo Liberation Army in September 1998. In the video, Paddy Ashdown advises a man dressed in KLA uniform to be "careful" with the hand grenades. Milosevic, being tried for war crimes here, described as a "scandal" the weapons inspection by Ashdown, who at the time was deeply involved in monitoring the conflict. The former officer in Britain's Royal Marines and former member of the British parliament should not have been so closely involved with a...