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Albania Seizes Assets Of Bin Laden Associate TIRANA (AP)--The Albanian government has seized the assets and bank accounts of a man who allegedly worked with Osama bin Laden and others to provide support to terror networks in Albania, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday. Abdul Latif Saleh, who holds Jordanian and Albanian citizenship, was placed on a U.N. sanctions list in September, requiring all U.N. members to impose a travel ban on him and block his assets. Albania earlier had blocked 33 bank accounts in three commercial banks as well as assets and investments in Saleh's businesses and civic organizations he...

www.slobodan-milosevic.org - December 6, 2005 Written by: Andy Wilcoxson The trial of Slobodan Milosevic continued at the Hague Tribunal on Tuesday. Lt. Col. Janos Sel's cross-examination did not continue as scheduled. No explanation was given for that change. Instead, the tribunal heard the continuation of the testimony of Gen. Krsman Jelic, the commander of the 243rd Armored Brigade of the Yugoslav Army, stationed in the Urosevac area of Kosovo. The witness gave evidence refuting the indictment's charges relating to alleged crimes in: Kotlina, Dubrava, Kacanik, Slatina, Stagovo, and Urosevac. In Kotlina, the indictment alleges that Serbian troops massacred civilian men...

The outgoing commander of international peacekeepers in Bosnia says the two top indicted war crimes suspects are very unlikely to be arrested soon. Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his former top general Ratko Mladic have been on the run for 10 years, accused of genocide. British Major-General David Leakey has been commanding the EU's largest ever peacekeeping mission for the past year. He is handing over command to his Italian successor on Tuesday. General Leakey said coordinated international action had now made it virtually impossible for Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic to move around freely. The EU peacekeeping...

Bosnian Dayton Minus By M. Bozinovich Back in July of 2005, during the commemoration in Srebrenica, US ambassador to Bosnia Douglas McElhaney and Bosnian peace accords architect Richard Holbrooke were seen chatting at the field around Srebrenica, and according to the AFP report, McElhaney made the announcement that the US wants the Bosnian constitution changed. Expressing the demand euphemistically McElhaney said that "The US wishes to encourage [Bosnian] citizens to discuss the Constitution and ways in which they could change it." In November, presidents of the three ethnic groups in Bosnia were summoned in Washington to participate in ceremonies congratulatory...

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia Portions of southern Yugoslavia have reached such a state of ethnic friction that Yugoslavs have begun to talk of the horrifying possibility of ''civil war'' in a land that lost one-tenth of its population, or 1.7 million people, in World War II. The current hostilities pit separatist-minded ethnic Albanians against the various Slavic populations of Yugoslavia and occur at all levels of society, from the highest officials to the humblest peasants. A young Army conscript of ethnic Albanian origin shot up his barracks, killing four sleeping Slavic bunkmates and wounding six others. The army says it has uncovered...

[This] article written for the [Bosnian Institute] website argues that Western politicians have been mistaken in accepting the notion that Kosova is 'an integral part of Serbia', so that Belgrade must necessarily be involved in discussions about Kosova's statusAs negotiations between Serbia and Kosova about the latter’s status are about to begin under UN auspices, one is prompted to pose the obvious question: ‘Why is Serbia involved at all?’ Or, to put it in another way: ‘Why do Western governments assume that the wishes of Kosova’s inhabitants are insufficient grounds for recognising its independence, and that such a step requires also Belgrade’s acquiescence?’Answers to such questions refer...

02 Dec 2005 13:57:06 GMT Source: Reuters Background CRISIS PROFILE: Can Kosovo put violence behind it? MORE PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro, Dec 2 (Reuters) - The weak judicial response in U.N.-run Kosovo to mass Albanian attacks on Serbs last year added to a sense of impunity in the province for ethnically motivated crimes, the OSCE said on Friday. Nineteen people died and more than 4,000 fled their homes in 48 hours of Albanian violence in March 2004 that thrust Serbia's southern province back onto the international agenda. Police estimated 51,000 people took part in torching 800 Serb homes and dozens...

Tribunal Update Tribunal home Kosovo Jubilant at KLA Acquittals Kosovo’s majority Albanian population welcomes result of Hague tribunal’s first case against former guerrillas. By Janet Anderson in The Hague (TU No 432, 2-Dec-05) The streets of Pristina erupted with flags, horns and celebratory gunfire on December 1 as news spread that the Hague tribunal had acquitted two of the first three members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, ever to face trial there for war crimes. Judges in The Hague sentenced one former foot soldier, Haradin Bala, to 13 years in prison for his role in a KLA prison camp...

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...

Only bread and soup for Kosovo While Americans gathered around their Thanksgiving tables this November to enjoy turkey and pumpkin pie, Kosovo’s Serbian citizens were thankful if they had only bread and soup. Their villages are girdled with barbed wire and the ever-present army tanks attest to the ongoing protective military occupation. Many Serbs have no electricity for cooking or heating and late November in Kosovo and Metohija brings a raw cold with lots of snow. This season is especially hard on children and elderly people; everyone makes do as best they can, often going without even the basic daily...

Ten years ago, I wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times urging that Kosovo Albanians be included in the Bosnia peace talks then being held in Dayton, Ohio. I warned that the nonviolent strategy of Kosovo Albanians was endangered by an increasingly impatient population which was beginning to believe that the United States would only recognize their plight if they took up arms. The negotiating team in Dayton completely ignored my warning. The Milosevic regime, however, did not. After the op-ed was translated into Serbian and Albanian and published in local papers, Serb police began rounding up my...

That Blair and Bush should have discussed bombing the Al-Jazeera building in Qatar is hardly surprising. They agreed to bomb the headquarters of Serbian television during the Kosovo war.

Montenegrin premier tells Serbia to drop its "mythomanic" policy Text of report by Montenegrin TV on 26 November [Presenter] Montenegro supports international community's decision to begin the process of defining Kosovo's final status, Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic has told Pink TV, adding that it was time for Serbia to give up irrational policy imposed by nationalists. On the eve of [Slovene President] Janez Drnovsek's visit to Montenegro, the prime minister said that the Slovene president was welcome. [Reporter] Assessing that it was about time to solve the status of Kosovo and that a further postponing would not be productive, Prime...

Despite his belief that most journalists are unwitting upholders of western imperialism, Noam Chomsky, the radical's radical, agrees to see me at his office in Boston. He works here as a professor of linguistics, a sort of Clark Kent alter ego to his activist Superman, in a nubbly old jumper, big white trainers and a grandad jacket with pockets designed to accomodate a Thermos. There is a half-finished packet of fig rolls on the desk. Such is the effect of an hour spent with Chomsky that, writing this, I wonder: is it wrong to mention the fig rolls when there is undocumented suffering going...

Bosnia: Haven for Islamic radicals? By Nicholas Wood International Herald Tribune SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2005 SARAJEVO A police raid last month on an apartment near this city's airport uncovered evidence of an imminent suicide bombing, intensifying the fears of Western security services that Bosnia is becoming a haven for Islamic radicals. The raid, which was carried out after an extensive surveillance operation by the Bosnian police and Western intelligence services, turned up an arsenal of weapons in the apartment, including suicide vests, about 30 kilograms, or 65 pounds, of exploding bullets and high explosive, and a machine pistol. Investigators said...