Sat, Nov 21 2009
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Two cars were burnt in the latest inter-ethnic clash in Kosovo's ethnically divided city of Mitrovica, Kosovo police said. The violence between Kosovo Serbs who dominate the northern part of the town and Kosovo Albanians who dominate the south started around 7.30pm on January 6 2009.
Serbian president Boris Tadic has sent a letter of protest to the United Nations and European Union asking them to protect the Serb population in Kosovo from what he said were deliberate attacks by "the Kosovo government and Albanian extremists".
Macedonia's government plans to encourage the building of solar panels for households by subsiding 30 per cent of the costs, said the country's economy minister told local media. The minister, Fatmir Besimi, also announced the elaboration a feasibility study for introduction of wind generated power houses expected to kick-off in 2009. This move, along with others, is aimed to tackle the increasingly problematic power shortages the country faces each year, and decrease power imports.
In a December 29 2008 interview with Radio Free Europe, US ambassador to Macedonia Philip Reeker reiterated Washington's stance that "the best possible future for Macedonia is in Nato and EU", noting that both sides in the name row must be more focused on finding a solution that would lift Greece's objection to Macedonia's Nato accession and prevent similar situation in regards to the country's European Union accession.
The situation on December 31 2008 in the flashpoint Kosovo town of Mitrovica was calm after several hundred Kosovo Serbs destroyed a number of Albanian-owned shops the day before. The trouble arose after a Serb teenager suffered stab wounds during a brawl with ethnic Albanians, media reported. Serbs gathered on Thursday evening where the boy had been hurt and started vandalising shops and cars with Kosovo licence plates. Gunshots were heard until late in the night.
A key figure of the 2001 ethnic Albanian insurgency against Macedonian forces said the disbanded rebel group National Liberation Army could be revived to protect local Albanians from harrassment by the police. Fomer NLA commader Xhesair Shaqiri, who is wanted by Macedonian police on racketeering charges, told Alsat M TV on Tuesday that police raids and arrests over the murder of a former NLA member in late November were deliberately targeted against former fighters.
Macedonia presented the first of a series of promotional videos that will start running on CNN from December 25. The video showcases the country's cultural and natural treasures, BalkanInsight.com said. The campaign aims to promote the country's tourist appeal and is titled Macedonia - Timeless.
Macedonia will not be able to start European Union accession talks without a settlement of the name row with Greece, the Czech Deputy Prime Minister, Alexandr Vondra, whose country is taking over the EU Presidency on January 1, said in Brussels. "I am afraid the chances of progress without resolution of the name issue, are slim," Vondra said on Tuesday.
A few weeks before handing over his mandate, United States president George W. Bush has included Kosovo in a list of developing countries that may export goods to the US without customs tariffs under the "Generalised System of Preferences" programme. "At the day of the declaration of Kosovo's independence from Serbia, I decided Kosovo to be a beneficiary country from this program", a White House statement said, referring to Kosovo's February 17 secession from Serbia.
Kosovo and neighbouring Macedonia will soon settle a border demarcation dispute and establish formal diplomatic relations, Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said on December 22 after a meeting with a Macedonian Albanian leader. "We expect that in the next couple of days, the issue of demarcation be closed, and then we will proceed with the protocol aspects of diplomatic relations," Thaci told reporters after meeting Imer Selmani, leader of a small ethnic Albanian minority party in Macedonia.
Nato membership, progress towards the European Union and the scrapping of visa requirements for EU travel are Macedonia's top priorities for 2009, Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki says. Macedonia this year failed to enter Nato due to a Greek blockade in April over the country's constitutional name, which Athens insists implies Skopje's territorial claims over its own province of the same name.
The European Union is losing the broad popular support it once enjoyed in the three candidate countries - Macedonia, Turkey and Croatia - the latest survey by Eurobarometer showed. Among the three nations, the EU is most popular in Macedonia, where accession is supported by 62 percent of the population. The same figure was 72 percent when the survey was last done in spring.
Following last week's successful deployment of the EU's law-and-order mission to Kosovo, EULEX, the mission's chief has announced it has to open an office in Serbia's capital. "We need connections with all regional countries as we do with Europol or Interpol," said Yves de Kermabon, referring to regional and international policing bodies.
Athens' demands from Skopje are backed by Nato and the United Nations, Greek foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis said on December 15 in an interview with German media. Greece argues that Macedonia should change its name if it wishes to enter Nato and eventually the European Union. Athens says that the name `Republic of Macedonia' implies Skopje's territorial claims over Greece's own northern province which is also called Macedonia.
Serbia can only achieve full cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal once wartime Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic is at The Hague court, the Dutch Foreign Minister tells Balkan Insight. Maxime Verhagen also revealed in an interview with Balkan Insight that in spring, Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic promised his European counterparts that if a pro-European government came to power in Belgrade then the first thing Serbia's government will do is arrest Mladic. "We discussed at the signing of the SAA with Serbian President Boris Tadic and Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeremic, exactly those conditions, that there was from the beginning no difference of opinion on what was expected and what was hoped for from Serbia. Jeremic also assured `when we win the elections, we will arrest Mladic`,Ó Verhagen said. Seven months on after the election, and Mladic - who is accused among other war crimes of genocide during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia, including the massacre of some 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) in Srebrenica in 1995 - is still evading justice. Serbia signed a key European Union pre-membership deal in April but due to ongoing opposition from the Netherlands, Belgrade cannot reap the benefits of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, SAA, until Mladic is at The Hague. Asked whether his country could agree to "unfreeze" the SAA if Mladic is not arrested he said: "I have always said that having Mladic in Scheweningen is the best proof of full cooperation. What we want is full cooperation with The Tribunal."
Serbia's foreign minister says Belgrade will say "no" to further European integration if it was forced to choose between joining the EU and fighting to preserve its sovereignty over Kosovo. Vuk Jeremic was addressing the parliamentary foreign affairs council regarding Serbia's top foreign policy priorities, which consist of protecting its territorial integrity and sovereignty, to become a European Union member state, and maintaining good relations with neighbouring countries.
Talks between Greece and Macedonia at the UN over the 'name row' are practically blocked with no signs of progress, Macedonia's President Branko Crvenkovski has claimed. "The stalemate in negotiations means that our integration into Nato and the European Union are also blocked," Crvenkovski said in an interview with the local Alsat-M TV station.
Even if Macedonia meets all the necessary reform requirements, Skopje cannot progress in its bid to join the European Union unless the "name row" with Greece is solved, France has warned. "Without the resolution of the name issue, we cannot move forward, because this issue has to be solved first," the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, warned on the evening of December 8 after the European Union foreign ministers' meeting.
An European Union study on Kosovo's bid to join the bloc is being hampered by the reluctance from member states that have not yet recognised Kosovo's independence, Balkan Insight has learnt. The "feasibility study" reviews the position of a country on whether it is ready to take the first steps towards membership of the bloc.
The German government has criticised Kosovo's authorities for detaining three of its secret agents in connection with a bombing, but says it will not cut aid to Pristina. The release of three agents of German intelligence service, the BND, who were suspected of being behind a bomb attack on a European Union building in Kosovo's capital, was regarded by Germany as "strongly overdue."
Serbia said it would not sell its energy monopoly to Russia unless it gets firm guarantees from Moscow it will build a strategic pipeline through the Balkan country. The 10 billion euro South Stream natural gas pipeline to be laid under the Black Sea would carry Russian natural gas to Bulgaria and Serbia before branching out to points in Western Europe.
Little more than a year after Croatia won a seat on the United Nations Security Council as a non-permanent member, the country will now head the council for a month starting December 1 2008.
Despite all efforts, a solution to the Macedonia "name" row with Greece will not come soon, the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, admits to media in Washington. Rice reiterated that the United States is working on facilitating a compromise but admitted that this is far from happening with the way things stand at the moment.
Kosovo's president Fatmir Sejdiu says the six-point plan backed by the United Nations on November 26 represents a challenge for Pristina but will not lead to Kosovo's partition. "During the whole process of negotiations on the six point plan, Pristina was ignored," Sejdiu lamented during an interview for Kosovo's public television network, RTK.
The United Nations Security Council has unanimously adopted secretary-general Ban Ki-moon's report on wrapping up the world body's mission in Kosovo and begin the handover to a European Union mission. The adoption of the document sets the stage for the deployment of the EU law-and-order mission, EULEX, of some 2000 officials, which would gradually replace the UN Mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, and take over
The United Nations Security Council is set to meet on November 26 to discuss the world body's six-point plan for the deployment of the European Union's law-and-order mission, EULEX, to Kosovo. UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon admits in his report that Kosovo has rejected the six-point plan for the deployment of EULEX which Serbia has accepted.
The chief of Serbia's council for cooperation with the United Nations war crimes tribunal says efforts to locate and arrest former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic are intensifying. Rasim Ljajić told local daily Vecernje Novosti that the search for Mladic has "never been more serious and all-inclusive," adding that it would continue to intensify until the fugitive is apprehended.
The United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon insists the European Union's new law-and-order mission to Kosovo, EULEX, is to take a neutral position regarding Kosovo's independence. In a document given to the 15 member states of the UN Security Council, Ban appears to end the weeks of difficult diplomatic debate between New York, Belgrade and Pristina on the controversial
Egypt has prevented Kosovo from taking part in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference's second ministerial conference on women because of "political reasons." An official from the Albanian embassy in Cairo, Ilir Hoxha, had earlier confirmed that the Organisation of the Islamic Conference had allowed Kosovo's participation in the meeting after receiving a request from the Albanian embassy in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.
Local police deployed additional troops to prevent the latest in a series of clashes among Bosnian Croat and Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) youths in the divided city of Mostar. Dozens of teenagers gathered on Sunday the night of November 23 on each side of Mostar's main boulevard, the thoroughfare which passes through the centre of town, which was the wartime front line between the Bosnian Croat and Bosniak-dominated Bosnian Armies. Alerted by members of the general public, local police swiftly deployed and prevented an incident.
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