Tung ... goodnight and goodluck!!!

Obama won ... I am going back home :)

Goodbye Kosova/o!!!

Faleminderit and hvala for everything!!!!

Peace, am out ...

End of my Era ...

With the upcoming elections, I think it's time for me to end this blogging endeavor. I do not seem to be into it anymore. Kosovan(r)s only have their destinies in their own hands now. What they do with it is left for history to judge. I think my life and efforts are needed more at home in the US.

Unless someone proposes taking over blogging for this site, this might be my "amazing last post" for this blog.

Be blessed all and vote for Obama ... Zod knows the world needs that change (and that is a not an arrogant American statement).

Thank you all for the support thus far. Thank you Kosovo/a for providing me with a home until now.

Peace and love y'all.

I have always wondered whatever happened with this matter ...

... I feel closer to Albania after reading Kadare's " The General of the Dead Army (1963)".

The final mystery

Oct 9th 2008 | TIRANA
From The Economist print edition

Finding the perpetrators of a lethal explosion could polish Albania’s image

Get article background

A MUDDY crater marks the spot near Tirana airport where a stockpile of artillery shells blew up last March. The blast killed 26 people, including several children, and injured more than 250 others. Dozens of houses in the next-door village were ruined beyond repair.

Sali Berisha, Albania’s prime minister, responded by removing from office Fatmir Mediu, the defence minister. Damaged homes are being rebuilt with government handouts. But people are still angry. “This”, says Fiqiri Ismaili, the mayor, “was the worst disaster since communism ended.”

Finding out who caused the explosion, and bringing the culprits to justice, is a test of Albania’s credibility as a future member of NATO. It would also help Mr Berisha achieve his goal of making Albania a formal candidate to join the European Union. That is because the EU’s sharpest criticisms of Albania are directed at the country’s judicial system. All too often, prosecutors and judges are bribed or bullied by politicians.

Most of the bomb’s victims were employees of Albademil, a local contractor working for an American firm selling ammunition to the new Afghan army. When the dump exploded, some workers were repackaging 40-year-old Chinese-made shells to disguise their origin (American military contractors are banned from dealing in Chinese equipment). Others were removing gunpowder and detonators from supposedly dud shells so that the metal casings could be sold for scrap.

Reuters

Picking up the pieces after the blast

Ina Rama, the chief prosecutor, who heads the investigation, says that four Albanians may soon face charges. She says that there were “no safety precautions at all” at the site. America’s Justice Department has launched its own investigation and is providing valuable help, she says. Even so, many Albanians fear that there will be a cover-up. In mid-September Kosta Trebicka, a businessman turned whistle-blower in the case, was killed when his jeep crashed on a remote mountain road. Opposition politicians claimed that the death of Mr Trebicka, who was a witness for the prosecution, was not accidental.

Mr Berisha hopes that joining NATO will help him change Albania’s reputation for corruption and lawlessness. He has already notched up successes. The economy has been growing by some 6% a year, agriculture is reviving and foreign investment is starting to flow in. A Canadian company is refurbishing neglected oilfields; a Turkish group is setting up a new mobile-phone network. A new highway to Kosovo is due to be finished next summer, boosting regional trade and encouraging tourists. Albania has also scored better in two influential reports: the World Bank’s “Doing Business” and Transparency International’s index on corruption. If justice is done over the munitions explosion, next year’s marks should be even better.

In the spirit of status quo and considering the UNSC dissed his Kosovo-related work ...

I would like to congratulate Mr. Ahtisaari for all his work and efforts at promoting international peace and the Nobel Peace award he just received. The people of Namibia congratulate you also, sir. Like they say, a prophet is never appreciated on her continent ;)

help me...

Cafes, clubs and restaurants are opening and closing so fast in Kosovo that I cannot keep up or go to them all. Please, if you have anything to say about any cafe, club or restaurant you have been to lately, send to me at Kosovo2007@gmail.com.

ciao

Big or little sister?

Getting on with big brother

Oct 9th 2008 | PRISTINA
From The Economist print edition

“Independent” Kosovo is in limbo, but ties with Serbia are quietly improving

A BLUE flag emblazoned with a golden map of Kosovo and six white stars flutters over the Merdare border crossing. Signs welcome visitors to the independent “Republic of Kosovo”—but that is not how much of the world sees it.

Ever since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17th, after nine years of custodianship by the United Nations, it has struggled to gain international acceptance. America and 22 of 27 European Union members have recognised it, along with 26 other states. But Russia, China and most of the UN’s 192 members have shunned it. This leaves Kosovo in limbo, its legitimacy still questioned. Some 90% of its 2m people are ethnic Albanians, but several Serbian-dominated enclaves are still beyond the control of Kosovo’s government.

The UN General Assembly this week approved a Serbian motion asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to rule on the legality of Kosovo’s independence. The court could take one or two years to issue a non-binding ruling, but the move could dim Kosovo’s hopes of gaining wider acceptance. Its leaders took time to wake up to the threat. “They are still in the mindset of the EU and the Americans being strong and who cares about the rest?” says Ilir Deda of KIPRED, a think-tank in Pristina.

More worrying is that the EU’s police and justice mission for Kosovo, called EULEX, has been so slow to arrive. It was supposed to be up and running four months ago, but has been hobbled by both politics and logistics. Only 350 of the 1,900 international policemen, judges and other personnel due to be deployed across the country have arrived so far. And they are unable to operate in the Serbian north of Kosovo. The absence of any new UN Security Council resolutions on Kosovo’s status has left the country with a plethora of international missions, none of which knows who is supposed to do what. One Kosovar official despairs of the “organised anarchy” of the international presence.

In the absence of strong international supervision, standards of governance in Kosovo are slipping. Opposition leaders are being bought off and boards of state companies packed with cronies. A briefing paper for Pieter Feith, the EU’s representative in Kosovo, complains that recent appointees “have direct political affiliations and fail to meet minimum professional qualifications requirements”.

The overall picture is not wholly negative, however. A new school seems to open every week. Despite the estrangement of Serbs and Albanians, diplomacy is proceeding. For the first time, Kosovo Albanian ministers and top Serbian officials are talking directly, with no foreign mediators, to solve practical problems. This began in July when the new Serbian government of President Boris Tadic put new people in the ministry dealing with Kosovo. The main officials are now Kosovar Serbs who have good relations with their counterparts. Serbia’s new minister in charge served in the pre-independence government of Kosovo led by Bajram Rexhepi. Another top official, Oliver Ivanovic, speaks fluent Albanian and was once a deputy in Kosovo’s Albanian-dominated parliament.

Mr Rexhepi, now mayor of the Albanian half of the divided city of Mitrovica, says that although such contacts may not on their own be enough to normalise Kosovo’s status and its relationship with Serbia, they can make a big difference. Like his Serbian counterparts he says he cannot hold meetings or discussions officially, but that unofficial contacts continue. “In this way you can solve problems,” he says, “but without too much publicity.”

M&M

Kosovo is recognized by 2 of its immediate neighbours : Macedonia and Montenegro.

That brings the number of recognitions to 50. We have been told to expect more recognitions in October. Does this mean better power supply? Can I get a witness up in here?!?

I am not quite sure it can be taken back but let's see ....

As if the early winter and constant power cuts were not enough to make an "international" whine, the ICJ has decided to sour the moods of Kosovars with its decision to issue an advisory opinion on Kosovo's UDI.

Let the games begin?

----

Hola to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates of the USA. Say hi to mum for me when you get home ...

Oh, Boris, you just get sexier and sexier by the day ...

A new strongman

Sep 18th 2008
From The Economist print edition

The Serbian president has become unusually powerful

Get article background

WITH bombers streaking overhead during a military passing-out ceremony in Belgrade on September 13th, there was no mistaking the expression of satisfaction on the face of Boris Tadic, Serbia’s president. It looked more like his victory parade. Just two months after struggling to put together a European-leaning government in July, Mr Tadic now stands as the undisputed master of his country.

This is because the largest Serbian opposition group, the ultranationalist Radical Party, has imploded thanks to an internal war between the devotees of Vojislav Seselj, currently standing trial for war crimes at the United Nations’ tribunal in The Hague, and the allies of the more pragmatic Tomislav Nikolic, who led the party within Serbia.

The split became apparent on September 2nd, when two Radical women deputies issued blood-curdling curses in parliament. They accused Mr Tadic of being “a traitor” because his government had arrested Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb president, and sent him to stand trial in The Hague. Nothing unusual here. But then one of them, Vjerica Radeta, shouted something odd: “A curse on every Radical, on his seed and family, who ever meets with Tadic after the shameful extradition.”

Soon her meaning became clear: Mr Nikolic had been secretly meeting Mr Tadic to strike a deal to ratify a key agreement with the EU that the Radicals had hitherto opposed. Mr Nikolic announced that the agreement was good for Serbia. This raised the ire of Mr Seselj, who from his prison cell urged deputies to vote against the accord.

As a result the Radical party has fallen apart. Mr Nikolic has been expelled with 17 of his supporters and is setting up his own party. Mr Tadic is thus freer to pursue his rapprochement with the EU. “On the one hand this is the best thing that could have happened to Serbia because the Radicals are divided into pro- and anti-European wings,” says Zoran Lucic, a top Serbian pollster, “But on the other I am afraid that for some time we will have an effective one-party system.” And that party, of course, is Mr Tadic’s.

Not everything is going his way. On September 15th the Netherlands blocked an EU trade agreement with Serbia, saying it must first find and extradite Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander. Now that Mr Tadic is all-powerful, that may be easier to do.

taking a break ...

... like everyone else in the Balkans.

squabbles...and I am taking sides ....

According to a report from UNMIK:

"The Head of the Diocese of Raska and Prizren Bishop Artimije tried to dismiss the Decani Monastery Abbot Bishop Teodosije . . . ."

I am siding with Bishop Teodosije; he and his monks are the best hosts I have ever met in Kosovo. Open-minded with hearts of gold and love like Jesus. They have my vote anyday over whoever.

Vote for O[s]ama - Bi[n La]den '08

To balance out my earlier endorsement, here is a public announcement for a friend of mine who is looking for Republican and right wing conservative investors for pumping out t-shirts and other election material.

"O[s]ama - Bi[n La]den" are hereby declared trademarked virtually and in real life ... royalties are expected :)

Let's talk Human Trafficking ... again ...

... especially since Kosovo always gets special mentions in these reports.

People-trafficking and people-smuggling Drawing lines in a dark place
Aug 14th 2008 From The Economist

Coercing hapless human beings into sex or servitude is obviously evil, but defining the problem (let alone solving it) is very hard




LIVING from the forced labour, or unwillingly provided sexual services, of vulnerable people is a horrific business, and more should be done to punish the perpetrators and succour the victims. That is a sentiment to which almost all governments readily assent, even in the (quite large) slice of the world where links exist between officialdom, the police and the shady types who trade in flesh. And at least in principle, cross-border trafficking is acknowledged to be so manifestly dreadful that every civilised state must be seen to help correct this wrong. As one sign of this feeling, a Council of Europe convention on trafficking went into force this year; 17 countries have ratified it. The American government has for the past eight years been mandated by law to wage a many-fronted struggle against human trafficking, at home and around the world. And some hard arguments are now raging in Washington, involving politicians, lobby groups and rival government agencies, about whether the struggle should be escalated. Why, one might ask, should there be arguments about an issue that, in moral terms, seems so clear-cut? Mainly because the precise definition of trafficking, and hence of trafficking victims, is in reality quite difficult—whether you are a policeman or a moral philosopher.


Among pundits, people-trafficking is distinguished from the lesser evil of people-smuggling—an uncomfortable but almost unavoidable part of social reality in areas that adjoin rich countries with a demand for labour. In Kosovo, it is an open secret that you can be whisked illegally to Vienna by paying €4,000 ($6,000) to a professional smuggler. The Bosnian town of Bijeljina, once a black spot for ethnic cleansing, is now a way-station for south Asians who pay around $16,000 per head to be smuggled into the EU heartland: half on departure and half on arrival.
People-smuggling is done with the consent of those involved; they have no further debt to the gangsters who abet them once they arrive. Trafficking means moving people under duress or false pretences—or in order to use them for forced labour (ranging from domestic work to commercial sex). So the theory goes; but in practice, as the latest State Department report concedes, there is an overlap between the two activities. It often happens, for example, that a poor Indian is hired for menial work in a Gulf state—only to find that his wage is much less than promised, and his passport is seized. This leads to a form of servitude, and that person’s treatment could be called trafficking. Despite the grey area, public perception of the two problems often diverges. In Australia, for example, public opinion favours a tough line over people-smuggling—but there has been a surge of sympathy for the victims of trafficking (often brought to Australia from Thailand or Indochina) since the release last year of “The Jammed”, a film set in a Melbourne brothel.


And in recent years both the sharper definition of, and the fight against, human-trafficking have become a high priority for the State Department; its grading of other countries’ anti-trafficking efforts is an elaborate and closely-watched business. Countries in “tier 1” (including most of the EU but not Ireland, Greece, Estonia or Latvia) are deemed to comply fully with the minimum standards of American law. Those in “tier 2” don’t yet comply but are trying hard. A lower tier, labelled “Watch List”, consists of countries that are trying, but not hard enough or with good enough results. In the bottom “tier 3” (including American allies like Saudi Arabia) are those that are neither complying nor trying hard enough. Even rickety post-Soviet states (see chart) can improve their scores if they follow what is deemed to be the right advice. As the State Department has found, it is hard to discuss cross-border trafficking without looking at what occurs inside countries. Its reports have thus broadened into a more general look at the ways in which people are forced to work or have sex against their will. Servitude, it finds, can take many forms: for example, children are mutilated and forced to beg—or else fight in ghastly wars. Slavery, the State Department suggests, happens in many successful emerging economies; it cites bonded labour in Brazil’s plantations, or children working long hours making bricks in China. Indeed, bits of the department’s 2008 report read as though they were penned by a left-of-centre NGO, decrying the dark side of globalisation.And some of the other ideological issues now coming to a head in Washington are even more contentious. Behind them all is an emotive question: whether there can be such a thing as willing prostitution.


How far can you go?
Since 2002, the policy of the United States has been to oppose prostitution, and to urge all governments to “reduce the demand” for prostitutes through education and by punishing those who patronise them. But how far can this principle be pressed? As passed by the House of Representatives last year, a new bill on protecting the victims of trafficking could have made it illegal for Americans to consort with prostitutes anywhere in the world (even when the prostitutes are adults, and in countries where buying sex is legal). The House version of the bill would also broaden the obligations of America’s federal (as opposed to state) authorities to curb the trafficking of sex workers inside the country. The Justice Department (amid many other objections) said all this would place a huge burden on federal agencies that are already overstretched. Supporters of stepping up the fight (who range from feminist groups to the religious right) compare their campaign to that of William Wilberforce, whose efforts to free the British empire’s slaves bore fruit 200 years ago. John Miller, an ex-head of the State Department’s anti-trafficking programme, has deplored the Justice Department’s campaign to modify the proposed legislation; its complaints, he says, imply leniency towards an absolute evil, slavery. But the American Civil Liberties Union, a lobby group, has praised the Senate for deleting language which, in its view, would make prostitution and trafficking virtually identical. Lots more arguments can be expected before the bill reaches the White House. In fact, says Jorgen Carling, a Norwegian who has studied the trafficking of Nigerian women to Europe, it is rarely possible to draw the absolutely clear line that policymakers want between “innocent victimhood” and “willing participation” in sex work. For example, people may know that they are being taken abroad as sex workers, but have no idea of the harsh conditions, and the absolute loss of control over their lives, that they will face. This may be an area of life where most people can recognise evil when they see the details of one horrifying case—but where it will always be hard to make hard-and-fast rules that suit every country

Official Endorsement!!! - Luna loses her mind ....

After 2 summer of thoughts and vanity checks, this blog has decided to finally and officially endorse:

Senator Barack Hussein Obama

for the US President. Cute, smart, a fresh of breath air atimes and sometimes loopy but definitely no angel, this might just be the man to lead US through trying changing times. Well, he has my vote come November. I want to encourage all of you with friends and relatives who are Americans to encourage them to vote for this beautiful man in the November elections.

gObama!!!

It's Summer and it's here ....

Welcome to the 2008 Olympics in China!!!

The Chinese left no carpets unturned for the opening event ... dazzling. Though Kosovo might not have a team there, it is still a very good distraction for the summer from competing news of of war, pillage and skirmishes ... there goes Russia trying to start a war with Georgia .... enjoy the show!!!

BBC on Life in Kosovo

BBC has been running a series of stories on people's lives in Kosovo. Nothing too analytical. They pick someone (usually a guy, of course) and tell his story and issues concerning him and his environment. Nice readings. Here are links and excerpts to stories thus far:

Kosovo lives: A mixed village

""The most painful thing for us, is when we see people selling up and leaving," says Dragana Gospic. And she relates how one of her neighbours, a fellow Serb, has just sold his land, and is now selling his house. "Each person who leaves makes it harder for those who remain," she explains. At 33, originally from the Bosnian town of Mrkonjic Grad, she lives in the village of Vidanje, near Klina in central Kosovo, with her husband Ranko and daughters Tanja and Sanja."


Kosovo lives: Ivan's journey

"Ivan Radic is one of nearly a quarter of a million people from Kosovo still classified by the UN as internally displaced persons (IDPs) nine years after the war. The vast majority are ethnic Serbs, now scattered across Serbia with a minority living in Kosovo's enclaves. Most of the hundreds of thousands of wartime Albanian IDPs were able to return home long ago. "I am in Urosevac almost every night - when I dream," Ivan tells me, remembering his birthplace as we stand on the central bridge in the town of Mitrovica."


Kosovo lives: Albanian in Mitrovica

"On the table in his front room, Driton Gerguri opens a red album, like a family heirloom.
"Other kids collected stamps, but I collected these," he says proudly. Page after page of carefully mounted badges and tie pins, from sporting events and factories, anniversaries and celebrations.
Each is like a crumb of the common life that people of different nationalities used to live in the old Yugoslavia. Taken together, the album is like a carefully preserved cake of a bygone world. "


Kosovo lives: Between two worlds

"His English is flawless, local knowledge near faultless but having him guide you around Pristina can take awfully long. Mehmed Sezai Shehu, or Meti as he likes to be known, seems barely able to cross a street without running into an acquaintance in the Kosovan capital. On the two visits I have met him, a simple stroll about the city centre became a wade through handshakes, jokes and banter. Not a few of the people knew him from across a kitchen table or a classroom desk because for the past decade, apart from the war period, Meti has been teaching his city English full-time. "


Kosovo lives: Not gone with the wind

Their great-grandfather built Urosevac, the Nikolic daughters like to say, so how can they leave it now? Sani (Santipa), the very image of mildness and physical slightness, beams mischievously at the memory of how she floored a US soldier with her karate skills, the day K-For came to evacuate her family. I am not saying she is over 60, because her disabled younger sister Lili (Liljana) reminded me, when I inquired, that you must never ask a lady her age. A smile of assent crossed the mask-like face of their blind mother Dani (Daniela).

You saw it here FIRST!!!: Pilot Production of S&M

Good morning all,

I have been granted exclusive rights to broadcast the Pilot for the upcoming of "s&m feat. Madame b". Hope you enjoy it and please feel free to send in comments so I can forward to the producers. I am sure it will encourage them to make it a regular production. Good job guys....
-----------

What really matters...

A film festival in one of my favorite towns ...

Be there or be square ....

Most wanted Bosnian Serb delivered ....

Mr. Radovan Karadzic was delivered today to the world:

One of the world's most wanted men, the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, was arrested last night in Serbia after 12 years on the run from charges of genocide and war crimes.The man indicted for the Srebrenica massacre and the Sarajevo siege, among other war crimes, was arrested by Serbian security officers and taken before a war crimes court in Belgrade, according to a statement from the office of the Serbian president, Boris Tadic. . . .

Thank you, Tadic & co.

PS: For people who wrote asking if I dislike Serbs due to some of my posts in the past, the answer is NO. If I hated Serbs, I would have no sex life in the Balkans. I think Serb men and women are some of the sexiest in the region, except for some montenegrans and rich Slovenians. A mother only chastises the child she loves ...


--------------------

UPDATE:

Karadzic Extradited to The Hague to Face War Crimes Charges - Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Most famous and wanted Serb in NYC

A friend flagged me on this news from NYC, asking if I ever dated this guy while in Mass or the Balkans (f****** retard that my friend is). Apparently, this chap is very wanted in the US....


No official search for fugitive student
3 July 2008 16:47 -> 18:37 Source: B92, FoNet

BELGRADE -- Serbian institutions have yet to receive any official information from the U.S. regarding the case of Miladin Kovačević.The Serbian national is suspected of brutally assaulting a fellow student Bryan Steinhauer on May 4 in the United States. State Prosecutor Slobodan Radovanović told B92 that Serbia will do everything it can to solve the case once it receives an official request. Radovanović said that the only information he has about the case has been through the media. “The American institutions can rest assured that Serbia will do everything within its legal possibilities to sanction this and to make sure that possible perpetrators of such act are not left unpunished." "On the other hand, I must say that we are still waiting for an official demand and official information, and we will act according to that,” Radovanović said. In the meantime, the government yesterday, in connection to the case, dismissed the New York consul-general, Slobodan Nenadović. Kovačević was issued a new passport by the consulate, even though a U.S. court was did not allow him to leave the country. The student Kovačević is accused of assaulting is currently in a coma. Kovačević has put into custody after the event, but released on June 5 on USD 100,000 bail. Serbian vice-consul Igor Milošević issued the suspect a new passport after the original one was confiscated, which allowed Kovačević to flee America. Disciplinary actions will be taken against the vice-consul, but Radovanović said today that the diplomat might face criminal charges as well. Earlier today, a Kovačević family lawyer said the case has a political dimension. "This case is above all a legal issue that is now under the jurisdiction of Serbian law. The law on criminal proceedings categorically rules out extradition of a Serbian citizen to a foreign country during criminal proceedings if the citizen is on Serbian territory,” Veselin Cerović told FoNet. The lawyer believes that the case is becoming more and more political thanks to the sensationalist approach to the case in certain domestic and foreign media, and by statements coming from “certain American senators in attempt to promote themselves.” "Everything is absolutely clear in this case. Any type of questioning of Kovačević, who is a Serbian citizen, should be conducted by the domestic judiciary, once all the relevant and valid documents have been received from U.S. officials,” Cerović said, adding that everything should be carried out in accordance with Serbian law. He said that Kovačević had been released from custody by the U.S. authorities, after paying the bail. "When that decision was made, the court adequately estimated the possible real damage that might be incurred in the event of Kovačević leaving the United States, and thus becoming unavailable to the U.S. judicial system,” Cerović explained. He did not want to comment on how Kovačević had managed to leave the United States or on whose passport Kovačević had used, stating only that he would talk about it at a press conference scheduled for tomorrow. According to the U.S. media, Kovačević’s family pressured Serbian vice-consul Igor Milošević into issuing him a new passport, thus enabling Kovačević to return to Serbia. On Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Belgrade Cameron Munter called on the Serbian authorities to react, and return Kovačević to the United States to face trial.

----------

UPDATE

By Jack Carey, USA TODAY

United States government officials are continuing to press for the return of a former Binghamton University basketball player, who was arrested and charged in the severe beating of a fellow student before fleeing last month to Serbia. Representatives from the offices of New York Democratic senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton along with staff members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee met Wednesday with Vladimir Petrovic, the Serbian Embassy's Charge d'Affairs, to urge that Miladin Kovacevic be returned for trial, and expressed that there would be "significant consequences for Serbia" if the matter was not resolved, a joint statement from the senators said. Kovacevic, a Serbian national, was charged in connection with the alleged May 4 assault of Bryan Steinhauer at a Binghamton, N.Y., bar. The incident fractured Steinhauer's skull and left him in a coma two weeks before he was to graduate with a degree in accounting. Kovacevic was jailed on a felony assault charge and forced to surrender his passport. However, on June 6 the Serbian Consulate in New York posted the $100,000 bail for Kovacevic and aided his return to Serbia by issuing an emergency passport. Serbian foreign minister Vuk Jeremic said Monday in Belgrade that Kovacevic would not be extradited and suggested U.S. authorities hand over the case file so Kovacevic could be prosecuted in Serbia. Kovacevic last week signed a contract with a Serbian basketball team, which said it expects him to show up for the start of the club's practice sessions on Aug. 10. "Because of the aid of Serbian officials, Mr. Kovacevic is living his life openly and freely in Serbia while the Steinhauer family is spending every day praying that their son will recover from his life-threatening injuries," Clinton said in the statement. "We continue to urge the Serbian government to do everything in its power to uphold the rule of law and facilitate the immediate and unconditional return of Mr. Kovacevic to face prosecution."

-------------

now that there is a new SRSG for UNMIKistan...

.... one wonders who owns or rules Kosova? There are too many queens and princes ruling this tiny kingdom of 2 million people. The new buzz word from UN legal minds is "Reconfiguration": "Have you been reconfigured lately?" ... doochbags...

Here is a link to an analysis by Albin Kurti on who run the country.

Happy Summer all!!!

Where can I get a Skenderbeg for lunch in Prishtina?

Interesting

June 25, 2008
Albania Custom Fades: Woman as the Family Man
By DAN BILEFSKY

KRUJE, Albania — Pashe Keqi recalled the day nearly 60 years ago when she decided to become a man. She chopped off her long black curls, traded in her dress for her father’s baggy trousers, armed herself with a hunting rifle and vowed to forsake marriage, children and sex. For centuries, in the closed-off and conservative society of rural northern Albania, swapping genders was considered a practical solution for a family with a shortage of men. Her father was killed in a blood feud, and there was no male heir. By custom, Ms. Keqi, now 78, took a vow of lifetime virginity. She lived as a man, the new patriarch, with all the swagger and trappings of male authority — including the obligation to avenge her father’s death. She says she would not do it today, now that sexual equality and modernity have come even to Albania, with Internet dating and MTV invading after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Girls here do not want to be boys anymore. With only Ms. Keqi and some 40 others remaining, the sworn virgin is dying off. “Back then, it was better to be a man because before a woman and an animal were considered the same thing,” said Ms. Keqi, who has a bellowing baritone voice, sits with her legs open wide like a man and relishes downing shots of raki. “Now, Albanian women have equal rights with men, and are even more powerful. I think today it would be fun to be a woman.”

The tradition of the sworn virgin can be traced to the Kanun of Leke Dukagjini, a code of conduct passed on orally among the clans of northern Albania for more than 500 years. Under the Kanun, the role of a woman is severely circumscribed: take care of children and maintain the home. While a woman’s life is worth half that of a man, a virgin’s value is the same: 12 oxen. The sworn virgin was born of social necessity in an agrarian region plagued by war and death. If the family patriarch died with no male heirs, unmarried women in the family could find themselves alone and powerless. By taking an oath of virginity, women could take on the role of men as head of the family, carry a weapon, own property and move freely. They dressed like men and spent their lives in the company of other men, even though most kept their female given names. They were not ridiculed, but accepted in public life, even adulated. For some the choice was a way for a woman to assert her autonomy or to avoid an arranged marriage. “Stripping off their sexuality by pledging to remain virgins was a way for these women in a male-dominated, segregated society to engage in public life,” said Linda Gusia, a professor of gender studies at the University of Pristina, in Kosovo. “It was about surviving in a world where men rule.” Taking an oath to become a sworn virgin should not, sociologists say, be equated with homosexuality, long taboo in rural Albania. Nor do the women have sex-change operations.

Known in her household as the “pasha,” Ms. Keqi said she decided to become the man of the house at age 20 when her father was murdered. Her four brothers opposed the Communist government of Enver Hoxha, the ruler for 40 years until his death in 1985, and they were either imprisoned or killed. Becoming a man, she said, was the only way to support her mother, her four sisters-in-law and their five children. Ms. Keqi lorded over her large family in her modest house in Tirana, where her nieces served her brandy while she barked out orders. She said living as a man had allowed her freedom denied other women. She worked construction jobs and prayed at the mosque with men. Even today, her nephews and nieces said, they would not dare marry without their “uncle’s” permission. When she stepped outside the village, she enjoyed being taken for a man. “I was totally free as a man because no one knew I was a woman,” Ms. Keqi said. “I could go wherever I wanted to and no one would dare swear at me because I could beat them up. I was only with men. I don’t know how to do women’s talk. I am never scared.” When she was recently hospitalized for surgery, the other woman in her room was horrified to be sharing close quarters with someone she assumed was male. Being the man of the house also made her responsible for avenging her father’s death, she said. When her father’s killer, by then 80, was released from prison five years ago, Ms. Keqi said, her 15-year-old nephew shot him dead. Then the man’s family took revenge and killed her nephew. “I always dreamed of avenging my father’s death,” she said. “Of course, I have regrets; my nephew was killed. But if you kill me, I have to kill you.”

In Albania, a majority Muslim country in the western Balkans, the Kanun is adhered to by Muslims and Christians. Albanian cultural historians said the adherence to medieval customs long discarded elsewhere was a byproduct of the country’s previous isolation. But they stressed that the traditional role of the Albanian woman was changing. “The Albanian woman today is a sort of minister of economics, a minister of affection and a minister of interior who controls who does what,” said Ilir Yzeiri, who writes about Albanian folklore. “Today, women in Albania are behind everything.” Some sworn virgins bemoan the changes. Diana Rakipi, 54, a security guard in the seaside city of Durres, in west Albania, who became a sworn virgin to take care of her nine sisters, said she looked back with nostalgia on the Hoxha era. During Communist times, she was a senior army officer, training women as combat soldiers. Now, she lamented, women do not know their place. “Today women go out half naked to the disco,” said Ms. Rakipi, who wears a military beret. “I was always treated my whole life as a man, always with respect. I can’t clean, I can’t iron, I can’t cook. That is a woman’s work.”

But even in the remote mountains of Kruje, about 30 miles north of Tirana, residents say the Kanun’s influence on gender roles is disappearing. They said erosion of the traditional family, in which everyone once lived under the same roof, had altered women’s position in society. Women and men are now almost the same,” said Caca Fiqiri, whose aunt Qamile Stema, 88, is his village’s last sworn virgin. “We respect sworn virgins very much and consider them as men because of their great sacrifice. But there is no longer a stigma not to have a man of the house.” Yet there is no doubt who wears the trousers in Ms. Stema’s one-room stone house in Barganesh, the family’s ancestral village. There, on a recent day, “Uncle” Qamile was surrounded by her clan, dressed in a qeleshe, the traditional white cap of an Albanian man. Pink flip-flops were her only concession to femininity.

After becoming a man at the age of 20, Ms. Stema said, she carried a gun. At wedding parties, she sat with the men. When she talked to women, she recalled, they recoiled in shyness. She said becoming a sworn virgin was a necessity and a sacrifice. “I feel lonely sometime, all my sisters have died, and I live alone,” she said. “But I never wanted to marry. Some in my family tried to get me to change my clothes and wear dresses, but when they saw I had become a man, they left me alone.” Ms. Stema said she would die a virgin. Had she married, she joked, it would have been to a traditional Albanian woman. “I guess you could say I was partly a woman and partly a man,” she said. “I liked my life as a man. I have no regrets.”

Vetëvendosje last protest ... in May

Thanks for "unconfusing" it all, Mr. S-G

I do hope most diplomats do not handle sex the way they handle problems. Everyone was waiting for clarity from the UN in New York about the role of the multiple institutions claiming to be kings in Kosova and they got this instead: Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo

HTH!!!

PS: This in no way should be seen as a criticism of the UN S-G. He is a referee caught between sovereign egomaniacs.

Pics...

Summer is coming

One can tell by all the new and more varied brand of cars on the road these days. Familes from 'yonder' are arriving to show off their new pimped rides and face caps. While I am sure that we all appreciate the dollars and euros they bring into the economy, not mention a couple more choices of eye candy, some of these Kosovar "internationals" can be obnoxious sometimes. Some behave as if they are the best thing that ever happpened to this region or something ... pffff, we need to start taxing them for all the broken hearts and souls they leave behind :)

Send Us Your Favorite Pictures of Kosovo ...

... so that we can share with all. "We" being me of course :) Please send to Kosovo2007@gmail.com. Note that I cannot guarantee copyright protection once your picture is on this blog. Consult you lawyer before sending, if in doubt.

Let's talk UN ...

... in a bigger context than UNMIK alone. A report by Save the Children shines some light on of the horrific plights of people that are supposed to be protected and served by aid workers and peacekeepers. This ONE was particularly about children, which makes it particularly frightening to imagine. There are also other horrifics going on everyday in such societies being committed by those supposed to be protecting them: Human Trafficking, Rape and Abuse of Women, Financial Mismanagement and Corruption of Different Magnitudes, Coziness with Illegal and Crime Syndicates and Organizations, etc. Shame ... Shame...Shame on US all =>International Community, Aid Workers, Peacekeepers, and the States that protect them!!!

I love whistle-blowers:


May 23, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
Who Will Watch the Peacekeepers?
By MATTHIAS BASANISI
Bern, Switzerland


THE United Nations, facing criticism that it has failed to police itself in Congo, has hit back in recent days. Press officers insist that there is no problem. Based on my own experience, I disagree. The BBC and Human Rights Watch have both brought forward evidence that the United Nations covered up evidence of gold smuggling and arms trafficking by its peacekeepers in Congo. The peacekeepers are said to have had illegal dealings with one of the most murderous militias in the country, where millions have died in one of the bloodiest yet least visible conflicts in the world. Last month, Inga-Britt Ahlenius, the head of the Office of Internal Oversight Services at the United Nations, told the BBC that her investigators drew the right conclusions based on the evidence they found: that there was little that warranted prosecution or further investigation. I wish that were true. I was the investigator in charge of the United Nations team that in 2006 looked into allegations of abuses by Pakistani peacekeepers in Congo and found them credible. But the investigation was taken away from my team after we resisted what we saw as attempts to influence the outcome. My fellow team members and I were appalled to see that the oversight office’s final report was little short of a whitewash. The reports we submitted to the office’s senior management in 2006 included credible information from witnesses confirming illegal deals between Pakistani peacekeepers and warlords from the Front for National Integration, an ethnic militia group notorious for its cruelty even in such a brutal war. We found corroborative information that senior officers of the Pakistani contingent secretly returned seized weapons to two warlords in exchange for gold, and that the Pakistani peacekeepers tipped off two warlords about plans by the United Nations peacekeeping force and the Congolese Army to arrest them. And yet, much of the evidence we uncovered was excluded from the final report released last summer, including corroboration from the warlords themselves. I resigned from the Office of Internal Oversight Services in May 2007. But that does not mean I am alone in my concerns. Former colleagues of mine who recently investigated similar allegations against Indian peacekeepers in Congo are worried that some of their most serious findings will also be ignored and not investigated further. What’s more, two outside management reports have been critical of the oversight office and its work. Ms. Ahlenius, who has been in charge of the office since 2005, says that she agrees with those criticisms. Secretiveness, she told The Washington Post earlier this month, "serves us extremely poorly." Indeed. So why does it continue under her watch? The oversight office hires experienced investigators. Those investigators are required to respect the highest standards of integrity. And yet the office has done little to ensure that management lives up to its own standards. One likely reason for the watered-down reports is that Pakistan and India are the largest contributors of troops to United Nations peacekeeping missions and no one wants to offend them. I met and worked with many of these peacekeepers and found the majority of them to be professional soldiers willing to risk their lives to bring peace to countries like Congo. But if peacekeepers of any nationality are found to have committed serious crimes, the United Nations must say so. The organization cannot close its eyes and ears to evidence of misconduct. Such behavior undermines peacekeeping efforts everywhere. It would be shocking to think that the United Nations’ own investigative body is reluctant to act on evidence of cooperation between peacekeepers and alleged war criminals. The United Nations must be prepared to deal with crimes by peacekeepers in the eastern Congo; it must also be prepared to tell the truth. Matthias Basanisi was the deputy chief investigator with the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services in Congo from 2005 to 2007.

It pains me to agree with DiCarlo but...

... out of the other 192 (plus 2) countries in the world, The government of Kosovo should have been able to lobby more than just 41 countries for recognition. I mean, many of these countries would happily recognize Kosovo if for no other reason than to put their names in the world press for a couple of hours. Inefficiency, incompetency, ignorance, egotism ... or whatever their reasons might be for their failure to get more recognitions, some people in the government need to start getting flogged to perform. I would personally suggest that Thaci should not be allowed to eat at "Ex" restaurant anymore until the government crosses the "97 countries recognition" threshold.

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US unhappy with Kosovo over recognitions

Macedoniaonline.eu

U.S. criticized Pristina's government over the small number of countries that have recognized Kosovo's independence, attributing this fact to insufficient lobbying efforts. Foreign diplomats told Pristina-based TV Station Kohavision that Washington is unsatisfied with official Pristina's failure to secure recognition of independence by 97 countries. Kosovo needs this number to apply for admission in the United Nations at this year's UN General Assembly. Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of State Rosemary DiCarlo has reportedly conveyed the message of criticism during her recent visit to Pristina. Pristina's TV station reported that the Americans have suggested to the Kosovo's government to seek for assistance from the Finnish diplomat Martti Ahtisaari and his assistant Albert Rohan in the lobbying efforts. Serbia is taking advantage of Pristina's inefficiency, by preparing a resolution against independence, which is expected to be put to vote at the UN General Assembly. As many as 41 countries have recognized Kosovo so far, 20 of which are members of the European Union.


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Hot off the Press

U.S. Embassy Issues Denial of Criticism

It has been recently claimed that the U.S. Embassy in Pristina issued a statement denying any criticism leveled against the Kosovo Government by Deputy Assistant Secretary Rosemary DiCarlo. "The Embassy press statement clarifies that DiCarlo "made no such comments.""

God, I sometimes hate diplomats and the press ... who said what?

Have you bought a ticket yet?

Folks, EuroVision is here again. Who is going? I need find a way there. I doubt I can afford the ticket (or that I would torture myself through the terrible songs EV is known for) but it would be nice to go check out all the cute gay guys converging in Beograd. Who knows? I might be able to convince some of them to fact check their sexual preference with me ;) Here is a piece on the prep but not without political bitching, of course.

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Serbs tune in for Eurosong
Neil MacDonald Belgrade
Source: Financial Times

The lights are hung, the stage is built and the 300 sq m electronic backdrop is ready to project the Eurosong 2008 logo. "It's going to be the greatest show," says Aleksandar Tijanic, general manager of Radio Television Serbia, the state broadcaster, and master of ceremonies for next weekend's Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade. "I hope we can keep it apolitical." Hosting Eurosong will help Serbia improve its image in the European Union, Mr Tijanic says. The chance for the maligned Balkan country to bask in the European spotlight caps the unexpected success of Serbia's pro-EU alliance in parliamentary elections on May 11. Yet there are doubts over whether the former Yugoslav republic will extend a warm welcome to nearly 10,000 tourists and 2,500 journalists who are expected to descend on the capital this week. Nationalist Serbs are still smarting over Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia on February 17. For the organisers, the contest "couldn't have come at a worse time - right after presidential elections, then parliamentary elections, and at the peak of the Kosovo crisis", Mr Tijanic says. "But it's a good test for all of us. Traditional Serbian hospitality will win, and people will feel comfortable in this city." Marija Serifovic's Eurosong victory in Helsinki last year gave Serbia the right to host this year's competition and a chance for some soft diplomacy towards Europe. But Ms Serifovic dabbled in Serb nationalist propaganda, standing next to the nationalist politician Tomislav Nikolic at rallies ahead of his unsuccessful presidential bid. Ms Serifovic subsequently fired her manager and renounced political appearances. "She will sing at the opening," Mr Tijanic says. In February doubts over Belgrade's ability to host the light-hearted Eurosong grew as protesters torched the US embassy in Belgrade. Washington and leading EU countries advised their citizens against travelling to Serbia. Mr Tijanic says the riots did not reflect Belgrade's true character.
Gay organisations - whose constituents are among the greatest fans of the event - recalled how extreme-rightwing thugs wrecked Belgrade's first and only gay pride parade in 2001. Mr Tijanic says Serbia would not tolerate attacks on gays. "I refuse to look at visitors as gay people or straight people. For us, they're participants and guests." The contest will cost 12m ($18.5m, £9.5m), of which the European Broadcasting Union, which runs the 52-year-old show, has contributed 3.5m. But the international exposure from Eurosong will be worth 100m, according to Mr Tijanic. Yet the Kosovo question is never far away. The new breakaway state - whose broadcasters lack EBU membership - cannot send any of its aspiring music idols. This is a relief to Mr Tijanic. "As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather cancel it all than organise Eurosong with Kosovo as a participant."

Mali

A friend of mine recently went to Mali and sent me these pics. With his permission, I want to share these with you ... beautiful pics....thanks 'k.

My apologies ....

... for the long absence. I have been taking care of family issues and have been a little ill. Yes, a little water has gone under the bridge since when I was here last but I will make it up to you all as I have some incredible pictures from Mali that a friend took on his recent trip. More to come soon :) Serbian elections this weekend; protest in Pristina today against the elections taking place in Kosovo ... despite all of these, one cannot help but feel bored by all of these.

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If interested in reading about my country: America, Land of the Free (No more???)

Newly independent Kosovo adopts constitution - WELCOME TO THE FUTURE!!!

PRISTINA, April 9, 2008 (AFP) - Kosovo's parliament voted unanimously on Wednesday to adopt the Balkan state's first constitution after it unilaterally declared independence from Serbia. "By passing this constitution, we are setting the foundations to build Kosovo as a democratic and sovereign state," parliament speaker Jakup Krasniqi said. The constitution, which is to come into effect on June 15, was approved by all 107 deputies present at a special session of the parliament, which is dominated by ethnic Albanians. Its adoption enables Kosovo's institutions to take over from a mission of the United Nations (UNMIK) which has administered the disputed territory since the end of its 1998-1999 conflict. The move also paves the way for the complete deployment of the European Union's 2,000-strong peace and justice mission to Kosovo, dubbed EULEX, which is to oversee Kosovo's "supervised" independence. Kosovo's parliament unilaterally declared independence from Serbia on February 17. It has since been recognised by 38 countries, including the United States and most of the European Union. "The constitution is our will and legitimacy. It is a seal of the state of Kosovo," Prime Minister Hashim Thaci told parliament. "This is another historic step forward in building of our stable state and democratic governance in an independent, sovereign and proud Kosovo," said the ethnic Albanian leader. Backed by traditional ally Russia, Serbia, which views Kosovo as its historic heartland, has rejected the independence declaration, saying it violates international law. Kosovo -- a mountainous territory with some 1.8 million people, 90 percent of them ethnic Albanians -- would be a parliamentary republic and "citizens' state," according to the text of the constitution. "The Republic of Kosovo is a secular state and is neutral in matters of religious beliefs," it said, adding that the "official languages in the Republic of Kosovo are Albanian and Serbian." The constitution guarantees the rights and protection of minorities, notably Serbs who have rejected Kosovo's independence. "Serbs are the citizens of Kosovo. This constitution is also theirs," president Fatmir Sejidu told reporters after the charter was adopted. "We want them to be an important foundation and a bridge for the future better relations with the state of Serbia." The plan for Kosovo's "internationally supervised independence" was devised by special UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari last year after failed talks between Belgrade and Pristina on Kosovo's status.

Haradinaj is acquitted ...

The least they could have done was find him guilty of bad taste. I detest that horrendous monstrosity of an observatory he calls a mansion built illegally on Prishtin"ian" hills. [What? You were expecting some deep analysis of this issue from me? Like I have nothing better to do with my time :P]

On to something more important: an advertisement to volunteer with young Kosovans in Pristina:

Would you like to get to know members of the youngest population in Europe, and see Kosovo through new eyes? Pupils in Kosovo's urban schools attend classes in shifts. In large classes, attending school for only a few hours a day, they have little opportunity for attention from their teachers, and when it comes to learning English, almost no access to native speakers as role models for their language learning.

Would you like to help? Are you a native English speaker? Could you give up a few hours a week for a 5 week project to support Kosovan kids' learning of English in after-school clubs? We are setting up a pilot project for volunteers to work in pairs running bi-weekly after-school English clubs with groups of up to twelve 10-year-olds in a school in Pristina. No previous experience of teaching English is required - we will run a few training sessions in advance of the project starting, offer the necessary resources, and be available for support during the 5 weeks that the project runs. Depending on the interest in our after school clubs, and the success of the project for the children, volunteers and school, we hope to extend the project with more volunteers and more schools in the autumn term.

Volunteers will need to be available for training on Friday 18 April, Wednesday 23 April and Friday 25 April from 2 - 5pm and for one further session during the week of 5 May. Beyond that, the commitment can be flexible. If you have questions about the project, please contact us (elizabethgowing@hotmail.com).

Some night views of Prishtina

Kosovo is burning????

I do not think so but it was interesting to see UNMIK flexing some military muscles this past week to dire consequences. Also interesting to note that none of the elites from any side gets hurt in these incidents, it's always blue collared young people getting the shaft and bullets. I would like to see Kostunica or Krasniqi go sleep on the streets and get stones and bullets rained on them ... mofos. In case you missed it, here you go. Since then, an UNMIK police officer from Ukraine has passed away and a Serb man is in critical condition from a bullet in his head (plus plenty others wounded on both sides, some critically).

An interesting side story, what has bread got to do with nationality? everything apparently ... in Serbia.

03/20/2008 Serbian president Tadic urges probe into calls for boycott of Albanian-owned bakeries (Ap)

BELGRADE, Serbia_Serbia's President Boris Tadic is demanding that police find out who is behind calls to boycott Albanian-owned bakeries in response to Kosovo's declaration of independence. Tadic is critical of what he termed "chauvinist actions" against Serbia's ethnic Albanian citizens. He says each citizen has the same rights regardless of ethnic or religious background. Serbian nationalists have handed out free bread in front of Albanian-owned bakeries in the northern city of Sombor and other towns since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17. On Thursday, leaflets urging a new boycott of Albanian shops are appearing. Kosovo is considered Serbia's medieval heartland, but is dominated by separatist ethnic Albanians.

HAPPY EASTER ... if you celebrate it. Let peace reign, people!!!

Yeah, another story from Kosova ...

For those who might be tired of these stories, you might want to switch off a little, I love these interesting stories of people in this new country. Here is another one:

An American – university – in Kosovo

By Robert Marquand Tue Mar 11, 4:00 AM ET
The Christian Science Monitor

A few years ago, Chris Hall was a state senator from midcoast Maine. He had quit a job as a steel and mining executive, deciding "never again" to do the weekly commute from Portland to New York. But a defeat in 2004 opened the door for Mr. Hall to become the first president of one of the more unusual colleges in Europe: the American University in Kosovo.
After decades of repression and war, Kosovo's schools were in tatters. A privileged few studied abroad. But AUK, formed three years ago with funds from the Albanian diaspora and the only multiethnic private college here, aspires to help the somewhat battered new state build its next generation of leaders. It's a mission the Oxford-educated Hall deeply believes in.
Kosovo's declaration of independence on Feb. 17 may have brought angry protests from Serbs 30 miles away on the Ibar River, but Hall has a college to run. He sits in on statistics classes, juggles scholarships and budgets, coordinates with Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology, which grants AUK degrees, and hires Fulbright scholars.
He's added a public policy program to what is now a business degree and helped create one of the freest weekly political forums in Pristina, albeit one in English. He wants the small school to breathe the values of civil society and intelligent democratic sentiments.
Just last week, Hall was in Chicago signing a partnership with the Illinois Institute of Technology for an AUK master's in law, which will be the only such degree offered in Kosovo.
Most important, Hall and many students say, AUK offers Kosovar youths a school where they encounter Western-style debates, interaction, and educational standards.
Student Tefta Kelmendi first considered going abroad for college, since there were "many other possibilities offered to Kosovar students for study abroad and scholarships," she says. But AUK allowed her to "be part of all these significant changes that are taking place" in Kosovo, so she stayed.
The college opened in 2003 in a crowded house with few facilities. But two years ago, AUK moved to a small complex in a hilly suburb, with lecture halls, information-technology facilities, and a cafeteria-cum-student hangout. Some 34 professors – from the Balkans as well asthe US – staff the school. Enrollment is 450, but Hall and company plan for 600. Last year, the school celebrated its first graduating class, of 57.
Of those, more than 40 now work in Kosovo, a point of pride for Hall and the AUK board, whose members include prominent American Albanians like businessman Richard Lukaj and Ron Cami, a partner of the New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Students come mostly from the Albanian diaspora in 11 other countries, including Syria, Nigeria, and Algeria. Four Serbian students attend – and have not left despite Kosovo's declaration of independence.
AUK is "a success story in a part of the world with few success stories at this point," says Louis Sell, a former US diplomat and an AUK board member who helped bring Hall to the school. Mr. Sell feels that after Kosovo's declaration of independence, a school of public service at AUK will make a contribution. The school is seeking $3 million in scholarships as part of a larger Kosovo package now before Congress. Kosovo "is a part of Europe that is nominally Islamic, but overwhelmingly pro-American. The US has been quite cautious in the money it gives. But we hope that is changing," Sell adds.
After Hall lost his senate seat in 2004, he ran into Sell, who lives nearby. Sell knew that Hall, a Briton turned naturalized American, had a longstanding interest in the Balkans. Hall was in one of the first tour groups to enter Albania in 1990 after it had been closed for decades. Sell, with other US diplomats, had worked with the Fund for the Reconstruction of Kosovo, made up of Albanians, to establish a nonprofit college in Pristina with $4 million left over from the monies collected from the diaspora.
Hall, who was going to be in Belgrade, agreed to pop down to Pristina. While the college was "this overstuffed house on a hill," as Hall recalls, he was "deeply impressed" with students. "They don't have the worldliness you find in so many American kids of this generation," he says.
Before 1999, Kosovar students lived in a virtual police state under the Serbs. After NATO intervention, they were going to schools that "suffered every conceivable form of setback. But Hall found "a degree of idealism and passion for learning that I had not expected.... [We] don't have the drugs and crime you would expect, either."
Hall taught public policy courses for two years, then agreed to be president in the summer of 2007. That meant living away from his wife, Jackie Wardell, who heads a staff of 80 at a community bank on the Maine coast that does a small business lending to women and minorities.
"We thought about it long and hard. It took a lot of searching," Hall says, adding that his administration's motto in working out knots and kinks in a highly sensitive locale is "to be diplomats – friends with everybody and allies of nobody."
"Kosovo has a population of incredible talent and energy; I wouldn't be here if I weren't optimistic," he says. Some of his biggest battles in what he calls "management by walking around" is raising faculty expectations of students: "I don't want to hear that we have to go easy because these are poor Kosovars. They have the talent to be every bit as good as RIT students."
Robert McCloud, an IT professor here on a Fulbright from Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, describes Kosovo youths as a bright and innovative generation who haven't been exposed to enough differing ways of thinking. But being isolated, he says, "They are much too self-taught." he says. In his graphics classes he tries to get them to expand into different types of software. "Everything is done in Photoshop. They buy the software for $1.50. So finally I tell them, don't show me any more Photoshop!"
For Hall, AUK's success is measured by the help it offers the new state. With a pedigree name (American University) and English fluency requirement, in gritty Pristina the school has a reputation as elite. Only about 20 percent of students are on scholarship, and the tuition is $4,000 a year, hefty by Kosovo standards. Still, an AUK degree is not "a passport out of town," Hall says.
Hall, who deeply loves Maine and its people, says he is giving AUK "three years, about right for this kind of commitment."

Happy International Women Day

Kosovo's women suffer

Stemming domestic violence and human trafficking remains a challenge in the newly independent nation.

By Tracy WilkinsonLos Angeles Times Staff Writer

March 10, 2008PRISTINA, KOSOVO — She purses her lips in a "tsk-tsk" when asked difficult questions. Questions about her life, about the husband who beats her, the father who denies her an inheritance and a place to live.Slightly hunchbacked, her thin frame barely fills the several layers of donated clothing she wears. At 26, she looks 15. She has three children and an elementary-school education. When she showed up at the door of a women's shelter here, purple bruises blotched her face and framed her shattered, crooked nose. Chunks of her hair had been ripped out."I've been beaten a lot," said Fatima. "They beat me so badly the last time, I could not care for my children." In the last couple of years, she says, she has spent more time at the shelter, hiding, than in her husband's house. It is only a slight exaggeration.Fatima is actually luckier than many women in Kosovo, a harsh region weighted by twin burdens of poverty and unenlightened tradition. A United Nations study in 2000 estimated that one-fourth of the female population of Kosovo suffered physical or psychological abuse; Kosovo police last year recorded 1,077 cases of domestic violence.Fatima and her children were able to escape to a shelter, one of a dozen or so that now operate here. It has given her refuge from the violent men of her family and an alternative to an even darker fate: being sold into the expansive networks that traffic women like chattel in this part of the world. But for every woman in Kosovo who is saved, an untold number do not make it, according to women's advocates and social workers.Dominated by ethnic Albanians, Kosovo broke away from Serbia last month, proclaiming itself an independent nation, with fervent backing from Washington. Among Kosovo's many challenges, from building state institutions to combating rampant corruption, is improving its historically unjust and often criminal treatment of women. Like much of the surrounding, rugged Balkans, Kosovo has long served as a notorious transit point for the international trafficking of women, mostly from Eastern Europe, who are forced into prostitution or slavery.After a brutal crackdown by Slobodan Milosevic in 1999, Kosovo came under the stewardship of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations. During the years since, Kosovo evolved from a transit point into both a source of and destination for trafficked women. Often, Kosovo officials and former guerrilla commanders were complicit in the lucrative trade -- and the resident international community, including peacekeepers and civilian consultants, its market. Unemployment problemThe question now is whether independence, which is still in an embryonic stage and not universally recognized, will result in a change of status for women and eradication of the trafficking networks. Or whether organized criminal gangs, with allies in the new government, will be given an even freer hand."The first thing our government must do, and they've promised a lot, is to fight unemployment. The violence is linked directly to economic conditions," said Naime Sherifa, director of the Center for the Protection of Women and Children in Pristina, the first such organization here. "People are very tired of being poor."Tired, she said, and ready to explode. Roughly half of Kosovo's generally young population is out of work; the World Bank and other experts believe it could take a decade to dramatically reduce unemployment. Poverty strains Kosovo's families, which tend to be large. Add to that the dislocations of war: Thousands of people were killed and entire villages razed, their residents forced to move to urban areas. There, many live in cramped conditions, disoriented, unsettled in an unfamiliar environment.The breakdown of family structure and the transfer of populations to cities created an anonymity in Kosovo society that did not exist before the war; as one consequence, it left women vulnerable to traffickers and other abuse, said Wanda Troszczynska, a Kosovo specialist with the New York-based Human Rights Watch.Women used to be relegated to restrictive lives at home, guarded behind the high-walled compounds that traditionally housed extended ethnic Albanian families, or clans. It wasn't freedom, but it was out of the reach of outside exploitation. Traffickers brought women from elsewhere, such as Moldova and Romania, initially to be shuttled to Italy or other parts of Europe and, after the war, to remain in Kosovo to "service" a growing international population.Eventually, more and more Kosovo women, ripped from their traditional home life, also fell prey to traffickers and found themselves lured by promises of work, marriage or their own cellphone, only to end up in seedy bars, strip joints and brothels.Need to enforce lawsIn their long march to prove themselves ready to run a state, Kosovo Albanians set up a police force under United Nations tutelage that gradually took up the mission of raiding bars and rescuing victims of sexual exploitation. In 2006, the Kosovo police conducted 99 raids, arrested 28 suspected traffickers and "identified" 50 victims, according to statistics provided by the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.By all accounts, the work by the Kosovo police is an improvement but targets only the tip of the iceberg.More insidious than the trafficking are the domestic abuse cases. Perhaps tens of thousands of women suffer violence at home or the denial of basic rights, according to human rights activists and social workers. Experts say the problem crosses ethnic lines -- Albanians, Serbs, Roma and others are victims -- and remains vastly underreported. Igballe Rogova, head of the Kosova Women's Network, an umbrella coalition of about 40 groups, said she was hopeful the government, with the independence issue more or less settled, could put into practice laws that exist on paper."Today we have really incredibly good mechanisms on gender equality," she told a European Parliament committee on women's issues in Brussels late last month. "We have a law on gender equality, we have an office on gender equality at the prime minister level and, in every ministry, gender equality officers. We are not happy with the implementation of these mechanisms, but we are very optimistic." Sherifa said laws grant women the rights to own and inherit property on the same terms as men. But it often does not happen that way.In the case of Fatima, for example, her father owns nearly nine acres of land, which he has divided among her brothers. But he refuses to give Fatima any, forcing her to live with her husband and children in her father-in-law's tiny house. Seven people live, cramped and unhappily, in the two-room shack.Both her husband and her father-in-law beat her, Fatima said. Her "offenses" ranged from asking for money to buy medicine for a sick child, or asking for food. Sometimes, she said, she goes days without eating. Fatima has ended up in the shelter three times in the last two years, each time after a beating so severe she could not stand the pain any longer.Haven for abusedThe shelter, run by Sherifa's organization, was the first one in Kosovo. It is a three-story house behind a gate on a quiet street of Pristina. Police patrol it regularly. (The Times was granted rare access to the shelter and its residents on the condition that neither the location nor the victims be identified. "Fatima" is a pseudonym.) The good news in Fatima's story is that when, bruised and bloodied, she called the police, they came. They took her to the shelter. She returned to the family after the men were briefly detained by the police and ordered not to touch her again. Now, however, it is clear the intervention has failed, Sherifa said, and she will look for a permanent place for Fatima and her children to live.More than anything, Fatima seems weary. "I just feel sorry for my children," she said. "They see all this violence all the time. I'm afraid it will affect them." The bad news is the shelters are full, unable to meet the demand; abusers are rarely prosecuted, witnesses too terrified to come forward.Said Sherifa: "This is something we, and the next generation, will have to work on."

Independence Pictures...

Delayed but not late ...

BOOYAH!!!

You go boy, Rücker!!!

UNMIK/PR/1725
Tuesday, 04 March 2008

UNMIK reasserts control over rail line in north of Kosovo

PRISTINA – UNMIK today reasserted control of the rail line between Zvecan/Zvečan and Leshak/Lešak in the north of Kosovo.

“The successful intervention of UNMIK Border Police today reverses the challenge to UNMIK’s authority that occurred yesterday when Serbian Railways illegally sent two of its trains south of Leshak/Lešak,” said Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Kosovo (SRSG) Joachim Rücker.

“Any movement of trains south of Leshak/Lešak by Serbian Railways is a clear challenge to UNMIK’s authority as well as a breach of the 2003 Memorandum of Understanding that Yugoslav Railways [now Serbian Railways] signed with UNMIK Railways [also called Kosovo Railways] and will not be tolerated,” the SRSG said.

Today at around 9:35am, Border Police at the train station in Leshak/Lešak explained to a representative of Serbian Railways that the train would not be permitted to travel south. Serbian Railways complied.

“UNMIK and its partners will continue to meet any challenges to law and order throughout Kosovo,” the SRSG said.

A little perspective ...

The Gospel of Jeremic

February 27, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor

One Nation, Indivisible
By VUK JEREMIC
Belgrade, Serbia

THE international system that has brought unprecedented prosperity to the world since 1945 is based on rules that apply without exception. This system is supposed to protect the basic, legitimate national interests of every country, whether rich or poor, strong or weak. Its binding principles include the sovereign equality of states, the respect for the territorial integrity and the inviolability of internationally recognized borders.

Yet on Feb. 17, the Serbian province of Kosovo, which has been under United Nations administration since 1999, unilaterally declared independence from my country. This illegal act has, unfortunately, been recognized by the Bush administration and some European countries including Britain, France and Germany. Others in Europe — including Greece, Romania and Spain — have withheld recognition, as have most other leading global and regional players, including Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Israel, Russia and South Africa.

As things stand, the number of countries that will recognize an independent Kosovo will plateau at around 40, leaving it unrecognized by a vast majority of the close to 200 members of the United Nations. This includes, of course, the Republic of Serbia.

A peaceful demonstration of close to half a million people in Belgrade last week condemned this act of illegal secession. Unfortunately, a few hundred hooligans attacked several embassies, including that of the United States, and looted stores; they even attacked my ministry. Our government has condemned these acts, and will prosecute the offenders.

The case against recognition is based not only on the Security Council’s 1999 resolution reaffirming Serbia’s sovereignty over Kosovo, but also founded on the view that the international system has, as a result of this hostile act by the Kosovo Albanians, become more unstable, more insecure and more unpredictable.

Here’s why. Recognizing the unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia legitimizes the doctrine of imposing solutions to ethnic conflicts. It legitimizes the act of unilateral secession by a provincial or other non-state actor. It transforms the right to self-determination into an avowed right to independence. It legitimizes the forced partition of internationally recognized, sovereign states.

It violates the commitment to the peaceful and consensual resolution of disputes in Europe. It supplies any ethnic or religious group that has a grievance against its capital with a playbook on how to achieve its ends. It even resurrects the discredited cold-war doctrine of limited sovereignty.

A historical injustice is being imposed on a European country that has overcome more obstacles since we democratically overthrew Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000 than most other nations have in a much longer time. Recognizing Kosovo means saying, in effect, that Serbian democracy must be punished because a tyrant — one who committed heinous deeds against the Kosovo Albanians in the 1990s — was left unpunished. Such misplaced revenge may make some feel better, but it will make the international system feel much worse.

To act out of a false moral imperative to right a supposed historical wrong will contribute neither to international security nor to the region’s prospects of European Union membership. It is time to take a step back and examine the damage done.

If we can find a creative way to step back from the abyss that is Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, we could not only salvage the credibility of the international system, but even strengthen it through a re-commitment to its basic principles. Some will say that it’s too late to put the genie back in the bottle. I don’t believe that’s true, because it’s never too late to forge a prosperous future for all stakeholders to share.

What is absolutely certain is that trust needs to be rebuilt and values must be reaffirmed. The way forward lies in coming together and securing an agreement between the two parties: a negotiated, compromise solution to Kosovo’s future status that addresses the legitimate right to broad self-governance for Kosovo’s Albanians, while preserving a democratic Serbia that is whole and free, integrated into Europe, and engaged with a world set aright through prudent statecraft.

The legitimacy of the international system hangs in the balance.

Vuk Jeremic is the foreign minister of Serbia.

Hey Ma, can you hear me? We are news again ... so is our distant cousin!!!

So, fires have become the protest weapon of choice for the "thugs" of Serbia. Are these really "thugs" or just a convenient labeling by both sides to understate the frustration of a large population in Serbia? Personally, I have no problem with people who want to vent their frustration ... nobody likes to give away power or their view of power willingly. So I sent out some emails to some people (non-US and non-Euro) and here are some advices they have for the protesting "thugs":

1. Wearing hoodies is not the chic fashion for true protesters. Otherwise it might be interpreted that you are not really sure of what you are protesting for and are more afraid for your jobs and getting arrested than for your cause. Did Che, Chavez or Mandela wear hoodies? Answer is NO!!!

2. While fires might be cute on tv news, they have this nasty habit of being uncontrollable atimes, as evidenced by the dead person from the US embassy fire. Perhaps try more modern technology.

3. Going back home in Belgrade for dinner and sleep after breaking open borders just seems plain lazy and shows lack of commitment. Here is a quote from a gal on a small island: "I am not in the military and even I will tell you that it's more effective to occupy any territory taken. Heading home for the night and then coming back to retake the same border is a waste of effort and has the potential to make you seem like the "boys" who cried wolf. For heaven's sake, occupy Kosovo already if you are so intent on taking it back."

.... and lose the cell phones on camera. Makes you look more like a drug dealer rather than a soldier for the heartland.


There you have it folks. From moi, here are a couple of news links that are interesting to read:

- The world's newest state

- Storming of embassy in Serbia sparks U.S. outrage (apparently, Kostunica apologized to the US but no one has apologised yet to the dead body found in the fire - martyr or moron?)

- Violence erupts on Kosovo-Serbia border (again!!!)

- Kosovo, controversially free at last

Stories ... Kosova

Taking a little break from the Independence euphoria, I started searching for stories and articles that might have been written about non-independence-related Kosovo matters (like the one below); considering there were tons of journalists here ... one or 2 might have been interested in other parts of life in Kosovo. It was a futile search. If you know of any, please send to me. As a bonus, I found this: Articles written when Kosovo was not famous...

It's 'Islam lite' as Kosovars shun extremist Muslim dogma
Faith in Islam can coexist with a fondness for a beer at the local in the country seen as Europe's bulwark against radicalisation

By William Kole
in Gnjilane, Kosovo

KASTRIOT Sadiku, 25, has a confession: like a good Muslim, he was near a mosque when Kosovo declared independence. But like a good Kosovar, he was just around the corner from it, sipping beer at his favourite pub. "In the entire Muslim world, I think that's probably something that can only happen here, where our religion doesn't interfere with the rest of our lives," he said.Much has been made of Kosovo's status as the world's newest mostly Muslim nation. But its secular government, religious leaders and faithful have carefully distanced themselves from the slightest hint of extremism.The fledgling Republic of Kosovo, they insist, embraces a decidedly laid-back version of Islam."Our Islam is 'lite' – like Coke Lite or Marlboro Light cigarettes," said Ilmi Krasniqi, an imam at one of five mosques in the eastern town of Gnjilane. "This is not Baghdad, and what goes on in Saudi Arabia cannot happen here."Agim Hyseni, the chief imam in Gnjilane, said Muslims in feverishly pro-United States Kosovo have distanced themselves from extremist ideology or acts. "The people here feel no empathy for those kind of acts," he said. "They know very well what terrorism is because they've suffered through so many terrorist acts."But if terrorism is a relative term in Kosovo, so is "Muslim".The Ottoman Turks imported Islam centuries ago, but it has npt saturated this society. Kosovo was Christian before, about 7 per cent of its ethnic Albanians are Catholics, and a large cathedral is being built in the heart of Pristina, the capital.The late president Ibrahim Rugova was fascinated with Roman Catholicism, and there were even unconfirmed reports after his death in 2006 that he had converted.Although the conflict pitted Albanian Muslims against Christian Orthodox Serbs, who consider Kosovo the cradle of their religion and national identity, it was a battle for turf – not a holy war."We've never had a Christian-Muslim conflict here," said Albulena Hoti, 20, strolling in Gnjilane beneath the flags of the United States, Britain and Germany – all among the first countries to recognise Kosovo after it declared independence on Sunday.Stephen Schwartz, the executive director of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism, a Washington-based think tank, contends that Kosovo will become a model of religious pluralism in Europe. "lbanian Islam is moderate, and constitutes a bulwark against radicalisation of European Muslims," he said."I don't think there's any other Muslim country in the world where there's so much Christian missionary activity that goes on undisturbed." Kosovo's conflict drew only a smattering of mujahideen – Islamic fighters from the Arab world – unlike the 1992-5 Bosnian war, where they came by the thousands to aid their Muslim brothers.Outside Gnjilane's main mosque, the crowd of young men included some with long, wiry beards. But they are quick to eschew the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam followed by al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden."I'm proud that our democratic and recognised country is first and foremost a very tolerant and secular state," said Fikret Morina, a 31-year-old Muslim tradesman. "The world has no reason to be afraid of us."

UNESCO Heritage Site???

... or perhaps UNICEF heritage site. Or no need at all if a dash is added in between to read: "Free-Kosova". One thing for sure, this wall was a darling for photo-journalism in Kosovo.

hahahaha ... e dua Kosova

Probably the most famous picture rounding Prishtina currently ...

REPUBLIC OF KOSOVA!!!

... told ya ... and the party is on.... please, be careful with the "happy shooting". (pics below were culled from the net; mine will come later)

I-DAY is Here!!!

Less than 2 hours away from the eventual announcement. I wish I could feed you a live video feed but I am not that tech savy ... It's a regional party and apparently, everyone is invited. Nice to know that Kosovars are actually immune to cold temperatures. I always suspected this but witnessed it several times last night with people in t-shirts when I thought the cold would break off my c***. I have tons of pics and will upload them for y'all after the celebrations. No politics talk today. I just want to be happy for a people who seem happy.

Congrats KOSOVA!!!

Independence is in the air ....

... and the ladies of Prishtina still look as hot as ever :)

In case you are not aware, we all expect some sort of proclamation of independence this weekend. Many are betting on Sunday 17 Feb (night). I have my money on tonight (early morning tomorrow) but do not pay attention to me as I ALWAYS lose these bets. Either way, K becomes a republic as from next week. hmmmm ...

Of course, that will require a change in the name of this blog and I might need to apply for immigrant status. People are excited, flags are flying, drinks are being offered for free (well, that has always been true for cute stuff like me ... ahem!), and many international people are fretting (not all though). BTW, please, could all fob journalists and their lunch dates try not to be so annoyingly loud in resturants?!? We thank you for the petro-dollars you are spending in Pristina though.

Google Kosovo/Kosova and you will find more news that you can digest and hold your horses, a movie will be produced about these days in case this is not exciting enough for you.

oh! I lost already ...

This is fresh off the rolls, folk: Agenda for I-Day

Agenda "D-Day", Times in CET

Independence Declaration

17th February 2008

10:00 Prime Ministers leads off from Government to Parliament- hands over the request for extraordinary Parliament Session

11:00 Prime Minister makes public the request for extraordinary session of the Parliament

12:00 Assembly Presidency Meeting

13:30 Meeting of the Parliamentary Groups

15:00 Plenary Session of Kosova Assembly

18:00 Statement by three leaders at Hotel Grand MEDIA CENTER

18:30 Hoist of Independence Obelisk in front of the Youth Palace in Prishtina

19:00 Kosova Philharmonic Concert Hall 1 October

20:00 Concert in Prishtina Square

22:50 President and Prime Minister address the masses

23:00 Fireworks displayed at four different parts of Prishtina