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U.S. State Department Unable to Deny Reports on Ahtisaari Corruption Excerpt From July 13 Press Briefing .... QUESTION: One more on the same issue. According to reports, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon already started an investigation about these payments, confirmed the existence by a report prepared for him by the German intelligence agency BND unit assigned to the UN mission in Kosovo. Any comment on it? MR. CASEY: Mr. Lambros, you’re free to go ask the UN what investigations it has or hasn’t started. [...] If you’d like to pursue shadows, feel free to talk to the UN about...

Last week’s summit between President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin resulted in no "grand bargain" that could pave the way for the birth of an independent Kosovo. The momentary frustration for U.S. diplomacy of leaving unresolved final status of the UN-administered province may, however, prove to be a blessing in disguise. While the shortcomings of the Ahtisaari Plan have been analyzed and the dangerous precedent which would be set by redrawing borders with or without UN Security Council approbation well-known, consideration must be given to the overwhelming impact on the international community that Kosovo’s statehood would have....

On July 8, 2007 the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army, Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës or UÇK) war veterans issued an announcement warning the international community and especially the United Nations (UN) not to interfere the process of recognizing Kosovo’s independence. The KLA announcement specifically said that the Albanian leaders of Kosovo should not accept more suspensions (delays) or new negotiations because these would lead to new hostilities. If their demands were not accepted, then the KLA veterans warned that they would have to take action as KLA soldiers and honor the oath of their national heroes. The announcement came while the...

President Bush, enthusiastically welcomed as the first U.S. president in this former communist nation, served notice Sunday he is running out of patience with Russia's objections to independence for neighboring Kosovo. "Sooner rather than later you've got to say 'Enough's enough - Kosovo is independent,'" Bush said, telling Albanians what they wanted to hear. He said independence was a certainty. Nearing the end of an eight-day trip, Bush got a hero's reception in this desperately poor country, still struggling to recover from being cut off from the rest of the world for four decades under the harsh rule of dictator...

US President George W. Bush, leaving behind thousands of anti-Bush protesters in Rome, got a hero's welcome in Albania on Sunday as he became the first American president to visit this tiny impoverished nation. When Mr. Bush arrived on his brief stop in Tirana, the hills overlooking the capital boomed as military cannons fired a 21-gun salute to the president. Thousands of people gathered in the downtown square on a brilliantly sunny day to see the president and first lady Laura Bush

TIRANA, Albania - (AP) The Albanian army began its sixth troop rotation in Iraq Sunday with a 120-troop army contingent that is to replace soldiers who have served there since April, the Defense Ministry said. The army unit is to serve a six-month mission in Iraq under U.S.-led command serve in a non-combat role, mainly patrolling the airport in the Iraqi city of Mosul. Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu, army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Pellumb Qazimi and U.S. Ambassador Marcie Ries were present at the ceremony at an army base before the troops departed for Iraq. Albania, a predominantly Muslim...

A sixth, 120-strong contingent from Albania was seen off Sunday as they prepared to join coalition forces in Mosul. Praising their mission as a noble one, Defence Minister Fatmir Mediu reminded them of their contribution to global security. A sixth Albanian army contingent bound for duty in Iraq was seen off Sunday (9 October) during a departure ceremony at a command centre north of Tirana. Addressing the peacekeepers, Defence Minister Fatmir Mediu assured them their mission is a noble one. "The important aspect of your mission consists of your priority: to contribute to the security of the peace in the...

TIRANA, Albania, Sept. 26, 2006 – Albanian soldiers will remain in Iraq until the job is done, the country’s defense minister promised Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld here today. With plans to thank Albanian leaders for their support in the global war on terror and to meet with defense ministers from southeastern European nations, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld arrived here this afternoon after a brief visit to Montenegro. “Let me declare here, Mr. Secretary, that the Albanian armed forces will stay on the side of the American armed forces in Iraq until the mission will be over,” Albanian Defense...

NEW YORK -- World War II was over, and Anna Kohen, then a small child, was walking with her mother in Vlora, Albania, when a Muslim woman ran toward them, crying and calling her mother by an unfamiliar name. The women hugged and cried. Later, her mother explained that the woman was from a village where she, Kohen's father and other Jews had hidden during the Nazi occupation before Kohen was born. To protect themselves, Kohen's mother and father had taken Muslim names. "Everyone in the village knew they were Jews, but no one betrayed them," Kohen recalled Wednesday as...

By Sgt. Marshall Thompson, 207th MPAD LSA DIAMONDBACK, Iraq - When a Soldier from Fort Polk, La., arrived in Iraq for a one-year tour, the last thing he expected to find was a second family from a distant country.

Late last month, Albania announced it would increase its number of peacekeeping troops in Iraq.

Albanian politicians are helping Bin Laden SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM Wednesday, November 17, 1999 [Emphasis added] LONDON -- Islamic fundamentalists as well as several leading politicians in Albania are believed to be helping Saudi billionaire fugitive Osama Bin Laden find a new place of refuge, Arab sources said this week. The sources said Western intelligence agencies believe Bin Laden is in contact with supporters in Albania and Kosovo in an attempt to find a new refuge amid heavy United States pressure on the Taliban ruling faction in Afghanistan to surrender Bin Laden. For the United States, the sources said, the...

Terror Arrests in Fort Dix Plot FORT DIX, N.J. May 8, 2007 - Six ethnic Albanians have been arrested in a plot to storm the Fort Dix installation in Burlington County. Five of the suspects were arrested in Cherry Hill. They will be arraigned later today in federal court. Officials say it will happen in either in Camden or Newark. Investigators say the suspects planned to use automatic weapons to storm the base and kill solders. The men were lured into a secret meeting to purchase AK-47s from an arms dealer, who was secretly cooperating with the FBI. Officials say...

Next week the United Nations begins consideration of a U.N. negotiator's proposal to give supervised independence to Kosovo, the predominatly ethnic-Albanian province that is now part of Serbia. Though the province's independence is not assured, many Serbs have begun to disinter the bodies of relatives in Kosovo and transfer them to burial grounds elsewhere in Serbia. Sabina Castelfranco has this VOA report from Rome. The last time the dead left Kosovo in any great number was 1999. Back then the bodies were those of ethnic-Albanians killed in attacks by Serb forces. The killing only stopped when NATO launched an aerial...

JURIST Guest Columnist Anthony D'Amato of Northwestern University School of Law says that creating an independent multi-ethnic state in Kosovo would almost certainly be a human rights disaster for the 200,000 Serbs living there... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The United States is on the verge of pushing a resolution through the UN Security Council declaring Kosovo to be an independent multi-ethnic state. The result will almost certainly be a human rights disaster for the 200,000 Serbs living in that tormented land. A few days ago at a breakfast meeting in Chicago, the speaker was asked whether independence for Kosovo was a "done deal."...

Tirana, March 7, 2007 (AENews) – Protests against Greek soldiers' anti-Albanian song is rising in Albania while politicians have called for a contained and calm response. In Durres and Elbasan, protesters burned Greek flags while the entire population is bewildered by the level of hatred and violence in the text of Greek Soldiers' song. A private video showing Greek soldiers singing "We are gone a make shoe-strings with Albanian guts" was published last week on the Internet, then was commented by the Greek and Albanian media. Foreign Relations committee in the Albanian Parliament called Thursday on the population to stop...

BELGRADE/PRISTINA/TIRANA/BERLIN(Own report) - Serbia should relinquish its southern province of Kosovo and place itself under the patronage of its former enemies. That is the gist of the offer which the German presidency made to the Belgrade government last Monday. As a reward for the renunciation of Kosovo, negotiations would be opened with the EU for an association agreement. The territorial self-amputation, which Berlin expects in the name of the EU, would break the Serbian constitution and create a dangerous precedent of forced secession of territories by appeals to "self determination" from violent minorities. Organisations connected with German foreign policy have...

The Wall Street Journal, Monday, September 9, 1985, pp.1,18 By Anthony M. DeStefano NEW YORK - The informant who visited the office of U.S. Attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani [current Mayor of New York City] last December had a chilling story to tell: A defendant in a drug racketeering case that Mr. Giuliani was prosecuting was offering $400.000 to anyone who would kill a certain assistant U.S. attorney and a federal drug enforcement agent. For 45 minutes Mr. Giuliani and his chief assistant, William Tendy, listened to and evaluated the tale. Five other informants later corroborated it. The threatened lawmen-assistant prosecutor...

Two people have died overnight following clashes in Kosovo between ethnic Albanian protesters and police. They were among four people seriously wounded when United Nations and local police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse some 3,000 protesters...

PRISTINA, Serbia, Jan 30 (Reuters) - NATO is prepared for the worst-case scenario of regional violence in the event Serbs in north Kosovo revolt over an imminent decision on the fate of the province, the NATO commander there said on Tuesday. The 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo is expected to win some form of independence from Serbia this year. German Lieutenant-General Roland Kather echoed concerns expressed by analysts that Serbs in the north could revolt, triggering a revival of conflicts in Serbia's Presevo Valley to the east and Macedonia to the south, where Albanians fought government forces in 2001...