Free Republic

AMMAN, Jordan Rebels including al-Qaeda-linked fighters gained control of a Christian village northeast of the capital Damascus, Syrian activists said Sunday. Government media provided a dramatically different account of the battle suggesting regime forces were winning. Independent information has been nearly impossible to come by in the 2.5-year-old conflict in Syria. Maaloula, a scenic mountain community, is known for being one of the few places in the world where residents still speak the ancient Middle Eastern language of Aramaic. The rebel advance into the area this week was spearheaded by the Jabhat al-Nusra, or Nusra Front, exacerbating fears among Syrians...

BELGRADE, February 27 (RIA Novosti) - The UN mission in Kosovo has drafted a plan to hand over power to a new European Union mission and the local government, the UN mission press secretary said on Wednesday. The EU has announced plans to deploy a 2,000-strong police, justice and civil administration mission in the Albanian-dominated region, which declared independence from Serbia on February 17, to replace the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). "Given from the European Union's statement that Brussels is prepared to take on some authority in Kosovo along with local government bodies, the UN mission...

Things look promising in Kosovo, despite the tender ministrations of the United Nations. -------------------------------------------------- Prishtina, Kosovo SOME OF THE FRESHEST and most distinctive voices of "new Europe"--Donald Rumsfeld's term for the former-Communist states that have joined the reunited continent as ardent supporters of capitalism, democracy, and other conservative values--are sounding off in a place so new, in its own way, that less than a decade ago most Americans had never heard of it: Kosovo. Isolated by the Albanian language, an ancient Indo-European tongue with no obvious relatives, as well as by the long-standing hostility of their rapacious neighbors, the Kosovars...