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Bosnian Muslim leader weapons smuggler Sep 23, 2009 The leader of the Bosnian Muslim extremist political party, the SDA, is also the main kernel in the Bosnian Muslim network of weapons smuggling says Bosnian Muslim expert on security and terrorism Dzevad Galijasevic. Bakir Izetbegovic, the leader of the SDA and a son of the late extremist Muslim leader, Alija Izetbegovic, who invited al-Qaeda into Bosnia, is the main organizer in smuggling of illegal weapons into Bosnia says Galijasevic and notes that the former SDA leader Hasan Cengic, who is very close to the radicals in Iran, control the black market...

Israel opposes Kosovo recognition, urges talks Sep 16, 2009 Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Serbia Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic have agreed that new negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina is the only way to achieve a long-term and stable solution for the future status of Kosovo. Lieberman said that direct talks is the only way that a comprehensive peace in the region can be achieved. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, left, and Serbia Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic meet in Serbia September 16, 2009. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, left, and Serbia Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic meet in Serbia September 16,...

SUBOTICA -- Vandals have knocked down a statue of Martin Luther located in central Subotica. The monument was erected less than two years ago. Vice President of the Evangelistic Church Municipality Rudolf Vajs said that he believed that more than one person was responsible, because the monument weighed 300 kilograms. “The police have been informed and have investigated the scene. An investigation is ongoing and we hope that it will be successful and the culprits will be caught,” Vajs said. He said that Subotica had sent a negative message to the world with this act, adding that it was important...

From Alex M. in Belgrade, Serbia:For all my friends abroad - those of you who wish to learn about Belgrade or are planning to come for a visit, and for my countrymen abroad who feel nostalgic for home, I have written my own guide to Belgrade. A lot of effort went into this. I appreciate you taking the time to read this. Read it slowly, and try to imagine the pictures as you are reading. Enjoy!NOTE from Ravnagora: I have included the photos in Alex's piece and they have been taken from various sources on the internet. ***** According to...

Washington may relocate the controversial missile defense system planned for Eastern Europe to the Balkans, Turkey or Israel, a Polish newspaper reports. The U.S. plan included 10 long-range interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic. That plan will almost certainly be scrapped, Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza reports. Washington is now looking for alternative locations including in the Balkans, Israel and Turkey, the daily says, citing U.S. administration officials and lobbyists based in Washington. "The signals that the generals in the Pentagon are sending are absolutely clear: as far as missile defense is concerned, the current...

A 23-year-old U.S. man was found guilty Wednesday by a federal jury in Atlanta, Ga. of supporting terror groups by sending videos of U.S. landmarks abroad and plotting “violent jihad” in Europe. Ehsanul Islam Sadequee could face up to 60 years in prison after he was convicted on four counts of providing material support to terrorism. Sadequee and his co-conspirators developed relationships over the Internet and maintained contact online, along with other “supporters of violent jihad”, among other places in Bosnia as well. U.S. prosecutors said Sadequee, during his stay in Bangladesh, “began to conspire more closely” with Tsouli and...

Plaque in Pranjani dedicated to the Halyard Mission on September 12, 2004. The plaque next to it reflects the same inscription in the Serbian language. Photo courtesy of OSS Halyard Mission radioman Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian Serb soldiers in front of the Halyard Mission monument first dedicated in September of 2004,in Pranjani, Serbia August 15, 2009. Photo courtesy of Lt. Col. John Cappello Ohio National Guard troops that are in Serbia doing work on schools in South Serbia. They are working with Serb soldiers, some of which are also in the photo. The older folks are those who participated in assisting...

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Serbian President Boris Tadic on Thursday agreed to establish a strategic partnership between the two countries. During their talks held Thursday afternoon, the two heads of state exchanged views on building and developing a strategic partnership and reached a broad consensus. Chinese President Hu Jintao (L) welcomes visiting Serbian President Boris Tadic in Beijing, capital of China, on Aug. 20, 2009.(Xinhua/Ma Zhancheng)Hu highly valued Chinese relations with Serbia, saying the two peoples have traditional friendship and no matter what happened in the world, the relations between the two countries have developed healthily. He put forward...

Albanians block EU organ harvest probe Aug 12, 2009 The European Union (EU)’s efforts to probe the Serb allegations that Serb civilians had been kidnapped in Kosovo in 1999, taken to Albania and had organs removed ran into obstacles in Albania where angry local people blocked the investigation, local media reported Tuesday. A family in northern Albania on Monday refused to meet the Council of Europe team to investigate the Serb allegations that their house had been used as a makeshift clinic to harvest organs from Serbs abducted during the 1999 conflict between the Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo....

Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Speaker At Hizb Al-Tahrir Conference In Lebanon Calls For Jihad In Cyprus, Balkans, Caucasus At the annual conference of the Islamist organization Hizb Al-Tahrir in Lebanon, on the subject of jihad, organization member Sheikh Adnan Mizyan said yesterday that in light of the fact that many countries of Muslims are today under occupation, including Palestine, Iraq, Cyprus, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, and Kashmir, the Islamic ummah must take jihad measures in order to free them. Source: Al-Safir, Lebanon, July 20, 2009 Posted at: 2009-07-20

BELGRADE, Serbia -- Serbia's war crimes court convicted a Croatian Serb on Tuesday for his role in the 1991 torture and killing of 200 Croatian prisoners at a pig farm during the Balkan conflicts. Damir Sireta was sentenced after a six-month trial to serve 20 years in prison for war crimes. He was the 14th former paramilitary convicted for the killings near the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar during Croatia's 1991-95 war for independence from the former Serb-led Yugoslavia - one of the worst massacres of POWs during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Serb paramilitary units seized the victims...

BRUSSELS, Belgium, June 11, 2009 – With NATO defense ministers having agreed to reduce the alliance’s military presence in Kosovo from 14,000 to 10,000 troops by the year’s end, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today urged that the reduction take place as an organized process. On the first day of an alliance defense ministers conference here, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer announced the force reduction today, noting that Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe, has proposed moving toward a deterrent presence in Kosovo that will require fewer troops in the country. Gates said...

It was the best moment of Carl Walpusk's life. He was 19 years old, and the plane he was flying over Nazi-occupied Serbia had just been shot down. He jumped from the aircraft and pulled his parachute cord. Feeling the chute open, relief hit him. He realized he would make it. U.S. Airman Carl Walpusk and his wife Virginia. // Photo courtesy of Milana "Mim" Bizic "When you're that high up, you can't even tell you're moving," said Walpusk, now in his eighties. "But the last couple hundred feet, I tried to climb back up my chute." Despite his efforts,...

US Vice President Joe Biden offered Belgrade a clean slate in ties here Wednesday promising Serbia would not have to recognise the independence of breakaway Kosovo. "The United States does not, I emphasise, does not expect Serbia to recognise the independence of Kosovo," Biden told a joint media conference with Serbia's pro-Western president Boris Tadic. "It is not a precondition for our relationship or our support for Serbia becoming part of the European Union." Biden, the most senior US official to visit Serbia since Jimmy Carter came to the then Yugoslav republic as president in 1980, said the US administration...

Joe Biden, the US Vice-President, departed Washington for the Balkans on Monday, seeking to press a "reset button" with Serbia after relations plummeted over Kosovo's independence last year. More broadly, a US administration official said Mr Biden hoped to demonstrate President Barack Obama's commitment to engage with a region where Washington invested heavily in the past to end wars in the 1990s and promote stability. The Vice-President will be the highest-level US official to visit Serbia since Jimmy Carter who when he was president toured what was then Yugoslavia in June 1980. Mr Biden will spend Tuesday in Bosnia-Herzegovina –...

Washington D.C. — On May 5, 2009, Washington, D.C.’s City Council passed a resolution recognizing April 22 as the Nation’s Capital Jasenovac Day. The Resolution, prepared by RAS, the International Serbian Organization, and sponsored by the Chairman of the City Council, is to educate the residents of Washington, D.C. about the holocaust that happened at Jasenovac death camp during WWII. “This resolution signifies that the Capital City of the United States, home of the US Holocaust Museum, honors the innocent victims of the Ustasha Nazi regime, that their suffering and deaths will not be forgotten, diminished or revised, and that...

‘In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe?’ Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands, at the Four Seasons, New York, introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem... The speech was sponsored by the Hudson Institute on September 25. Dear friends, Thank you very much for inviting me. Great to be at the Four Seasons. I come from a country that has one season only: a rainy season that starts January 1st and ends December 31st. When we have three sunny days in...

If there ever was any doubt about who is primarily responsible for the decline of the Big Three automakers, it disappeared when the Italian automaker Fiat demanded major union concessions to ride to Chrysler's rescue. Big Labor is big indeed in Italy, where pensions alone gobble up 14 percent of GDP and massive strikes are common. Coming to America from this environment, Fiat executives recognized the UAW for what it is: a parasite that sucks the vitality out of the American automaking genius of which Chrysler once was a major contributor. So the UAW had to make significant concessions to...

Note: The following text is a quote: Three Brothers Sentenced to Life Prison Terms for Conspiring to Kill U.S. Soldiers WASHINGTON -- Three brothers who were convicted of plotting to kill members of the U.S. military during an armed attack on a military base were sentenced today to life prison terms, Ralph J. Marra Jr., Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey; David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; and Janice K. Fedarcyk, Special Agent in Charge of the Philadelphia Division of the FBI, announced. U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler sentenced Dritan Duka and Shain Duka...

BELGRADE, Serbia — A war crimes court on Thursday found four Serbian former policemen guilty of the massacre of 48 Kosovo Albanians and sentenced them to up to 20 years in prison. The Serbian court's judges said the victims of the worst single massacre of civilians during the 1998-99 Kosovo war included 14 children, two infants, a pregnant woman and a 100-year-old woman. After a three-year trial, two of the men were sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in jail, one to 15 years and another to 13 years. All the defendants had denied the charges. Three other men...