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Prague- Some one hundred people with Czech and Serbian flags today gathered in protest against Kosovo's declaration of independence in Prague's centre. Organiser Ivan Hadrava originally expected a thousand people to arrive at the demonstration at Palacky Square, the Prague "Speakers' Corner." The participants are to sign a petition which they will hand to Serbia's embassy in Prague. Czech diplomacy has not yet recognised Kosovo's independence. Prague is interested in good relations with Serbia, Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said today. Schwarzenberg said previously the Czech Republic would recognise Kosovo only when a large majority of EU countries does so. Kosovo...

WHEN THE Great War comes, said old Bismarck, it will come out of "some damn fool thing in the Balkans." On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip shot the archduke and heir to the Austrian throne Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, setting in motion the train of events that led to the First World War. In the spring of 1999, the United States bombed Serbia for 78 days to force its army out of that nation's cradle province of Kosovo. The Serbs were fighting Albanian separatists of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). And we had no more right to bomb Belgrade than...

The Environmental Court in Växjö has banned a woman from smoking in her own garden, Sydsvenkan reports. The 49-year-old single mother is enraged by the decision but says that she will obey the ruling to avoid having to pay a fine. Earlier this year, The Local reported on the case of a lawyer with an aversion to smoke who sued his neighbour for lighting up in her own back garden. The case eventually ended up at the Environmental Court (Miljödomstolen), which last week sent a delegation to the woman's home. But the woman, from Åkarp in southern Sweden, refused to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush will meet July 1-2 at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. The two will have several meaty items on their plate, including the planned U.S. missile defense shield in Central Europe and Russia's threat to withdraw from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. The main dish, however, will be Kosovo -- again. This issue has been on the table since 1999, when the United States and its NATO allies, angered over Serbian behavior in Kosovo, ignored Russian objections and waged a 60-day air war against Yugoslavia. The...

<p>UN police in Kosovo have fired tear gas during clashes with ethnic Albanians protesting in the capital Pristina against a UN plan on the fate of the breakaway Serbian province.</p> <p>A Reuters reporter saw at least one person wounded as protesters waving sticks tried to break through a police barricade and were met with tear gas. UN armoured personnel carriers advanced through the crowd, which began to disperse.</p>

SHEIK Taj Aldin Alhilali has been told not to bother coming back to Australia if he doesn't like his adopted home or its people. The controversial Muslim leader has again upset many Australians by telling an Egyptian television show that Muslims were more entitled to be in Australia than those with convict heritage. On the program, he also reiterated his view that the furore which engulfed him when he likened women to uncovered meat was a conspiracy and that Australian courts were anti-Muslim. Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone today told the sheik to respect Australia or stay away. "Australians can be...

THE Federal Government says it is powerless to ban a Muslim group calling for Australia to be taken over as part of an Islamic superstate. Attorney General Phillip Ruddock said today there was not enough evidence to ban the Hizb ut-Tahrir group despite its continuing call for Australia to become part of a Caliphate or "Khilafah". The group, already banned across the Middle East, the United Kingdom and Germany - will host a Sydney conference this month to promote an Islamic takeover. A conference advertisement posted on internet site youtube.com shows crowds of Muslims marching, praying and protesting to dramatic...

A MELBOURNE Muslim leader says two students expelled for urinating and spitting on a Bible, before setting it alight, committed an "immature prank". Two students were expelled from the East Preston Islamic College, and another boy was suspended, after the incident last week at a school camp near Bacchus Marsh, News Ltd has reported. The school has apologised and also brought in a senior imam to counsel 650 Muslim students to respect Christianity and the Bible. Islamic Council of Victoria spokesman Yasser Soliman blamed media reports about the desecration of the Koran. "They've probably seen things on TV where soldiers...

A new Serbian cd-rom has been brought out, which serves as a foil to political arguments in favour of a self-governing province. Is it educational or simply propaganda? When the Kosovan status negotiations came to a virtual standstill in February 2006, a team of three volunteers decided to devise a cd-rom entitled “Kosovo 2006: The Making of a Compromise”. On its cover is a cracked egg, enthroned upon an egg cup, each half of which is decorated by the flags of Serbia and Albania respectively. The cd-rom, which has been edited in English, was developed under the patronage of a...

Bosses at a Stockholm hospital have asked a nurse called Jesus to change his name, after concerns that it might cause confusion among patients. According to Jesus, an auxiliary nurse at Huddinge hospital, his superiors were worried that patients told "Jesus will be coming soon ," might get the wrong idea. "If they thought that Jesus was coming they might believe that they were already dead," the nurse told The Local. Jesus, who will now use his middle name Manuel, said he didn't have a problem with the change. "I understand why they wanted me to use my middle name,"...

TORONTO, March 13 /CNW/ - Agim Ceku, who is alleged to have led an unprovoked 1993 military attack on Canadian Peacekeepers in the Medak Pocket region of Croatia, has been chosen by Albanians to replace the outgoing prime minister of the U.N.-administered southern Serbian province of Kosovo.The Medak offensive, allegedly planned by Ceku, is also known as the "Medak massacre". This name is entrenched in the minds of many Canadian Armed Forces personnel as Canada's largest military battle since the Korean War. Four Canadians were wounded in the clash that left nearly 30 Croatian soldiers dead.According to reputable sources, Agim...

Sweden's government is to send three young Swedish Muslims to Egypt and Jordan, with the aim of counteracting the image of Sweden as anti-Islamic. The government says negative images of Sweden have been fostered in the Arab world following the publication in Denmark of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. The trio will talk about how Muslims live in Sweden, foreign minister Laila Freivalds told newspaper Sydsvenskan. They will travel round for nine days, talking to students, politicians and opinion formers about their own lives. The trip will start next week. "There is a need to exchange experiences," said Freivalds during...

Authorities in Denmark and Bosnia arrest ten people suspected of plotting terror attacks on Western embassies in Sarajevo and uncover a cache of explosives and other weapons, along with a videotape showing the suspects making bombs and asking God for forgiveness for the “sacrifice” they are about to make. Authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Denmark have arrested eight teenagers in the last ten days, on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks on Western embassies in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. ISN Security Watch intelligence and police sources in Bosnia say the eight suspects - all between the ages of 16 and...

Leader of an ethnic Albanian political party in Macedonia, Arben Xhaferi, said in an interview for an Albanian language newspaper Express, that Serbian province of Kosovo, along with parts of southern Serbia and parts of Macedonia should unite with Albania. Xhaferi was visiting political allies in Kosovo's capital Pristina where he made these comments. "The formation of economically unsustainable and non-functional states is on the rise, which causes an increasingly growing social discontent. Why should the unification of Kosovo and Albania therefore be prevented if their citizens are in favor of it? The unification would preclude future economic crises," Xhaferi...

The United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague has created a storm of controversy by letting Kosovo's former Prime Minister - charged with torture, murder and ethnic cleansing - resume political life in Kosovo. Ramush Haradinaj, who had already been allowed to return to the province pending trial, was told two weeks ago that he could take up politics again. Days later, that move was halted temporarily by chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte but, according to diplomatic sources, the court is now expected to rule on the issue 'within days'. In a strongly worded submission, the prosecution told the...

An extraordinary chain of online messages, from a girl in a small Swedish town to a young man in America and then to a Stockholm-based news site has led to the emergency services rescuing a girl who had overdosed on painkillers. One evening a couple of weeks ago, the staff at The Local were leaving the office for the day. But just as he was shutting down his computer, managing director Paul Rapacioli received an email. "It said 'Please read and take seriously' in the subject box," said Rapacioli. "At first I assumed it was junk mail - we get...

SKORENOVAC, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) -- Col. Zoltan Dani was behind one of the most spectacular losses ever suffered by the U.S. Air Force: the 1999 shooting down of an F-117A stealth fighter. Now, for the first time since that night six years ago, the former Serbian commander of an anti-aircraft missile battery has consented to speak publicly to Western media about the circumstances surrounding the unprecedented downing of a U.S. stealth plane. The hit on the radar-evading plane on March 27, 1999, during the 78-day NATO campaign over Serbia, triggered doubts not only about the F-117s, but also about the entire...

Kosovo is often held up as a test case for the concept of “humanitarian” intervention. But as Iraq spirals into chaos, diplomats and leaders everywhere are again asking themselves if it is ever appropriate for alliances of nations or the international community as a whole to intervene when a sovereign country appears unable or unwilling to defend its citizens from genocide, war crimes, or ethnic cleansing. At the centre of this debate is the so-called doctrine of the “responsibility to protect”. As the United Nations-appointed ombudsperson in Kosovo for the past five years, I have had the unique opportunity to...

Turkish expert Gözde Kilic Yasin from the National Security Strategies Research Centre (TUSAM), Balkans Research Department analyses the crisis situation in Macedonia on the pages of the Turkish Strateji Dergisi magazine. Albanian terrorism in the country is not fading despite granting the Albanians more rights to the detriment of the Macedonians. AIA brings a translation of the article… For the last three months, Macedonia discussed the apprehending of the elusive Albanian Agim Krasniqi, the perpetrator of several terror blasts and bombings. Krasniqi occupied Kondova, a little village near the capital city of Skopje with his gang of 80 (according to...

For more than a year now internal divisions and strife have plagued the Islamic Community in Macedonia, the organized body of that country’s Muslim faithful. As difficult as it is to get the full picture in the hushed up atmosphere of the Islamic Community, there is evidence of a schism. Beatings, shootings, hostage holding, threats, serious warnings by foreign intelligence experts — the indication is that a radical wing led by a controversial ex-mufti in Skopje, Zenon Berisha, is trying to take over of the leadership of the community...