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After reading the Personal Health column on Nov. 27 on preventing geriatric suicide, Gloria C. Phares, a 93-year-old retired teacher in Missouri, wrote: “I was healthy until 90, and then Boom! Atrial fibrillation; deaf, can’t enjoy music or hear a voice unless 10 inches from my ear; fell, fractured my thigh and am now a cripple; had a slight stroke the day after my beloved husband died after 61 years of marriage. “I’ve lived a happy life, but from here on out it’s all downhill. Is there any point in my living any longer? I’m not living — just existing....

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Kosovo envoy Frank Wisner believes the time is right to implement Martti Ahtisaari's blueprint. The plan, rejected by Belgrade and blocked by Moscow at the UN last spring, in Wisner's words, is about a perspective of the province's independence. "We can't go on like this forever. During the past two years, first with President Ahtisaari and then with the Troika negotiations, we tried to find a solution based on compromise. But it transpired this was impossible," the U.S. diplomat told Belgrade daily Ve�ernje Novosti in Washington. "The sides remained firmly in their positions. In my opinion, there...

'There is discrimination linked to the nature of the state. Israel says simply 'I am a Jewish state' and that creates discrimination with regard to non-Jews." Once again last week, the Jewish people and the world were treated to the opinion of the Palestinian leadership - the "moderate" one with which a peace process is supposedly being conducted - that the State of Israel must not be allowed to exist as a Jewish state. The speaker who delivered the words above last Wednesday in Jerusalem was not PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat, who famously said a month ago that Palestinians wouldn't...

HE threat of a new war in the Balkans looms after the collapse of talks between Serbs and Albanians over the future of Kosovo. Three days of negotiations overseen by international mediators broke down yesterday, with both sides refusing to budge over their claims to the breakaway province. Kosovo's Albanian majority has threatened to declare independence unilaterally. Serbia, which regards Kosovo as the cradle of its civilisation, said this could cause unrest across the fragile Balkans, still scarred from the conflict of the 1990s. "The peace of the Balkans is very much at stake," said Frank Wisner, the UN envoy...

Only independent Kosovo can stabilize Balkans: Rice By Paul Taylor NEW YORK (Reuters) - Only independence for Kosovo can bring stability in the Balkans, and Europe should join the United States in backing statehood for the breakaway Serbian province, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday. In an interview with Reuters, she said talks brokered by the European Union, Russia and the United States had some chance of achieving an "amicable outcome" even if Kosovo and Serbia did not agree on the final status of the territory. "But there's going to be an independent Kosovo. We're dedicated to that....

Washington/Belgrade, 23 July(AKI) – Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leaders were due to meet in Washington on US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice on Monday to try and clarify the diplomatic impasse over the breakaway province's independence from Serbia. The Kosovan leaders and Rice will try and chart a way forward on the province's future status after the United Nations Security Council last Friday withdrew a draft resolution granting Kosovo internationally supervised independence. After repeated efforts to push through a resolution based on the proposal by UN special negotiator Martti Ahtisaari, western powers, which favour independence, decided to shift the problem to...

President Bush, getting a hero's welcome as the first American president to visit this Balkan nation, said Sunday that there cannot be endless dialogue about achieving independence for neighboring Kosovo. "Sooner rather than later you've got to say `Enough's enough. Kosovo's independent,'" Bush said during a news conference with the prime minister of this tiny, impoverished country. Bush's press for statehood was aimed at Russia and others that object to Kosovo's independence. Standing alongside Prime Minister Sali Berisha, Bush said any extension of talks on Kosovo must have "certain independence" as the goal. In response to Albania's push for NATO...

<p>Bush said a proposal floated at last week's Group of Eight summit in Germany by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who suggested a six-month delay to try to ease Russian objections to independence, would work only if statehood was the ultimate objective.</p>

TIRANA (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Sunday the United Nations should grant independence quickly to the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, and if Russia continued to block it the West would act. "At some point in time, sooner rather than later, you've got to say enough is enough, Kosovo is independent," he told a news conference on the first visit by a U.S. president to Albania. Bush said he was "worried about expectations not being met" in Kosovo, where 90 percent of the population are ethnic Albanians demanding independence from Serbia and where NATO leads a peacekeeping...

UNITED NATIONS June 1 (UPI) -- Sponsors of a draft U.N. Security Council resolution granting supervised independence to Serbia's southern province of Kosovo have softened wording in the measure due to strong opposition. Yet the bottom line remains independence for the province that has been under U.N. administration since 1999. Russia, one of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the panel of 15, does not agree with taking control of the autonomous province of about 2 million people away from Belgrade. China also is opposed. Moscow has hinted it would veto the measure when it comes up for a vote,...

"We will be circulating today with our European allies a resolution in the Security Council that we believe will lead to the independence of Kosovo by the end of this month," Burns told journalists in the Croatian capital Zagreb. "The United States is strongly supporting the independence of Kosovo." The UN Security Council is set to begin debate soon on two competing texts -- one Western and one Russian -- that will form the basis of a draft resolution on Kosovo's future status. Burns, speaking after meeting with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, also warned against Serbian ultra-nationalists entering a...

Prishtina, Kosovo IT'S A BUSY TIME in southeast Europe, where self-congratulation is mixed with anxiety at the 50th anniversary of the European Union. Romania and Bulgaria, neither of which has much to offer in the way of stable institutions or economic development, are now E.U. member states. One of the first effects of Romanian membership was the sudden appearance of an anti-Jewish, Holocaust-denying bloc of deputies in the European Parliament, including five representing the crude neo-fascism of the Greater Romania Party (GRP). The GRP is headed by Corneliu Vadim Tudor, a former court poet for Bucharest's Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu....

Kosovo debate reaches U.S. Senate WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate will this week start discussions "over a Kosovo status resolution. Senator Joseph Lieberman (FoNet) The draft resolution, submitted by senators Joseph Lieberman, Joseph Biden, John McCain and Gordon Smith, backs UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari’s proposal, stating that a supervised independence would be the only possible solution to the province’s status. The resolution also urges President George Bush to increase U.S. pressure in the UN Security Council in order to have Kosovo declared an independent state, “without redrawing borders.” The senators also advocate swift establishment of diplomatic ties with Kosovo...

The breakaway British region of Scotland could be among the beneficiaries of this week's expected UN recommendation that Kosovo be granted provisional independence from Serbia, leading in time to full sovereign status. If the plan backed by the US, Britain and Germany is formally accepted by the UN security council, it will be taken as an important international legal precedent by would-be separatist movements from Georgia to Moldova to Chechnya, and possibly also the Scottish National party. ... Kosovo has been part of Serbia since the Middle Ages. By comparison, the Act of Union binding Scotland and England dates back...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States backs a plan giving supervised independence to Serbia's breakaway Kosovo province and expects a United Nations Security Council vote on the proposal by summer, a senior U.S. official said on Monday. The plan, drafted by U.N. special envoy and former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, went to the Security Council on Monday after a year of fruitless negotiations between Serbia and the majority ethnic Albanians in the province. "The United States does support the proposal by President Ahtisaari for a supervised independence for Kosovo," UnderSecretary of State Nicholas Burns said in Brussels. "After a year...

Mr Chen set out a "four wants" policy for Taiwanese independence China has hit out at Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian after he made a strongly pro-independence speech on Sunday.Mr Chen said Taiwan should pursue independence, write a new constitution and change its official name from "Republic of China" to Taiwan. China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said anyone wanting to split Taiwan from the mainland was a "criminal". The row came as China opened its annual session of parliament and announced a hike in defence spending. Mr Chen, in a speech to a pro-independence group on Sunday, said: "Taiwan should...

In yesterday’s discussion at the Foreign Policy Chamber of the Polish Parliament’s Lower house, deputy foreign minister Pavel Koval stressed that Poland was against the postponements of the Kosovo status settlement and against any partition of the province, PAP Agency reports. Koval accused official Belgrade of taking an obstructive approach to the negotiations with Kosovo Albanians. “We believe that Belgrade’s attempts to thwart Ahtisaari’s efforts do not serve Serbia’s interests. Serbia should accept reality and focus on the activities which will bring it closer to the EU�, Koval said. Koval said that the Polish Government was convinced that peace and...

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...

In front of me as I write there sits a piece of Kosovo. It's a jagged lump, about three centimetres high, off-white with some glinting, yellowy metallic bits embedded in it. It was given to me by the late Ibrahim Rugova, long-time leader of the Albanian Kosovans' non-violent movement for independence and a passionate mineralogist. I also have before me my own photos of Kosovo's armed conflict, attempted genocide, liberation and international occupation in the last three years of Europe's bloody last century. The bombed, machine-gunned and looted villages, mosques and churches, fresh blood staining white snow, a dispossessed woodcutter...

11.2.2007 16:34 DECANI, (Tanjug) - The Serbian Orthodox Church has condemned in the strongest terms ''barbaric'' messages of Self-Determination movement leader Albin Kurti and other participants of the Saturday demonstrations in Pristina who shouted that ''Serbs occupied Albanian churches and monasteries'' in Kosovo and that they should ''be destroyed.'' Several thousand Kosovo Albanian members of the Self-Determination movement and supporters of the so-called Kosovo liberation army protested against UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari's plan for the status of Kosovo in Pristina on Saturday.

Belgrade, Feb 7, 2007 – President of the Coordinating Centre for Kosovo-Metohija Sanda Raskovic-Ivic stated last night that Kosovo independence is unacceptable to the Serbian side as the solution of the province's status, adding that there are realistic reasons for postponing the talks until after new Serbian parliament is formed. Raskovic-Ivic told RTS television last night that the government lost its legitimacy after the elections of January 21 and the Serbian President was the only legitimate representative who could meet with UN Special Envoy for Kosovo-Metohija Martti Ahtisaari when he presented his plan for the province's future status to Serbia....

6.2.2007 14:49 PRISTINA, (Tanjug) - US President George Bush has proposed that 279 million dollars be allocated from the US budget in the form of additional assistance to be granted after the resolution of the province's status.

Serbia's president says he will never accept the independence of Kosovo, after the publication of a UN plan which could allow it to separate. UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari's plan recommends that Kosovo should govern itself democratically and be able to make international agreements. But President Boris Tadic said the plan paved the way for independence, which he and Serbia would not accept. Kosovo's leader said he believed the process would end in full independence. "Kosovo will be sovereign like all other countries," President Fatmir Sejdiu said, after meeting Mr Ahtisaari. 'Dangerous precedent' The UN has administered Kosovo since a...

The United States has reaffirmed its support for the efforts of United Nations Kosovo envoy Martti Ahtisaari for determining the final status of the breakaway Serbian province. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called on all sides of the issue to sit down and listen to the envoy's proposals, which Ahtisaari is to present to leaders in Belgrade and Pristina on Friday. The proposal is widely expected to grant the U.N.-administered province some attributes of a sovereign state, while guaranteeing the security of its Serb minority. Vojislav Kostunica Outgoing Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has said he will not meet with...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- A U.S. diplomat in Washington said a solution to the future status of Serbia's mainly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo province could be decided by April. U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns told Voice of America that U.N. special envoy to Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari will begin a series of talks with Kosovo ethnic-Albanian leaders in Pristina and Serbian authorities in Belgrade soon after Serbia's parliamentary elections set for Jan. 21. Burns said he hoped the Kosovo solution could be found "one to two months" after the Serbian elections. He said Washington does not support any option nor...

Belgrade, 26 Oct. (AKI) - The United States is showing signs of jitteriness over the status of the breakaway province of Kosovo, as the international community moves away from granting Kosovo the independence wanted by most of its overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian majority, the Serbian government coordinator for Kosovo, Sanda Raskovic Ivic, has said. Raskovic Ivic was commenting on a "slip of tongue" by American envoy to Kosovo Frank Wiesner, who stated in the Kosovo capital Pristina on Tuesday that Washington wants the status issue resolved this year. "We will insist on independence – excuse me – we will insist on...

Washington -- Serbia can have a prosperous, democratic future and be a "force for stability," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Serbian President Boris Tadic as they signed a status-of-forces agreement between the two nations September 7 in Washington. Tadic is visiting the United States to hold private meetings with various U.S. officials about the future status of the Kosovo province, currently administered by the United Nation. The latest round of U.N.-sponsored Kosovo talks began September 7 in Vienna, Austria. (See related article.) Meeting with reporters in Washington, Rice said the United States and Serbia have a shared vision of...

Podgorica, Montenegro: IT WAS a Balkan love feast!" said James Lyon, regional expert for the International Crisis Group, about Montenegro's independence celebration beginning on July 12. In a notoriously fractious part of the world, the festivities drew Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians, Albanians, and even some Serb politicians, as the Montenegrins breathed an enormous sigh of relief at their divorce from the Belgrade regime. Montenegro has fewer than 700,000 people, a tormented history, and plenty of challenges. But it also has magnificent assets: beautiful mountains and beaches, and basic amity between its Slav Orthodox majority and its Muslim Slav and Albanian minorities....

Belgrade, 2 July 06. (Tanjug) – The Coordination Center for Kosovo and Metohija announced that UNMIK Chief Soren Jesen-Petersen “leaving Kosovo in an armored vehicle”, showed that the international community did not fulfill its basic task for seven years, such as the creation of elementary security conditions of free living and freedom of movement. “Petersen’s earlier statement, stated that he is leaving Kosovo for private reasons. Before his departure he clearly stated slogans on behalf of Albanian lobbyists who use all means in the fight for independence of the Serbian southern province”, states the Center at the Sunday announcement. Coordination...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Montenegro on Wednesday became the 192nd member of the United Nations, a month after it ended its 88-year partnership with Serbia that completed the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. "I declare the Republic of Montenegro admitted to membership in the United Nations," U.N. General Assembly President Jan Eliasson announced after calling for approval by acclamation in the 191-nation body. General Assembly members then broke into applause as the Balkan country's president, Filip Vujanovic, Foreign Minister Miodrag Vlahovic and U.N. envoy Nebojsa Kaludjerovic were escorted to their new seats, next to the Mongolian delegation. "I am confident...

PRISTINA, Serbia - Kosovo's top leaders travel to Washington next week to hold talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the president's office said Friday. President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Agim Ceku are to meet Rice on Monday, said Muhamet Hamiti, the president's adviser. Sejdiu will visit the United States for the first time since he was elected in February, succeeding Kosovo's late President Ibrahim Rugova, who died of lung cancer earlier this year. During his trip, Sejdiu will meet other officials in the State Department and the White House, the statement said. Ceku is also scheduled to...

End Balkanization Now! By Aleksandar Mitic An old saying in Montenegro used to say “Montenegro and Serbia – one family". Today, pro-independence graffiti in Montenegro read “Montenegro and the Basque Country – one family”. Indeed, if the preliminary results of the Montenegrin referendum on independence are confirmed, the process of the balkanization of the Balkans will have scored one more point. Some say it also paved a chance for many independence-hopefuls around Europe, be it in Catalonia, the Basque Country or Scotland, which have sent their observer missions to Podgorica to monitor the mechanics of intra-state divorce. It might be...

BELGRADE, Serbia, June 8 — Seven years after Kosovo was placed under United Nations control, it appears increasingly likely that the province will be allowed to break away from Serbia formally and become an independent nation. Members of the United Nations Security Council appear to be leaning toward permitting Kosovo to go its own way. The Council is expected to vote on Kosovo's fate by the end of the year, unless the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians, who have been negotiating unsuccessfully for months, reach a resolution. But some of the world's most powerful countries are fearful the move will encourage...

Sarajevo, 8 June (AKI) - Bosnian Muslim religious leader Reiss ul-Ulema Mustafa Ceric has accused the country's Catholic and Orthodox Christians of undermining the country and advocating the partitioning of Bosnia. Ceric was quoted by the Sarajevo daily, Dnevni Avaz, as saying that former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and Croatia's Franjo Tudjman deal, allegedly made in the early nineties to divide Bosnia, had been taken over by the Serbian Orthodox and Croatian Catholic Church. As a proof of an alleged conspiracy, Ceric said that the bishops of the two churches have been meeting without Muslim representatives. "It is well known...

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Granting independence to Serbia's southern province of Kosovo against the will of Serbia would destabilize the Balkans, Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic warned on Tuesday. The United Nations is mediating talks on Kosovo's future status, which Western diplomats say are likely to conclude with a form of independence by the end of the year. Serbia is adamantly opposed to such an outcome. "I am very afraid of the possible imposed solution against the will of Belgrade of turning Kosovo into a state," Draskovic told a news conference. "The whole region, I think, would inevitably face turbulence." The...

After seven years of frustrated attempts, the separatist regime in Montenegro celebrated victory Sunday night, as it managed to drum up the 55.5 percent of the votes necessary to win the independence referendum. What would be a landslide in any Western election was actually the narrowest of margins in Montenegro, as the acceptable threshold set by the Brussels bureaucrats was 55 percent. It took weeks of pro-independence propaganda in government-monopolized media, multi-million-euro public works timed for the referendum, shady political deals with ethnic minorities, and voter shenanigans to secure that .5 percent margin between victory and defeat. And though the...

Montenegro's independence could open a Pandora's box for other separatist movements in Europe and the former Soviet Union, with some already claiming the right to follow the same path. Separatists in Spain's Basque and Catalan regions were among the first to welcome Montenegro's independence vote as a positive omen for their aspirations of loosening ties with Madrid. But Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos stressed the situations in his country and Montenegro were "politically, diplomatically, juridically" incomparable and that making such a comparison would represent a "great irresponsibility". His view was supported by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana,...

PODGORICA, Serbia-Montenegro (CNN) -- Voters in Montenegro decided narrowly to sever the country's union with Serbia, a move that would break up the last two pieces of the former Yugoslavia, unofficial poll returns from Sunday's referendum indicated. The election watchdog group CEMI said late Sunday that 55.5 percent of the more than 410,000 voters who cast ballots supported independence -- just over the 55 percent required for the question to pass. "I'm sure that tonight a democratic Montenegro will be celebrated," said Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, whose Democratic Party of Socialists had pushed for Montenegro's full independence. Opposition spokesman Predrag...

BUDVA, Serbia-Montenegro - Voters are deciding whether to write the final chapter in the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, and the T-shirts show vividly how divided they are. Sunday's referendum is about whether tiny Montenegro should end its union with big-brother Serbia, and in the Adriatic resort of Budva, vendor Milan Jakic says his red "da" (yes) shirts are selling well. "If you compare the sale of yes and no," he says, "there is no doubt Montenegro will be independent." But six miles away in the quiet fishing village of Bigovo, the "ne" (no) shirt is doing well, and graffiti...

Montenegro has voted for independence from its union with Serbia, according to unofficial projections. If confirmed, the vote would erase the last vestige of the former Yugoslavia. Initial indications are that 56.3% of voters elected to secede from Serbia. The pro-independence bloc needs to win 55% of the vote to succeed. The question of independence has deeply divided Montenegro, with its opponents arguing that it will damage economic, family and political ties with Serbia.

Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku has says independence for mostly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo of Serbia's government in Belgrade is near. "A great dream of independence is close and it is only months away," said Ceku Monday in his regular weekly address in Kosovo, Serbia's southern province whose population of 1.8 million is 90 percent ethnic-Albanian........

Citizens of Montenegro, the mountainous, sparsely populated former Yugoslav territory, will vote Sunday in a referendum on severing its remaining links with Serbia. The pro-independence camp is confident of victory. The referendum will determine whether the state of Serbia and Montenegro continues to exist. That loose federation - replacing the rump Yugoslavia - was created three years at the strong urging of the European Union, which at the time opposed the Montenegrin government's desire to break with Serbia. Since both Serbia and Montenegro wish to join the EU, Brussels has been deeply involved in the May 21 referendum. Under its...

Western Macedonia, Illirida, and Greater Albania By Carl Savich The Greater Albania ideology envisions not only Kosovo and Metohija as integral part of a Greater Ethnic Albania, but also Western Macedonia, or Illirida. The basis for the Greater Albania strategy can be found in the 1878 League of Prizren. The map and borders for the future Greater Albania were determined by the Ottoman Turkish vilayet system. Kosovo and Metohija and Western Macedonia were part of the Kosovo vilayet. The capital of the Kosovo vilayet was Skopje. Kosovo-Metohija is not the end of the Greater Albania ideology, but only the beginning....

(Brussels, DTT-NET.COM)- A prestigious think-tank said that Kosovo’s independence must be imposed on Serbia, because of impossibility of reaching any agreement between Kosovan Ethnic Albanians and Serbian authorities on the future of UN administrated province. “To create a stable Kosovo, the international community must dare to impose independence rather than attempt finessing Pristina and Belgrade’s differences with an ambiguous and unstable settlement,“ International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report published on Friday. ICG says that agreement between all parties remains desirable in theory, “it is extremely unlikely that any Serbian government will voluntarily acquiesce to the kind of independence,...

With budgets getting tighter every year, the U.S. Forest Service plans to raise up to $800 million in much-needed cash by selling off 200,000 acres of land across the country... The proposed land sale would be authorized under a Congressional amendment to the 2,000 Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act. The law is intended to help rural communities that have seen National Forest logging-based revenue drop as timber cutting dwindled across the country. The list is based in part on land ownership adjustment analyses that designate lands suitable for disposal. Most of the lands to be sold are parcels...

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - A senior British diplomat has told Serbs that independence is the best solution for the disputed Serbian province of Kosovo in talks due within days, Serb negotiators said on Tuesday. "[John] Sawers told us the Contact Group had decided Kosovo should be independent. He said Kosovo would be multi-ethnic, but in the end independent," Goran Bogdanovic, a Kosovo Serb, told Belgrade radio B92, after meeting the political director of the British Foreign Office late on Monday. A second Serb negotiator in Belgrade, who attended a meeting between Sawers and the Serbian prime minister on...

he US yesterday made the case for offering Serbia incentives to reach agreement in negotiations over the final status of Kosovo, while setting out the possibility of independence for the province if the ethnic Albanian majority accepted compromises to accommodate its Serbian minority. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state, told a Senate hearing the US was neither championing independence nor autonomy for Kosovo. But diplomats said his testimony was a clear signal the US looked favourably on independence, under certain conditions. In what diplomats also called a significant policy statement, Mr Burns made clear the US had no objection to independence...

WASHINGTON D.C. - Dec. 23, 2005 Today the Republican National Hispanic Assembly (RNHA) commends President Bush and the White House Task Force on Puerto Rico for their report providing measures for full enfranchisement for the citizens of Puerto Rico. The RNHA salutes the President for his courage and leadership on this issue. “The White House report is a milestone for the people of Puerto Rico on their road to self-determination,” said Chairman Pedro Celis, Ph.D. “President Bush understands the importance of the 3.8 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico. Providing them with options to determine Puerto Rico’s legal status is...

[This] article written for the [Bosnian Institute] website argues that Western politicians have been mistaken in accepting the notion that Kosova is 'an integral part of Serbia', so that Belgrade must necessarily be involved in discussions about Kosova's statusAs negotiations between Serbia and Kosova about the latter’s status are about to begin under UN auspices, one is prompted to pose the obvious question: ‘Why is Serbia involved at all?’ Or, to put it in another way: ‘Why do Western governments assume that the wishes of Kosova’s inhabitants are insufficient grounds for recognising its independence, and that such a step requires also Belgrade’s acquiescence?’Answers to such questions refer...

Tuesday's special election marked the sixth time California voters have gone to the polls since the March 2002 primary election. That meant it was the sixth go-round of endless television commercials, campaign mailers — and trying to grasp the true meaning and impact of a plethora of ballot initiatives. Instead of patting themselves on the back for surviving such an onslaught, voters get to do it two more times next year. As much as they might like to, voters can't ignore the 2006 primary and general elections because important issues loom. There's a governor's race, as well as congressional and...