Free Republic

When it announced that it was giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama last month, the Nobel Committee praised the president for his efforts on climate change. It also said in its citation that, with Mr. Obama now in office, a "multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position" and "dialogue and negotiations" are the preferred instruments for conflict resolution. This commendation raises concerns for many observers, including me, who believe in American exceptionalism, and who agree with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that we are the "indispensable nation." Preserving and defending our values at home and promoting them...

Radovan Karadzic’s defence against 11 charges of genocide did not get off to the best possible start at the Hague last week. The chief prosecutor at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia opened proceedings by releasing transcripts of tapped telephone conversations of the Bosnian Serb leader from 1991, which record Karadzic saying: “There are 20,000 armed Serbs around Sarajevo ... it will be a black cauldron where 300,000 Muslims will die. They will disappear. That people will disappear from the face of the earth.” It’s true that these recordings do not mention Srebrenica, where 7,000 captured Bosnian Muslim...

<p>THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Radovan Karadzic appeared at his U.N. war crimes trial on Tuesday for the first time since it began last week, claiming his "fundamental rights have been violated" by judges who started without him.</p> <p>The former Bosnian Serb leader, accused of masterminding Serb atrocities throughout the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, had boycotted the first three days of the trial. On Tuesday, Karadzic, who is defending himself, again insisted that he needed more time to prepare.</p>

AS EVERYONE scrambles to predict a possible future outlook for war-ravaged Afghanistan, the negative variables continue to mount. The Taliban have boldly stepped up their attacks in the power vacuum created by the failed August elections and the countrywide apathy in anticipation of the upcoming Nov. 7 presidential run-off vote. October was by far the deadliest month of the war with 50 Allied soldiers killed, including yet another Canadian. The daring assault against the United States guest house in the fortified centre of Kabul last Tuesday — coincidental with an equally brash attack against the posh foreigners-only Serena Hotel —...

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague is considering imposing a defense lawyer on former Bosnian-Serb president Radovan Karadzic against his will. Radovan Karadzic Much of the, for want of a better term, "news coverage" of the Radovan Karadzic war crimes trial in The Hague has teetered fatuously somewhere between the hysterical and the completely irrational. The coverage often amounts to little more than shrill and often childish name-calling with Karadzic continually referred to as a "butcher", a "demon", a "monster" and every other spiteful epitaph our so-called "journalists" can think to hurl at him. Comparisons...

NOTE: In an era when it's still "politically incorrect" to recognize the valuable contributions and legacy of the Serbs, most politicians still don't have the guts to support any cause or action that reflects "positively" on Serbia or the Serbians. Senator George Voinovich, Republican of Ohio, is one of the rare ones who is not concerned about "political correctness" in such matters, and for that he should be applauded. Ohio Senator George V. Voinovich has sent out congratulatory letters to the winners of "The Forgotten 500 Book Report Contest 2009" and Vasilije "Vaso" Katanic has graciously shared his letter on...

Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian, 86Forgotten WWII vets to get their due at the University of Toledo Homecoming event to fete alumni heroes The Toledo Blade By MEGHAN GILBERT-CUNNINGHAM BLADE STAFF WRITER OCTOBER 9, 2009 Arthur Jibilian, ever young, at 86 in 2009 Photo: The Toledo Blade Art Jibilian has been an American hero since 1944, but until recently he's lived his life in northwest Ohio without any recognition. The University of Toledo alumnus is now getting the kudos he deserves and is drawing attention to a misrepresented part of World War II history. Mr. Jibilian, 86, born and raised in Toledo...

Croatian extreme right-wing NGO The Croatian Cultural Movement (HUP) has announced plans to erect a monument in honor of former Croatian president Ante Pavelic in Zagreb, Croatia, this December. Ante Pavelić visiting Hitler at Berghof. SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World HUP president Tomislav Dragun has been quoted as saying that the monument will stand adjacent to the capital's central square. Pavelic, the president of Croatia during World War II, was known for his state-organized terror campaign against Jews, Serbs, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats. He was installed as the president of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in 1941, a...

Holbrooke meets Kosovo Albanian terrorists and does not wear shoes during the meeting, an Islamic symbol that says he supports their cause.Holbrooke supported Balkan Muslim sepratists in Bosnia and Kosovo and delivered victory to al-Qaeda in Europe. Then from Bosnia they turned on the US on 9/11. Holbrooke now heads Afghan policy for Obama. Obama’s WarEight-year old Bush’s Afghanistan war has become Obama’s war. Obama has declared that war was both necessary and winnable. He committed 21,000 additional troops this year, bringing the U.S. force to 68,000 and more are likely to be sent. The current expenditures amount to $2.6...

Have you read the latest news about the cutest squirrel in the world jumping in front of a young couple’s camera on vacation? Did you know that Michael Jackson’s brain wasn’t buried with the rest of his remains? How about the outrage over that evil Republican yelling “You lie!” to Obama, in the midst of another of his historical speeches? How horrific is the announcement that Oprah might quit her daytime show after this season, her only 19,678th in a row? Welcome to the Western mainstream media, where you get well entertained and superbly brainwashed, but never properly informed. The...

The ongoing de-Christianization of Kosovo continues and unlike the past frenzy of the anti-Serbian mass media in the West, we mainly have a deadly silence about the reality of Kosovo and the continuing Albanianization of this land. However, how is it “just” and “moral” to persecute minorities and to alienate them from mainstream society; and then to illegally recognize this land without the full consensus of the international community? How ironic it is that the same United States of America and the United Kingdom, two nations who were in the forefront of covertly manipulating the mass media; remain mainly silent...

Monument to the heroes of Cer in Serbia De-Construct.net August 23, 2009 On August 23rd, 2009, In the midst of ceremonies marking the 95-year anniversary of the Battle of Cer [pronounced Tser], the first Allied victory of WWI, the archpriest of the Serbian Šabac Diocese announced the building of a church dedicated to the fallen heroes of the First World War and to the glorious Serb-Russian saint, St. John the Wonderworker. “We shall do everything to make sure the Cer heroes finally have their own church. Back in 1939, the reserve officers from this region collected money and received permission...

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Radovan Karadzic, who led Bosnian Serbs into a 1992-1995 war that killed 100,000 people, says his conscience is clear and he does not regret his role for which he is now awaiting trial on genocide charges. "I do not regret my own role," the former Bosnian Serb leader said in a written interview with Reuters from a detention centre in the Hague. "I didn't seek public office, but when I held it, I carried out my duties with the best interest of the people in my heart." Karadzic was the president of the Bosnian Serbs, who sought...

Sarajevo today, turning into a “European Tehran”According to Leo Plo�kinić, President of the Mostar-based NGO Croatia Libertas, a growing number of Croat families are selling their property in the capital of the Croat-Muslim federation of post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina, and moving to East Sarajevo municipalities, in the Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska, RS). Plo�kinić cited the latest example of several Croat families who said they feared for their safety and moved from the Sarajevo settlement Stup to Lukavica in the Serbian part of country, in East Sarajevo. “A straw that broke the camel’s back and destroyed the last traces of...

What a long, remarkable, wonderful, productive life he led. Professor Alex Dragnich is someone I began corresponding with in 1992, and throughout our correspondence he showed himself to be a man not only of intelligence, insight, foresight and education, but a genuinely nice human being who was always generous with advice and necessary critique and guidance. I had the pleasure of meeting him in person in Chicago in 1994 and was first struck by how tall he was! He could easily (and with justification) have presented himself as an intimidating persona who did not suffer fools or "aspiring authors" gladly....

MAJOR RICHARD L. FELMAN OF THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE FEATURED SPEAKER AT THE 50th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF THE HALYARD MISSION RESCUE OPERATION CHICAGO, ILLINOIS May 31, 1994 Transcription of Major Felman's Speech by Aleksandra Rebic ***** “Distinguished guests… Very Distinguished guests… Reverend Clergy… Fellow airmen who were with me when we were shot downover Yugoslavia in 1944 and Bracho i Sestre (Brothers and Sisters)… Before I say a single word, I must first express my everlasting gratitude to the City of Chicago and the Department of Defense today, for honoring the Halyard Mission. Until now, one of the most...

I never figured myself for some weepy tree hugger. Not when the village sent the letter about the big elm tree in our front yard, not when the Serbians showed up in the morning. "You feel bad. This I understand," said Bogdan Mijic, 23, whose father, Nedeljko, and Bogdan's younger brothers, Branislav and Borislav, run the County Tree Service in Stickney. "People feel sad," said Bogdan, blond hair cropped short, eyes far too old for a young man in his 20s. "They're sad. You lose something. I understand this." Bogdan lost something too, but of far greater value than a...

“To brighten the future, we must illuminate the past.”The operating principle of ‘Lest we Forget’ As I hit the road on Thursday, June 18th, to attend “Day Two” of the ‘Forgotten 500 Reunion’ at the Park Inn in St. Joseph, Michigan, I thought of the day before and was convinced it couldn’t get any better. But I was wrong. It could and it did. This would be the day I would finally have the opportunity to meet Greg Freeman, author of ‘The Forgotten 500’, with whom I’d been corresponding for two years. I’d also have the opportunity to see my...

A former Kosovo prime minister, Agim Ceku, has been arrested in Bulgaria on an international warrant issued by Serbia for alleged war crimes. The Bulgarian interior ministry said Mr Ceku was detained as he crossed the border from Macedonia and a court would consider his case in the next few days. Serbia accuses Mr Ceku of committing war crimes in 1998-99. At the time he was commander of the ethnic-Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which was fighting Serbia. He has dismissed the charges as politically motivated, and says the arrest warrant has no legal basis. He was arrested at the...

THIS WEEK marks the 10th anniversary of NATO’s entry into the war-torn Balkan province of Kosovo. I can still vividly recall those violent and terror-filled days as I packed up my gear and fled north amidst the Serbian refugees and the withdrawing Yugoslav security forces. For 78 days the allied NATO air force — including Canadian aircraft — had pounded infrastructure targets throughout Kosovo and Serbia in a failed attempt to force the Serbs to capitulate and accept the terms U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had proposed at the 1999 Rambouillet peace talks. What the nearly $13 billion worth...

In the isolated village of Velika Hoca in southwestern Kosovo—a new nation or a rebellious province of Serbia, depending on whom you ask—people still talk about a brawl that broke out several years ago. It was after the Kosovo war, which had begun between separatist Albanian guerrillas and Serbian forces and had ended when NATO air strikes pounded Serbia and its strongman president, Slobodan Milosevic, into submission in June 1999. The West had stepped in to stop atrocities against Kosovo Albanians and avert a refugee crisis, assuming peace would reign once the dictator and his fighters were vanquished. But the...

The EU insists that Kosovo is a tolerant and multi-ethnic society. So why are its minorities leaving?A highly critical report by Minority Rights Group International (MRG) maintains that members of minority communities are beginning to leave Kosovo over a year after its unilateral declaration of independence, due to persistent exclusion and discrimination. In contradicting the conclusions of the EU's general affairs and external relations council, the report once again demonstrates the emptiness and evasiveness of statements by members of the international community asserting Kosovo's supposedly multi-ethnic character. Without urgent measures to improve the position of minorities in Kosovo, such a...

The Hague tribunal prosecutors are not prepared, even after 12 years of allegedly looking for Radovan Karadzic, who is currently on trial at Hague, says his daughter Sonja Karadzic in an exclusive interview on RT (Russia Today). RT: With us we have Sonya Karadzic, the daughter of the former Bosnia Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. Sonya, thank you very much for joining us here on RT. Do you think your father will get a fair trial in the Netherlands? Sonja Karadzic: I want to believe, or at least I believed until the last couple of months and now it seems to...

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,...

The following piece is brought to us by Iseult Henry, author of Hiding Genocide in Kosovo. She penned it as part of a collection of Kosovo-oriented essays titled Kosovo: The Score. The occasional highlighting is my own, and just a reminder to American readers: “Kosovo” means “of blackbirds”, as in “field of blackbirds”. An observer at a Crow’s Court...

On the occasion of the announced Belgrade visit of the U.S. vice president Joseph Biden, one of the most virulent Serbophobes in Washington, representatives of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and New Serbia (NS) today submitted to the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs a set of documents containing records of Biden’s racist anti-Serbian slurs and insults. DSS Parliament representative Jovan Palalić told gathered reporters that submitted documents are a reminder of the things current American vice president and former senator was saying and of the vicious crusade he relentlessly lead against Serbian nation and state. The records include Biden’s...

WORLD WIDE CELEBRATIONOF THE HALYARD MISSION HEROES!THE FORGOTTEN 500 BOOK REPORT CONTEST!Apart from the generous financial rewards kindly donated by various individuals as the prizes for the top three best book reports, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd place and the “Runner Up” reports that finish in the “Top Five” will be posted on my three websites on the internet dedicated to recognizing and celebrating Serbian heroes, among them General Draza Mihailovich, who was ultimately responsible for the success of the Halyard Mission Rescue Operation and the saving of the American airmen whose story shines in The Forgotten 500. The top five...

A far-right Croat MP has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for war crimes against Serb civilians during Croatia's war of independence in the early 1990s. A court in Zagreb found Branimir Glavas had given orders to a paramilitary unit under his command to murder six Serbs in the eastern city of Osijek in 1991. The former general was charged last year after the Croatian parliament partially lifted his legal immunity. Glavas denies any wrongdoing and says his trial was politically motivated. He blames the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), from which he was expelled in 2006 after clashing...

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...

ANZAC Day is a national remembrance day in Australia and is celebrated annually on April 25th, to remember members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who fought bravely at Gallipoli, Turkey during the First World War. ANZAC Day also commemorates all those who made the ultimate sacrifice and served in military operations for Australia. The Serbian Community in Sydney, Australia has attended and made a strong presence in the national ANZAC Day commemoration services since 1956 by attending the Sydney March. Throughout all capital cities within Australia, grand children and great grandchildren of Serbian Chetnik soldiers along with...

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA -- KFOR and EULEX members have used tear gas and stun grenades against protesting Serbs in the Brđani settlement of northern Kosovska Mitrovica. International forces reacted to prevent the protesters from approaching the so-called yellow line of separation with ethnic Albanians. Shots were also heard today from firearms. No casualties were reported, and it remains unclear who used the weapons. The Serbs remind that the reconstruction of Albanian houses is possible only with an agreement reached by both sides – a provision of a deal reached in 2000. Strong KFOR and EULEX forces are on the Albanian side,...

The successful demonization of the Serbs, making them largely responsible for the Yugoslav wars, and as unique and genocidal killers, was one of the great propaganda triumphs of our era. It was done so quickly, with such uniformity and uncritical zeal in the mainstream Western media, that disinformation had (and still has, after almost two decades) a field day.The demonization flowed from the gullibility of Western interests and media (and intellectuals). With Yugoslavia no longer useful as an ally after the fall of the Soviet Union, and actually an obstacle as an independent state with a still social democratic bent,...

ZAGREB, Croatia-A prosecutor in Croatia has lifted the veil on a painful episode of Balkan history: the execution of thousands pro-Nazi soldiers and civilians at the end of World War II. The Croatian state attorney has asked that a case be brought against an elderly former major in the communist-run Yugoslav army on suspicion of ordering 13,000 people put to death. It marks the first legal procedure ever in Croatia regarding postwar killings carried by the victorious antifascists, or partisans. And part of the evidence may be the accused's own autobiography. Simo Dubajic, 86, is suspected of ordering the executions,...

Vlade Divac, right, partied during a concert in Belgrade, Serbia, to celebrate his retirement. This is the last in a series of articles about Vlade Divac, the former Kings center whose No. 21 jersey will be retired during halftime of the Kings-Hornets game Tuesday night at Arco Arena. Today: Divac's global influence. There were five of them, five Eastern European stars who dreamed like boisterous, boastful schoolboys, believing they could board an overseas flight, communicate while speaking very little English, join their respective teams, shred stereotypes and enjoy long, productive NBA careers. One of them did. Vlade Divac did. For...

Note from Ravnagora: The following was written back on February 17, 2008, the day Kosovo was handed its "independence". It gives a terrific overview of the "Albanian" issue. The author was born in Istanbul. The Greeks understand well... American and European foreign policy in the Balkans, suffering from a terminal form of historical amnesia, is bankrupt. The results of those bankrupt policies are visibly on display today as Kosovor Albanians declare themselves independent and a second Muslim state is now established on the European continent. The stage is now set for the a regime led by elements of the Kosovo...

Bishop Franjo Komarica believes "tens of thousands" of Catholics would return to Bosnia-Herzegovina if they could. Photo by Peter J. Thompson, National Post When Bishop Franjo Komarica looks out at his congregation in the northwestern region of Bosnia-Herzegovina, he feels a sense of dread. In Banja Luka, the largest city in the region, only about 200 of the Roman Catholic faithful show up for Sunday morning Mass at the cathedral, instead of the 800 that used to be the norm before a three-year war that ended in 1996. It was a war of brutal ethnic cleansing that saw hundreds of...

BELGRADE -- Five years ago today the largest-scale attack against Kosovo's Serbs took place since the international administration was established in the province in 1999. A ransacked Serb church (FoNet, archive) Ethnic Albanians attacked the Serb enclaves, massively destroying property, leaving 19 people dead and 950 wounded after a two-day rampage. Eight Serbs were killed, along with 11 Albanians. The Albanians mostly died in clashes with international troops and police. 63 KFOR soldiers and 123 members of international and Kosovo police were injured. On March 17-18 2004, some 4,000 Serbs were driven out of their home, while 900 of their...

Russia is categorically against Kosovo joining the UN and international financial institutions. This country’s envoy to the OSCE, Anvar Azimov, said on Thursday that attempts to push the Kosovo separatists into such organizations violated legal and moral principles that all talk that UN membership will help the region’s administration improve the plight of the local ethnic Serb population simply holds no water. This is exactly the slogan the separatists’ sponsors used when prodding the region towards unilateral independence they proclaimed last February and which pushed even further back the creation of a multiethnic society in Kosovo, Azimov said. _____________

I’m about to tell you a story that, after you’ve read it, if your blood isn’t boiling . . . well, you maybe ought to book an appointment with your favorite mortician. Armchair Generals in the Pentagon during WWII and their civilian counterparts and bosses in the US State Department should have been taken out and given, at a minimum, a sound caning or horse-whipping . . . and at the worst, faced a firing squad. Their absolute ineptitude and politicking almost cost the lives of 513 Allied airmen and, ultimately, ruined the reputation and resulted in the firing squad...

Thursday, March 12, 2009 Dear Mr. Massie, My husband and I met Lowell Thomas in 1980 when my husband was the Senior Air Attaché in Moscow. Lowell Thomas had been invited by our then U.S. Ambassador Thomas Watson, Jr. (IBM). At the time, Lowell Thomas was 88 years old and got up from his sick bed to speak to us at the Ambassador's residence. He was wearing a brocade Chinese jacket that he had acquired during his early years in China. I don't have to tell you that Lowell Thomas had interviewed Lawrence of Arabia, in Arabia - having coined...

Julia Gorin's unpublished letter to the Washington Times: The Washington Times recently gave print space to William Walker, described as a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer and former ambassador. But Walker is much more than that. In Kosovo, he remains a hands-on operative who has trained, and implemented the demands of, our terrorist ally the KLA — which as predicted now controls the Serbian province as its “legitimate” rulers. The piece (“A Separate Take from Serbia”, Feb. 24) was presented as a response to an op-ed by Serbian President Boris Tadic, when in fact it was an attempt by essentially...

<p>Kosovo celebrated the first anniversary of its independence last month, but the festive spirit was tempered. Only 54 members of the UN have recognised it as a sovereign state and five countries in the European Union itself – Spain, Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Slovakia – still do not treat it as such.</p>

One of the very few remaining independent magazines in Serbia, Pecat Magazine carried the photo of Serbian generals convicted by NATO, and asked if defense of one’s country is a crime.Through the verdict issued to Serbia’s state leadership, the Hague Tribunal handed to the North-Atlantic Alliance and its leading powers what they were lacking thus far: for the common folk, convincing justification of the aggression it carried out and of the grave crimes it has committed, starting with the greatest war crime of all — the crime against peace. In contrast to our idiotic and most often also rotten American...

General Draza Mihailovich in the hills of Serbia WW II Photo of Major Richard Felman, U.S.A.F. (Ret.) by Mari Shaefer. Richard L. Felman stands before a Douglas C-47 Sky Train, a plane similar to the C-47 transports used to evacuate 500 U.S. fliers from Yugoslavia during World War II. The photo was taken at Pima Air Museum in Tucson, Arizona. To the group of stranded American airmen he rescued during World War II, the Serbian guerrilla leader who once graced the cover of Time Magazine deserves a monument on federal land in Washington, D.C. To others, including Croatian-Americans, he’s a...

Serbs and Yugoslavia were Under Attack, Not Croatia In the exclusive interview, Franjo Tudjman’s Internal Affairs Minister Josip Boljkovac admitted Croat leadership carried out planned attacks on Croatia Serbs in 1991, in order to start a war. “Tudjman wanted the war at any cost, following the concept according to which Serbs must disappear from Croatia,” Boljkovac said. Croat media censored reports from Boljkovac’s testimony at the trial against former Osijek mayor Branimir Glavaš, war criminal responsible for horrific crimes against the local Serbs, concealing parts of his testimony which charge Croatia with instigating the war. “During the testimony, Glavaš accused...

MITROVICA, Kosovo (AP): Several thousand Serbs are protesting in Kosovo's north against the formation of an ethnic Albanian security force. The protesters claim the new Kosovo Security Force is designed to harass the Serb minority, and say they will not allow the NATO-trained force to deploy in the Serb-dominated north. They are urging Serbia's government to hold a Feb. 17 session in Kosovo as the former Serbian province marks its first anniversary of independence. Serbia rejects Kosovo's statehood. Kosovo's security force is dominated by ethnic-Albanians and commanded by a former rebel leader that fought Serbia during the 1998-99 war. It...

Atrocity stories are a classic and effective way to motivate hatred against an enemy you are out to destroy. Poland attacked Germany on 1 September 1939, right? The British press in 1914 had "Huns" raping every maiden in Belgium. The "Ulster Massacre of 1641" was a hoax by London to foment hatred of the Irish; it was intended to "justify" all-out war for centuries on the Irish, citing numbers of victims that were astronomically in excess of the number of Protestants in Ireland. And then there's that big hit 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" which "proved" that Jews...

Rome – Mauro Del Vecchio, former General of Italian Army who led the unit of 7,000 soldiers that entered Kosovo in June of 1999 after end of NATO air strikes on Serbia told Italian ‘Panorama’ weekly that during the first three weeks of the mandate ‘reports on the found bodies of killed Serbs and Romas arrived on his table each morning’, but that was a taboo topic they were not allowed to speak about with journalists. ‘The killing continued later but not so frequently. Those that have not fled Kosovo were under permanent risk to be killed or raped. Deserted...

When Rod Blagojevich was elected governor in 2002, he didn't tout his Serbian heritage much. Other than making an appearance at the steel mill where his father once worked, Blagojevich seemed to distance himself from his ethnic roots because of the perceived political backlash it might bring upon him. Serbs in the south suburbs were willing to look past that. After his election in 2002, they reasoned one of their own was going to bring integrity back to the governor's office after George Ryan's scandalous regime. Perhaps more importantly, they saw a man who would restore the image of Serbs,...

Civilian law-enforcement officials from the European Union, the U.S. and a handful of other countries began working in Kosovo Tuesday to bolster shaky police, courts and customs systems. This unprecedented mission in a country recognized as a major conduit for smuggling drugs and weapons into Europe faces steep challenges. A bombing in Kosovo's capital of Pristina and a murky spy affair involving German agents highlight some of the diplomatic difficulties as the EU begins the ambitious effort in the Balkans...... In the BND report, a copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci...