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Specialist Robert Terrio and his wife, Kary, thought they had avoided a dangerous deployment a few months ago when he learned that his Missouri National Guard unit would do a tour in Kosovo instead of Iraq or Afghanistan. "There's a certain amount of relief that we weren't being deployed to an active war zone,'' Robert Terrio said. Then, last month, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, a move Serbia refused to recognize. Suddenly, Kosovo started to look a little more dicey. Demonstrators torched the U.S. Embassy in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, mobs attacked several United Nations border posts, and gun...

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) - Sweden's foreign minister said Saturday that the United Nations will have to stay in Kosovo to act as a buffer between nations that recognize Kosovo's statehood and those that do not. Carl Bildt said the U.N., European Union and NATO would need to adjust their plans in Kosovo after the U.N. was sidelined last month when Kosovo declared independence, due to a deadlock caused by Russia's opposition and U.S. and key European countries' backing for the new country. "We are operating in a somewhat different situation from the one that we were planning for," Bildt told...

KURSUMLIJA, Serbia: Serbian police have stopped hundreds of ex-army reservists from going to the border with Kosovo. Former Serb fighters from the Kosovo war planned to remove a border sign saying "Republic of Kosovo" at the Merdare border crossing. But hundreds of police blocked the reservists from leaving the town of Kursumlija. Police scuffled with the protesters but there were no serious incidents. The demonstrators are dispersing but have pledged to come back again on Monday. The Serbs are angry over the Feb. 17 declaration of independence by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership.

excerpt - BELGRADE: Serbia's government collapsed on Saturday and early elections loomed as pro-Western President Boris Tadic and nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica faced off over Kosovo and EU integration. Kostunica said his cabinet would meet on Monday to formally dissolve parliament and urged Tadic to call new elections for May 11, the same date as existing municipal polls. "The government of Serbia has no united policy any more on an important issue related to the future of the country, Kosovo as a part of Serbia," Kostunica told reporters in Belgrade. "Such a government could not function any more. This...

BELGRADE, Serbia -- As editor-in-chief of Serbia's oldest and most prestigious daily newspaper, Politika, I am at a loss to explain the West's stubborn support for Kosovo independence to my readers. Only nine years ago, my country was bombed for 78 days by the most powerful military alliance the world has ever seen, and the last thing I want is to pour oil over the fire of anti-Western sentiment. But the truth is, I find myself grappling with the same bitterness and resentment as most of my countrymen. I was very much part of the democratic upheaveal that rid Serbia...

It is hardly a conservative policy to support the establishment of an Islamist state on the European continent, turn a blind eye to the well-documented persecution of an ancient Christian community, engage in a Woodrow Wilson-style passion for nation building and follow in the footsteps of Bill Clinton. Yet that is what the United States has done by recognizing the independence of Kosovo. Kosovo is the ancient heartland of the Serbian people going back to the dawn of their history. It certainly had a Muslim ethnic Albanian majority before Clinton and his Secretary of State Madeline Albright bombed Belgrade back...

Once again the United States has sold out the good people and rewarded the bad. I am speaking of the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state by our government. As a bit of background information, the Jewish Defense League was the only activist Jewish organization to support the Serbian people and their right to their ancestral homeland during the war that dissolved Yugoslavia during the 1990s. While we did not approve of alleged war crimes by some Serbians, we understood they felt they were entitled to settle the score with their Nazi-loving Croatian and Bosnian neighbors. . . ....

Last Sunday's unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, former warlord/commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), heralds the birth of a new European narco state. The illegal dismemberment of Serbia, completing the U.S./EU/NATO destruction of Yugoslavia, is proclaimed by ruling elites and their sycophants as an exemplary means to bring "peace and stability" to the region. This provocative move, outside the framework of international law, threatens any sovereign state with similar treatment should they deviate from the "Washington consensus." Far from bringing "peace" let alone "stability," an "independent" Kosovo will serve as a militarized outpost for...

Kosovo declared independence Sunday, but it's unlikely any time soon to become the world's 193rd country. What it will almost certainly be is a failed state, unrecognized by the United Nations, unable to govern itself, dependent on Europe for its police and NATO for its armed forces. After eight years as an international protectorate and billions of dollars in aid and reconstruction funds, its economic prospects are grim. Unemployment is 57 percent, and among youths it's more like 70 percent; half the population is under 25. Small wonder then that its chief export is organized crime. It remains ethnically cleansed...

PARIS -- A Basque separatist leader yesterday said that his "struggle was inspired by the Kosovo example". Gabriel Mueska, who spent 17 years in prison for his membership in the terrorist group ETA, was speaking in a French television debate, dubbed "The death of nations", that also included Serb, Albanian and Flemish separatist representatives, and French analysts. "The Basques were exceptionally happy after the declaration of Kosovo's independence," he confided. "I was with the young people when the declaration took place and I did not manage to explain to them why us Basques do not have this possibility for freedom,"...

The man all but certain to win Russia's presidency warned Wednesday that Kosovo's independence could destabilize Europe. First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who is expected to easily win Sunday's presidential vote, said Kosovo's independence has "jeopardized security and stability of the vast region." Medvedev said recognition of Kosovo's declaration Feb. 17, spearheaded by the United States, has "put Europe in a very difficult situation." "The United States is far away and is not facing any risks, but Europe could go ablaze," he said in a campaign speech in the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod. "It's enough to put...

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...

On February 17, Kosovo broke away from Serbia and declared its independence. Not surprisingly it was instantly recognized as a state by the U.S., Germany, Britain and France. With 4203 square miles area, Kosovo may be a tiny territory but in the great game of oil politics it holds great importance which is in inverse proportion to its size. Kosovo does not have oil but its location is strategic as the trans-Balkan pipeline - known as AMBO pipeline after its builder and operator the US-registered Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corporation - will pass through it. The pipeline will pump Caspian...

The decision by Britain, America and certain other European countries to recognise Kosovo as an independent state is mind-blowingly stupid and suicidal and of a piece with their obvious determination to capitulate in the war for civilisation. It is a rotten decision for the following reasons: 1) It endorses a breach of a country's right to maintain its own integrity. Serbia is a properly constituted democratic country. To recognise the validity of such a secession is to undermine the principle of a country's right to determine its own composition. It puts up two fingers to international law, which explicitly recognises...

Europe: The removal of European Union officials from Kosovo, the newly independent former Serbian province, is bad news. Trouble is on the way, and once again the U.S. may be asked to clean up the mess. The State Department's decision to back Kosovo's independence from Serbia will go down as a major mistake. Supporting a Muslim separatist movement within Europe strikes us as a fool's errand, one that could lead to similar uprisings around the world from aggrieved minorities. Demonstrations and riots on Serbia's border with northern Kosovo -- which Serbs consider to be their nation's heartland -- have caused...

Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian first deputy prime minister and the presumptive successor to President Vladimir Putin, committed the Kremlin on Monday to long-term support in backing Serbia against an independent Kosovo. Medvedev appeared in Belgrade, the Serbian capital, with Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica of Serbia. It was his first significant foreign policy appearance since he became the front-runner for Russia's highest office, and he restated Putin's position and made it clear that it would be his own. "We proceed from the understanding that Serbia is a single state with its jurisdiction spanning its entire territory, and we will stick to...

History has been a harsh critic of Neville Chamberlain's decision in 1938 to allow Adolf Hitler to trash the WWI Versailles peace treaty to seize control of and change the borders Europe, first France in the Rhineland, then Czechoslovakia and Poland. President George W. Bush's quick acceptance of the efforts of the Albanians in Kosovo to change the borders of Serbia will also be viewed in history as an appeasement that did not work. World War II actually began when Adolf Hitler marched a mere 14,500 troops into the Rhineland on March 7, 1936, in violation of the Treaty of...

MOSCOW, February 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will never use force to solve the problem of Kosovo, which unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia, Russia's envoy to NATO said on Sunday. "This [use of force] will never take place," Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with the Vesti television channel in reply to a request to comment on his statement made at a February 22 Moscow-Brussels video conference and wrongfully interpreted by some media. Some media claimed, referring to Rogozin's statement on Kosovo, that he admitted of the use of force to restore international law. These reports prompted an angry...

fighting wordsThe Serbs' Self-Inflicted Wounds With Kosovo independent, Yugoslavia is finally dead.By Christopher HitchensPosted Friday, Feb. 22, 2008, at 12:51 PM ET Someone with a good memory of the conversation once told me how Lord Carrington, then one of the "mediators" of the incipient post-Yugoslavia war, came to the conclusion that Slobodan Milosevic was a highly dangerous man. Well-disposed toward Serbia (as the British establishment has always been), Carrington told the late dictator that he understood Serb concerns about significant Serbian minorities in Bosnia and Croatia. But why did Milosevic also insist on exclusive control over Kosovo, where the Albanian...

Prague- Czech President Vaclav Klaus is concerned about the development in Kosovo, which declared its independence of Serbia on Sunday, Klaus writes on his website today in reaction to a letter by Communist (KSCM) leader Vojtech Filip. Klaus writes he understands the frustration and disillusionment of Serbs and that is he concerned about the impacts that Kosovo's declaration of independence can have on other countries both in Europe and in the world. The position of the Czech Republic must not sharpen the already tense situation in the area, Klaus writes. "Our reaction must be formulated and timed in such a...