Free Republic

What appears to be the beginning of a coup is underway in Macedonia. Masked men have stormed into Parliament and are holding both journalists and MPs. But this is a very different type of coup; it is one where they are seeking to replace the sitting government with a coalition majority that should be recognized in International Law. However, it is known that there are “power players” behind the scenes that have been actively backing one side. The question is, which side? Records have emerged after Judicial Watch filed a FOIA (freedom of info) request for details relating to why...

An interesting debate is taking place in the cafes of Kosovo. The question concerns the six stars of the country's new flag. Officially they are supposed to represent six ethnic groups here. But some suspect that they actually represent six areas where ethnic Albanians live and out of which extreme nationalists would like to fashion a Greater Albania.

Stuck in their cottage outside the northern Albanian village of Mnela, 14-year-old Flori Bardoku and his younger sisters watch suspiciously whenever anybody makes the hour-long journey up the path to their home. The reason for their caution is understandable: while most of their trickle of visitors are villagers bearing food and gifts, they know that one day someone may come to kill them. The four siblings and their mother have lived in fear of their lives ever since their father, Martin, killed his cousin's wife in Mnela after discovering her in bed with another man. He is serving 10 years...

TIRANA, Albania: The Albanian government said Friday that it has seized assets of a man who allegedly worked with Osama bin Laden to provide support to terror networks in Albania. The Finance Ministry said it ordered authorities to block four apartments, a house, four bars and shops, and more than 2 hectares (about 5 acres) of land belonging to Yasin al-Qadi, a Saudi businessman whom the United States accused of being a terrorist in October 2001 and who is on a U.N. sanctions list requiring all U.N. members to impose a travel ban on him and block his assets, according...

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....

November 3, 2005 -- 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...