Macedonia's Albanian political scene was in turmoil after police on Tuesday said they had arrested a former senior officer, Hisen Musliu, suspected of fabricating secret police files naming leaders of the ruling Democratic Union of Integration, DUI, as spies.
The DUI is the largest ethnic Albanian party in Macedonia and is a junior partner in government with the centre-right VMRO-DPMNE of Nikola Gruevski.
But what caused consternation among Albanians, one-quarter of the country's population, were police claims that Musliu had confessed to working for the DUI’s bitter rival, the smaller Democratic Party of Albanians, DPA.
A police spokeswoman says 28-year-old Almir Rrapo was handed to officers from the U.S. Marshals Service early Wednesday. Courts approved the transfer despite claims by Rrapo's lawyers that he could face the death penalty if extradited.
The former senior aide to Albania's deputy prime minister was arrested in July following a U.S. request. Rrapo is accused of being part of an international crime organization that engaged in murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking, extortion, robbery, arson and other crimes, mostly in the New York area.
Croatian Times
NATO is disposing of bombs and missiles in the Adriatic sea, with toxic waste potentially reaching Croatian and Italian shores, an Italian journalist has warned. Gianni Lannes claims that NATO and the Italian government are not telling the truth when claiming that these materials - bombs and missiles not used during military missions - are deposited in six pre-determined zones. Lannes says that in reality, there are 24 such zones which lie not only in international waters but also within Croatian and Italian state borders.The United States considers lumberjack Bajram Asllani one of its most wanted men but, because of Kosovo’s unusual international status, it is unable to extradite ands interrogate him.
Unlike others on the “most wanted” list, Asllani is not hiding out in a distant desert or rugged mountain range.
The 30-year-old lives openly with his family in Kosovo, a pro-American Balkan country where about 800 U.S. soldiers help preserve a fragile peace between majority ethnic Albanians and minority Serbs, formerly the territory’s rulers.
A friendly local policeman even pointed the way to his street when a journalist recently tried to find Asllani’s home in Mitrovica, one of the country’s largest cities.
Asllani’s case is caught up in the hybrid legal system of
Kosovo, whose own weak judicial system leaves European Union judges and prosecutors to handle major cases involving terrorism and war crimes.
Bajram Asllani, 30, wanted by the FBI for allegedly conspiring to engage in violent jihad, is interviewed in his house in Mitrovica November 19, 2010. The United States considers lumberjack Asllani one of its most wanted men but, because of Kosovo's unusual international status, it is unable to extradite and interrogate him.
Kosovo, whose independence nearly three years ago has been recognised by many countries, wants to join the European Union one day but remains an international protectorate more than a decade after its war for liberation from Serbia.
The FBI “Wanted” poster on the internet (here) has complicated life for Asllani, who lives on state unemployment benefits for his wife and three children of just 75 euros ($100) a month.
“I lost my job and there are times when I don’t have enough to feed my children,” he said after offering a guest a glass of strawberry juice in his ramshackle house.
“No one is hiring me. They tell me: you are a terrorist, you have attacked the Americans.”
The FBI wanted poster reads: “Bajram Asllani is an alleged co-conspirator with a group of eight individuals in the United States who were allegedly co-conspiring to engage in violent jihad, or holy war, and to raise money for mujihadeen, or warriors engaged in violent jihad.”
Asllani, a Kosovar Albanian, was arrested in June but released after EU judges rejected a U.S. request for his extradition.
The EU judges found that the United States had not provided sufficient grounds for believing that Asllani had committed the offences, and also cited the absence of an extradition accord between Washington and Pristina.
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Nick Squires, Telegraph (London)
A Right-wing political party in Switzerland has produced a provocative anti-immigration campaign in which a photograph of naked young models wading into Lake Zurich is contrasted with an image of headscarf-wearing Muslim women bathing in filthy water.
The campaign is meant to warn the Swiss of what could happen to the country if it allows greater immigration.
It comes as the Alpine nation prepares to vote on whether immigrants who commit serious crimes should be automatically expelled.
The online campaign was produced by a regional branch of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), the largest in parliament and the country’s biggest political force.
The first image shows a rear view of four young women holding hands and standing in the shallows of Lake Zurich.
The second shows a group of elderly women, possibly Albanians or Bosnians, wearing headscarves and smoking as they immerse themselves in muddy water. It is supposed to represent a vision of Switzerland 20 years from now.
A spokeswoman for the SVP told The Daily Telegraph that the controversial images had been created by party activists in Wohlen, west of Zurich, and would not be adopted nationally.
Switzerland will hold a referendum next week in which voters can decide whether foreigners who have been found guilty of murder, rape, drugs trafficking and other serious offences should be deported.
The expulsion initiative was put forward by the SVP, which has won support by capitalising on fears about foreigners, who currently make up more than a fifth of Switzerland’s population of 7.7 million.
Recent polls show that 54 per cent of Swiss voters would vote in favour of the measure while 43 per cent are against it.
The federal Justice Ministry has warned that a “yes” vote on Nov 28 could bring Switzerland into conflict with international obligations such as the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion or nationality.
Switzerland drew international condemnation last year after voters backed a ban, proposed by the SVP, on the construction of new minarets.
The party also caused outrage with a poster showing a group of white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag.
Kosovo's Election Commission says candidates can only be disqualified from December's poll if they have been found guilty.
Senior international actors and Kosovo-based organisations have criticised the number of politicians running for office in December's general election who are under suspicion of offences ranging from war crimes to corruption.
One member of the Central Election Commission, Fadil Maloku, voted against last Thursday's decision of the Commission to certify the candidates' list, saying they should have awaited the legal outcome facing some of the candidates under investigation. "The law has been violated. Candidates have been certified without any decision or opinion from the legal office," Maloku said.
The head of the Commission, Valdete Daka, disputed this, saying the law only banned candidates who had been found guilty of criminal offences, not people under probes. "No candidates can be certified if they've been found guilty of a criminal offence... in the past three years," Daka explained.
Two of the ten top candidates of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, the party of the Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, are under criminal investigation. One is the Minister of Transport, Fatmir Limaj. He has been under an investigation by the EU rule-of-law mission, EULEX, since April 2010, suspected of corruption.
The other is Azem Syla, a former Kosovo Liberation Army commander. He has also been under a EULEX investigation since a self-declared assassin, Nazim Blaca, mentioned his name in November 2009 when he went public over his crimes.
Blaca admitted having once worked for Kosovo's unofficial secret service, SHIK, and mentioned several names in connection with SHIK's activities, including Syla's. Limaj and Syla and four and fifth respectively on the PDK's list of candidates.
Thaci's party is not the only one with candidates facing possible trial. The leader of the opposition Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, leads his party's list in December although he is awaiting re-trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, ICTY, in The Hague.
Another party leader seeking a seat in parliament in December is the former speaker of the Kosovo assembly, Nexhat Daci, head of the Democratic League of Dardania. On November 10, a Pristina court found him guilty of abusing his official post and gave him an 18 months' suspended jail sentence.
Andy Sparkes, deputy head of EULEX, said that while everyone accepted the principle that people were innocent until proven guilty, the selection of some candidates sent an unfortunate signal.
"Where it's known that someone is under an investigation or judicial procedure, it would be better and more honourable, and better for the reputation of Kosovo, if they didn't present themselves for public office until they had cleared their names," Sparkes said.
Avni Zogiani, head of the anti-corruption organisation Cohu, said that the judicial system in Kosovo was too corrupt to keep people with criminal records out of pubic life. "Where is the ethics in our society today?" he asked.
 Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. AA photo |
Reports in the Greek media that Turkey had agreed to allow Greece to expand its territorial waters in the Aegean Sea were denied Monday by the Turkish prime minister.
“There is nothing like an agreement that has been reached on the 12 miles [issue]. The talks are still underway with Greece,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters Monday.
The Greek newspaper To Vima had reported that an agreement was reached between Turkey and Greece, with Ankara accepting that Greece would expand its territorial waters in the Aegean Sea from six nautical miles to 12.
Such an agreement is out of the question at the moment and, if one were ever to be reached, would be announced in a joint statement by both parties, Erdoğan said. “Authorized people continue with talks,” he added. “We will make a necessary statement if they reach a specific point.”
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said Monday, however, that there had been progress in talks concerning the territorial-waters dispute.
Turkey and Greece have achieved progress in good faith during exploratory talks on the issue, Davutoğlu told reporters Monday in response to a question, noting that the talks between Turkey and Greece are confidential. “It’s not appropriate to go into details on the issue. We give importance to continuing the talks in good faith and determination,” he said.
Citing an international maritime agreement, Greece claims its territorial waters should be extended to 12 nautical miles from the current six miles. Turkey has not signed the agreement in question and has thus far refused to accept the Greek claim. ........more see:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=turkish-premier-conditions-reciprocity-principle-to-open-ports-to-greek-cypriots-2010-11-22
Nov 22, 2010
Belgrade - More than 8,000 Serbs have this year claimed asylum in European Union countries, Belgrade's Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said Sunday, according to local media.
Many were bogus asylum seekers, Dacic said, hoping to leave the Balkan country for economic reasons.
Sweden alone had received 6,000 applications, whilst roughly 2,000 had applied to Germany.
Many of the applications for asylum came from the Roma community in the north of Serbia, whilst there were also some from ethnic Albanians in the south.
Serbia is not an EU member state, but earlier this year joined the Schengen zone of visa-free travel.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is a country ‘irreversibly divided’ along ethnic lines, Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik told a Serbian paper Monday, 15 years after a peace deal ended the country’s inter-ethnic war in the 1990s.
“Bosnia is divided in an irreversible way” and “[the international community] will eventually get tired and understand that they are trying to bring together something that cannot be brought together,” Dodik told the Vecernji Novosti daily.
“They cannot build a [united] Bosnia without taking into account Serbs and Croats. I am convinced that this project, after all these years, is failing.”
“Fifteen years since the Dayton [peace agreement] it is clear that this attempt has failed,” Dodik said.
The peace deal reached in Dayton, Ohio, Nov. 21, 1995, ended the 1992-1995 war between Bosnia’s Croats, Muslims and Serbs.
It left the former Yugoslav republic split into two semi-autonomous halves–the Serb-run Republika Srpska and the Muslim Croat Federation.
The two entities are linked by weak central institutions while each has its own government.
The international community, notably the European Union, wants Bosnia and Herzegovina’s central institutions to be strengthened in order to implement reforms needed for the country’s integration in Europe.
Dodik, a former powerful Bosnian Serb prime minister, is opposing any strengthening of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s joint institutions at the expense of his entity’s autonomy.
However, while being sworn as Bosnian Serb president earlier this month, Dodik softened his nationalist rhetoric and called for inter-ethnic dialogue and a “basic consensus,” with the country’s Croats and Serbs.
November 22, 2010While many Macedonians seek a better life in Western Europe, the number of people seeking refuge in Macedonia is also growing.
This year alone, 94 foreign nationals have sought political asylum in Macedonia, Macedonian police say.
Last year this number was 60.
Most, 46, came from Afghanistan, where Macedonia has troops stationed as part of the NATO ISAF force. Another 22 were Palestinian.
Others came from Sudan, Somalia, Iraq and Algeria. Three were from neighbouring Kosovo.
Macedonia was not these people’s first choice as a country of asylum, police said.
"Most come to Macedonia after being rejected by another Western European country," Ivo Kotevski told Balkan Insight.
"They see Macedonia as a temporary refuge before they attempt to enter the EU again."
more ....www.balkaninsight.com
In a further example of the fragile state of press freedom in Albania, a regional journalists' union leader was beaten up by two men last weekend.
One of the men who attacked Piro Nase, a reporter for the newspaper Panorama, shouted at him: "Let's see if you will be more careful what you write after tonight."
Nase, who also works for TV Planet, heads the Gjirokastra branch of the Albanian Union of Journalists.
In condemning the attack, Oliver Vujovic, secretary general of the South and East Europe Media Organisation, said: "This was a criminal act...
"The press freedom situation in Albania remains distressing; the repeated occurrences of vicious physical attacks on journalists, such as this one, are particularly troubling."
e political situation in Albania, at the end of the fall of the Berlin Wall, De Mistura, was interested to know the opinion of Petro Marko about the relationship Albania Greece and the situation it was found in Northern Epirus and the Greek minority, after more than 40 years of persecution. Petro Marko's response was that: "Northern Epirus resembles a giant elephant, which one day will wake up from sleep, after Albania to join with Kosovo." Petro Marko used the other words while also an interesting epithet was to Himara, in which made a strange comparison. "Himara with Albania is as if to say, is heavy tail more than ax." Petro Marko, William & George Tenet and Pyrros Dhimas, are honorary citizen of the Municipality of Himara.
21. November 2010. | 08:44
Source: Emg
PM Berisha in his speech delivered to the summit said Albania joins in the NATO’s new Strategic Concept, the most sweeping NATO reform, its role and mission in the 21-st century.
Leaders of NATO's 28 nations have begun discussions in Lisbon, Portugal today and approved the NATO’s new strategic concept.
Along with the heads of states and governments of the NATO member countries were invited senior EU officials like Mr. Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council and Mr. Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission.
PM Berisha in his speech delivered to the summit said Albania joins in the NATO’s new Strategic Concept, the most sweeping NATO reform, its role and mission in the 21-st century.
Further on, PM Berisha appreciated highly the NATO decisive role for prevention of genocide and promotion of peace and stability in the Balkans. And he also ensured the member countries that Albania will continuo to take part actively and support all the Alliance peace missions and also support NATO facing new security threats over the Euro-Atlantic space as well as over a wider area.
The prime minister emphasized that Albania considers the further enlargement of the Alliance with new members in the region like a quite important development for the security of our region and said that Albania is determined to make a contribution to the process.
The prime minister said that during the current year, Albania has a continuing commitment to Afghanistan and has put a new dimension in proportion to its potential to the alliance's military campaign there while it is working for a further increase of its presence.
We are determined to upgrade further our armed forces so that to be able to respond and take part in the NATO missions wherever the need arises, said PM Berisha.
The majorities of the ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia in favor of forming a "Greater Albania," a poll shows.
80% of the Albanians in Kosovo, 62% of those in Albania, and 51% of the Albanian minority in Macedonia back the idea for forming a Greater Albania, according to a poll of Gallup carried out in cooperation with the European Fund for the Balkans, cited by Macedonian TV Kanal 5.
An alliance between Albania and Kosovo has smaller support – 33.7% in Albania and 29.2% in Kosovo, according to the report of the Serbian media B92.
According to Albanian nationalists, a hypothetical "Greater Albania" would feature the entire territories of Albania and Kosovo, about half of Macedonia, and parts of Southern Serbia, Montenegro and Greece.
Fears that a scenario for creating a Greater Albania were on the way emerged after the Kosovo War in 1999 and the subsequent insurgency in Macedonia, which was settled through a constitutional compromise, the Ohrid Accord, in 2001.
During his visit to Paris Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou met with Nicolas Sarkozy at the Presidential palace on Monday, November 14th. The two leaders discussed various issues including the Greek initiative for the confrontation of the climate change in the Mediterranean and the institutionalization of the support mechanism. The latter according to Papandreou, is expected to facilitate the completion of the economic governance, whose absence is responsible for the imbalances and the difficulties that Greece and other countries encounter. Finally, Papandreou thanked the French President for supporting Greece during the current economic crisis. Sarkozy confirmed that France will keep encouraging Greek efforts for recovery.
The European Commission came under fire on Tuesday (16 November) over its latest progress report on Albania during a meeting hosted by the European People's Party (EPP).
Joseph Daul, president of the EPP, the biggest political group in the European Parliament, said he had not seen the problems referred to in the commission's report on his own visit to Albania.
EPP president Joseph Daul has criticised the commission's report on Albania. (Photo: epp-ed.eu)
The commission published its opinion on Albania's submission to become an official candidate for EU membership on 9 November. The Brussels-based EU executive refrained from recommending Albania's candidacy and instead asked the country to continue reform efforts that could eventually lead to candidate status.
For now, the commission considers Albania to fall short of the political criteria needed to begin membership talks. The greatest problem identified by experts was the lack of dialogue between the government and opposition in Tirana.
The country has been in a political crisis since the summer of 2009 when, following general elections, Prime Minister Sali Berisha's conservative party held onto power and the socialist opposition started boycotting parliamentary work........................... more see;
http://waz.euobserver.com/887/31283
There are around 270,000 Albanian speakers currently living in Switzerland, of whom 100,000 are under 16. The diverse populations from Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, and Serbia and Montenegro form the second-largest foreign community after the Italians.
The Greek community in Brussels welcomes the hilarious comedy: “In-Laws from Tirana”. It is created by Mixalis Reppas and Thanasis Papathanasiou and directed by Dimitris Argyropoulos.
This Greek production is a long-running and very popular theatre comedy in Greece. The story portrays Penny and Lykourgos who are a wealthy couple living in a large provincial city in central Greece. Their only daughter Lisa is studying in London. Their life appears complete since they live in luxury and have lots of money. Their dream is to see their daughter settle down with a good husband. Their neighbors Pauline, Penny’s sister and her husband Bill also live very comfortably. Shortly before Easter, Lisa comes home from London with her boyfriend, Alfred. He is a young student she met in London. The fact that their daughter has a boyfriend is a pleasant shock to the family. Alfred is charming and very polite. The families are very excited when they learn that the groom is from London. They go crazy when they learn that Alfred is not English but Albanian. Things get even worse when Alfred’s parents arrive from Tirana, Albania.
Participating actors are Tasos Filippidis, Tula Monoyiou Nikos Tsokalos, Marina Tzoti, George Muggle, David Loukos, Stefania Pantazi and many more.
The show will be at the Ten Weyngaert theater on Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 3:00 pm. All proceeds from the show will be donated to the Greek Community in Brussels
