Pyetje: Lajme ne anglisht

Neighbor of Murder Victim Suddenly Disappears

NBCHartford.com
updated 11:16 p.m. ET, Sat., Dec. 27, 2008

The downstairs neighbor of an 85 year old woman, who was brutally stabbed to death, has suddenly vanished.

Police want to talk to Ervis Mecollari about Laura Orso, who was found dead on her kitchen floor.

A friend discovered Orso's body in her Wesley Street apartment on Saturday, December 20th. Shortly after that, police said, an unidentified female bought Mecollari a one way bus ticket to St. Petersburg, Florida.

But Mecollari never made it that far. He got off the bus in New York City Saturday night, according to investigators who traveled to both the Big Apple and Florida. Mecollari's own family reported him missing on Monday.

Police really want to talk to Mecollari. Anyone who has seen him or knows the woman who bought him a bus ticket is asked to call the Waterbury Police Department at 203-574-6941 or Crimestoppers at 203-755-1234.

Those who knew Orso said she was a loving woman who was devoted to family and friends. A funeral Mass will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church.

There is a $15,000 reward in this case.

NBC

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Nje artikull me i detajuar per kete ngjarje eshte ketu. Gjithashtu dhe Ballkanweb ka botuar nje artikull shkurtimisht.

A surprising story of Muslim converts to Christianity

A CHRISTMAS tree dominates the centre of Pristina. Nearby a huge Catholic cathedral is being built. Farther off stand statues of two Albanian heroes: Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a Catholic nun, and Skanderbeg, a medieval prince who renounced Islam for Catholicism. Yet 95% of Kosovo’s 1.8m ethnic Albanians, out of a total population of 2m, are nominally Muslim. Don Shan Zefi, a Catholic cleric, says there are only 65,000 Catholics in Kosovo.

If Don Zefi has his way, there will be a lot more in future. On Christmas Eve some 38 people were baptised in a single town, Klina. Conversions to Christianity have become common (though a cautious Catholic church does not give precise figures). Don Zefi says he knows of large numbers more in “tens of villages” who want to convert.

He dislikes the word, because many of them come from a crypto-Christian background. Their forefathers may have converted to Islam under Ottoman rule, but behind closed doors they kept their old Catholic practices. Jahja Drancolli, a historian, adds that “religion has always been secondary” to being Albanian. Converts, he says, “want to return to the old religion they believe they had” and to show that they are “part of the Euro-American trend.” For every convert, anecdotal evidence suggests more go to church or are interested in Christianity.

The Catholic church is not the only one active in Kosovo. Since 1985, says Artur Krasniqi, a Protestant pastor, as many as 15,000 Kosovar Albanians have converted to Protestantism: 2,000 regularly attend church. He says that Kosovo, despite being nominally mostly Muslim, has “no religious identity”. But he worries about the rising influence of radical Muslims. Protestants, he complains, cannot get separate sections in cemeteries because the authorities do not want to provoke quarrels with local Muslims.

What about Orthodoxy? Close by Pastor Artur’s office is the empty hulk of the unfinished, abandoned Serbian Orthodox cathedral in Pristina. Kosovo’s Serbs, who are Orthodox, make up the largest Christian group in Kosovo. They no longer live in the capital but in the north or in scattered enclaves and villages. Since the 1999 war, dozens of their churches have been destroyed. Worse, the Serbian Orthodox church in Kosovo is riven by a political split that has seen monks brawling and fighting. In Belgrade the 94-year-old Serbian Orthodox patriarch, Pavle, has long been gravely ill and a vicious war of succession is being waged. For now, other forms of Christianity seem more peaceable.

The Economist

Kosovo's image: prejudices and realities

By Kosovar Stability Initiative 

Kosovo suffers from a serious image problem. Across Europe the name ‘Kosovo’ conjures up images of ethnic conflict, political crisis and organized crime. Leading European newspapers, especially in countries with sizable Albanian migrant communities, describe Kosovo as a ‘mafia state’, a haven for criminals and drug traffickers, with weak institutions in the hands of corrupt family networks.

As we looked closer, we discovered a wide gap between perceptions and realities on the ground. Kosovo is no longer a country emerging from conflict; the murder rate is about the same as in Sweden and there are more police officers per capita in Kosovo than in Singapore. By comparison, Northern Ireland has 960 percent more violent crime than Kosovo. A UNDP study revealed that only 15 percent of respondents base their assessment of corruption on personal experience; according to the Council of Europe, most sex workers in the Balkans nowadays work voluntarily. With 18 firearms per 100,000 inhabitants compared to 69 in Finland, one wonders why Kosovo and not Finland is described as a gunner’s paradise. In fact, Kosovo and the Balkan region is one of the safest in Europe.

The much-repeated, and rarely challenged magical number of ‘300,000’ illegal weapons made us curious.  In search of its origin, we came across a 2003 study titled ‘Kosovo and the Gun,’ commissioned by UNDP. According to this study, there are an estimated 330,000 - 460,000 civilian small arms in Kosovo today. The four-person team drafting the study arrived at this number assuming that 60-70 percent of households in Kosovo keep on average 1.4–1.7 weapons in their homes. The source: ‘informed estimates of people working in various branches of the security sector in Kosovo.’ The report is silent on who these ‘informants’ are; but it concluded that ‘guns have become part of the fabric of Kosovar culture.’

A different report, published earlier this year by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime Control, equally confirms that Kosovo is no longer a conflict-ridden society where everyone keeps an illegal firearm under their pillow. According to the UNODC study, ‘per capita firearms ownership remains lower in Southeast Europe than in many West European countries.’ With 18 firearms per 100,000 Kosovo actually ranks better than many EU member states, notably Finland and Sweden.

A recent UN report published by the Office on Drugs and Crime describes ‘Albanian heroin dealers as the single most notorious Balkan organized crime phenomenon.’ The Council of Europe in its 2005 Situation Report on Organized Crime warned that ‘ethnic Albanian criminal groups pose a significant threat to the EU because of their involvement in drug trafficking.’ ‘Ethnic Albanian Criminal Groups’ are also the only national group discussed in a 2006 Europol publication.

Austrian authorities reported that ‘criminal groups of ethnic Albanians continue to be responsible for the transport of heroin… mainly from Kosovo to Austria.’ However, only three out of 660 heroin arrests made were Albanians and since 2001, never more than three Albanians annually were arrested on drug related charges. In Germany out of 7,819 heroin seizures in 2006 only 15 Albanians and 164  ‘Yugoslavs’ were arrested. The amount of drugs  involved was 12kg out of a grand total of 879kg of heroin seized. When IKS set out to test this allegation, we found that the image of the well-organized and brutal Albanian drug mafia controlling the Balkan drug routes is not confirmed by official data on drug seizures and arrests in key destination countries. Only one Yugoslav was arrested for smuggling.

Even in countries like Slovenia and Hungary, with no Albanian Diaspora communities, the negative perception of Albanian drug dealers prevails. Slovenia’s national crime assessment submitted to the UN office for Drugs and Crime Control asserts that ‘organized criminal gangs of ethnic Albanians seem to be the greatest problem.’ This is surprising, given that not a single Albanian was arrested out of all 51 drug trafficking arrests made. Of those arrested, only 2 percent were Yugoslavs – a notion that includes Albanians and people of other ethnicities that live in Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia and are holders of Yugoslav passports. In Hungary, authorities stated that ‘the Albanian nationality group are still playing a leading role in illegal drug trafficking.’ However, no Albanian was arrested in Hungary in 2005 and 2006.

What is the truth when it comes to the role of ethnic Albanians in drug trafficking? A 2004 study on drug trafficking conducted in 15 key European countries concluded  that at most 6 percent of drug  traffickers arrested were ‘ethnic Albanians’ – a term including Albanians from Albania as well as Kosovo Albanians and others who live outside the state of Albania. The label ‘ethnic Albanian crime’ makes no distinction between citizenship.

The 2004 study assessed a total of 18,749 arrests made related to drug trafficking in major drug markets including Italy, Germany or the Netherlands. It concluded that of those arrested on heroin trafficking charges 68 percent are West Europeans; 2  percent  are  Serbian/Montenegrin/Macedonian;  4  percent  Albanians;  4  percent Turks; 10 percent Africans and 12 percent others. Assuming that all heroin traffickers who come from Serbia, Montenegro or Macedonia are possibly ethnic Albanians, a total of 6 percent of drug trafficking arrests are’ ethnic Albanians’ A far cry from the perceived image of an ‘Albanian drug mafia’ controlling Western European markets.

In 2007, Transparency International labeled Kosovo the world’s fourth most corrupt country. Corruption is usually measured through citizen surveys; but results differ greatly. What many  had  forgotten was  the  fact  that  the  same  institution,  just  one  year earlier found that only 12 percent of citizens surveyed had paid a bribe in Kosovo. The Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer of 2006 placed Kosovo among countries such as Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Croatia and Hong Kong. Transparency International never explained the huge discrepancy that its own polls revealed. Both local and international media outlets were happy to be fed with such a sexy headline and the ‘negative image’ of Kosovo as the world’s 4th most corrupt place seemed set in stone. Different polls conducted between 2001 and 2007 have placed Kosovo among the best in the region to the bottom of the pile.

In a study funded by USAID in 2003, Kosovo scores best among nine countries in the region. The authors conclude that ‘corruption does not appear to be as widespread among public officials, the demands of rent-seeking behavior by public officials are lower and the extent of citizen involvement in corrupt transactions is lower than in neighboring countries.’

A comprehensive study on corruption commissioned by UNDP in 2004 found striking discrepancies between perception and actual experience of corruption. According to this study, only 15 percent of respondents based their assessment of corruption in public institutions on real personal experience.

To measure the importance of corruption for the Kosovo public, we also turned to UNDP’s Early Warning Reports, conducted regularly since 2001.  Throughout the years, when asked what constitutes the greatest problems in Kosovo, on average only 5 percent of respondents listed corruption as most important.

Interethnic crime is by far one of the most sensitive issues in post-war Kosovo. Protecting Kosovo’s minority communities, especially Serbs who constitute about 7 percent of the population, has become the sole raison d’être of UNMIK. International recognition of independence also hinges on Kosovo institutions upholding their commitment to a multi-ethnic society. Given the importance of interethnic crime and interethnic relations, it is surprising how little we actually know.

Despite these inconsistencies, there are a number of facts that we do know for certain. All data confirm that murder rates in general have dropped dramatically since 2000. The homicide rate has decreased by two-thirds, from 226 murders in 2000 to 65 murders in 2007. We also know that grenade mine and explosive attacks have decreased by 93 percent over the period 2000 to 2007. Theft of motor vehicles has declined by 90 percent over that same period. These dramatic improvements reflect Kosovo’s post-war normalization. In 2006, Kosovo had on average 3 murders per 100,000 citizens compared to 2.4 murders in Sweden, 4 per 100,000 citizens in Bulgaria and 5.5 murders in the US.

When Kosovo’s violent crime statistics are compared to those of Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland has 960 percent more incidence. Kosovo actually has few murders, robberies and car thefts than most countries in Western Europe; it is no longer a country emerging from conflict. Overall, Kosovo has a very low crime rate, half that of the European average.

One thing is certain; there is no shortage of police in Kosovo. Per capita, Kosovo has a higher number of police officers than Singapore. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that ‘Kosovo probably has the highest concentration of security personnel in the world.’
At present there are a total of 26,233 security personnel in the whole of territory of Kosovo, including 15,900 KFOR troops, 1,499 UNMIK Police and 8,834 Kosovo Police officers. In other words, there is one security officer for every 22 adult male inhabitants.

On the eve of independence, the Kosovo Police Service was a respected, multi-national institution. The share of police officers belonging to minority communities was above 14 percent, including 822 Serb officers or 9.3 percent and 413 or 5 percent non-Serb minorities. There were 1,351 female officers, an impressive rate of 15 percent.

The  single  biggest  threat  to  security  and  regional  stability,  however,  is  the  total absence of  the  rule of  law north of  the  Ibar River. Following independence, Serb police officers refused to cooperate with Prishtina. In Serb-populated areas, police officers of the Serbian Ministry of Interior (MUP) continue to operate clandestinely. At present, MUP has an estimated strength of 375 officers and 160 reserve officers in Kosovo. Another 130 Serb officers within the Kosovo Police also work for MUP, including senior officers with access to intelligence records.  This affords MUP a high degree of control over large parts of Kosovo and advance warning on planned Kosovo Police activities.

Kosovo must act and take its image problem seriously. Rhetoric and PR is simply not enough. We also call on Kosovo’s friends and partners in Europe to help tackle prejudices and clichés that no longer reflect the realities on the ground. Much has happened since the 1990s; it is time that the image of Kosovo abroad reflects these dramatic changes and positive developments of recent years.

This article has been adopted from the study Image Matters!, authored by the Kosovar Stability Initiative (IKS) and funded by Forum 2015, a project of Kosovo SOROS Foundation and Riinvest Institute. See the full study here .

Marre nga New Kosova Report

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Artikullin e plote ne shqip mund ta lexoni ketu (pdf).

Albanian Artist Exhibits at OUZ

By: Audry Kensicki

The OUZ Library has a very special collection on display, all the way from Europe.

Albanian artist Vasiliev Nini is displaying a large amount of drawings, paintings and sculptures. Vasiliev said he knew from a very young age he was meant to be an artist.

"I'm living for art. Why do I say I'm living for art? Because in my life I did just this job," said Vasiliev Nini. "When I was a kid and now and all my life I think is going to be artwork."

OUZ art professor Jerry Westerges met Vasiliev and thought his artwork needed a venue. He said he was amazed at his talent and thinks it needs to be out where people can appreciate it.

"You're not going to find many artists of his training and his stature in this country who know the body and now all different faces of sculpture as well as he does so we're really thrilled to have him here," Westerges said.

He has more than 20 exhibitions around the world and has won several awards. The exhibit is up at the OUZ Library now through January 16th. The exhibition is free and open to the public during library hours.

WHIZ News

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Qenka ne Zanesville, Ohio(ShBA). Per me shume informacion rreth tij ketu.

Albania: The Forum on Inter- Religious Dialogue held in Tirana

The Forum on Inter - Religious Dialogue for Southeast Europe was held today in Tirana, under the special auspices of the Albanian Prime Minister, Mr. Sali Berisha and in the framework of the UN Alliance of Civilizations.

This Forum was held under the initiative of the Albanian Government, in view of promoting the culture of peace, understanding, inter-religious and inter-ethnic dialogue in Southeast Europe.

As a multi-century example of inter-religious harmony, co-habitation and understanding, symbolized at best by the spirit of profound respect among the three major religious country's communities – Moslem, Orthodox and Catholic, Albania launched this Initiative in order to institutionalize a mechanism of periodic meetings among the SEE countries, designed to enable, through constructive dialogue, the exchange of positive experiences on the inter-religious, inter-ethnic and inter-cultural cooperation in the region.

Attending this Forum were representatives of the Governments from Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Slovenia, as well as representatives from the EU, the Council of Europe, OSBE-ODIHR, UNESCO and representatives of the Diplomatic Corps.

This meeting was attended by the Minister of State of the Republic of Turkey, Mr. Mehmet Aydin and the Ambassador for the Alliance of Civilizations of the Kingdom of Spain, Mr. Jose Maria Ferre De La Pena, who conveyed the messages by the Turkish and Spanish Prime Ministers, in their capacities as co-sponsors of the Alliance of Civilizations.

On behalf of the Prime Minister Sali Berisha, The Deputy Premier, Mr. Genc Pollo addressed the Forum, underscoring the will of the Albanian Government to make available Albania's experience in the inter-religious dialogue and cooperation, with a view to promote this dialogue on regional level.

The representatives of the SEE Governments, after highly appreciating the initiative of the Albanian government for this Forum, stated the commitment of their governments for the intensification of the shared work in all the countries of the region.

In this regard, Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha emphasized that all the SEE countries have already established a community of political values and aspirations – the shared spirit of good – neighborliness, solidarity, economic progress and integration to the Euro – Atlantic community.

A particular place at this Forum was devoted to the address speeches by the four major representatives of the religions in Albania, whose message awoke special interest among the participants.

Today's Forum adopted Tirana Declaration. This Document foresees the stepped up inter-religious, inter-ethnic and inter-cultural cooperation in the region, in four major areas, -education, youth, migration and media. Tirana Declaration specifies the holding of such meetings in every two years.

ISRA

New container port to be built in Albania

TIRANA, Albania - Albania awarded a 35-year concession to the British-Swiss Zumax AG group Wednesday for a euro1.18 billion ($1.55 billion) container terminal for ships in southwestern Albania.

The Transport Ministry said St. Gallen, Switzerland-based Zumax AG will build the terminal at the Vlora port, 85 miles (140 kilometers) southwest of capital, Tirana, with a three-million container annual capacity.

Its construction is expected to start in April or May this year and to be completed in four years, according to Kevin Paja, the group's representative in Tirana.

The group also has asked the government to create a free-trade zone where the terminal is to be located and to build an airport in the Vlora area.

The group expects more than 4,000 companies to exploit the container terminal in a free-trade zone.

AP/MSNBC

P.S. Vazhdojne te na pushtojne te huajt me keto investimet me koncesione. Plus qe kushedi sa do rritet niveli i dioksidit te karbonit nga ky projekti.

"Taken", nje film me subjekt mafjen shqiptare. "Mafia shqiptare" eshte the new thing me duket per hollivudsat.

Trailer i filmit.

The Second Kosovo War
Ground zero in the fight against Wahhabism.

by Stephen Schwartz
02/03/2009 12:00:00 AM

Osman Musliu is a moderate Muslim mullah and Kosovar Albanian patriot. He demonstrated his commitment to both causes during the Kosovo war of 1998-99, when he was the sole Islamic cleric in the territory willing to officiate at the funeral of Adem Jashari, the main founder of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Jashari was killed in his house by Serbian troops, along with, according to foreign human rights monitors, 57 other Albanians, including 18 women and 10 children under the age of 16. Some of the bodies were burned so badly they could not be identified. A single teenaged girl survived the raid on the Jashari home, which is now a Kosovar shrine.

Kosovo remains vulnerable to Serbian aggression (see here). But it faces a second serious threat. Agents of the Saudi-financed, ultrafundamentalist Wahhabi Muslim sect have sparked open violence in Kosovo. This new conflict in ex-Yugoslavia comes after years of Wahhabi infiltration and provocation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Muslim areas in Macedonia and South Serbia, where they have made significant gains (see here), as well as in Albania proper, Montenegro, and Kosovo, where they have so far been kept in check.

On January 9, Musliu, now a regional chairman of the Islamic Community of Kosovo, went to a village called Lower Zabel to preside over the installation of a new imam. A riot broke out in a mosque and Musliu was beaten up, after which nine men were arrested by Kosovo police. An investigating officer said that of the four main suspects, two wore the bizarre short pants and had the distinctive long beards of Wahhabis. Musliu told the Kosovo daily newspaper Express, which is respected for its professionalism, "They can kill me, but I will not be intimidated. Their goal is simple. They want to take over the Islamic Community of Kosovo." Later, appearing on the paper's front page with a black eye and bandaged hand, he said he doubted that Serbia had damaged Kosovo as badly as could Wahhabi infiltration.

Musliu, who has recovered from the ambush, had previously denounced the Wahhabi takeover of a library in a local school, and has now closed the mosque in Lower Zabel until things calm down. But he has also pledged to confront the radicals no matter how many people they succeed in buying off. Cash is, as elsewhere among Muslims, the extremists' main weapon. Musliu declared, "Those who give out money do the worst harm." Musliu criticized Shefqet Krasniqi, a hatemongering imam who has preached around the new republic.

Krasniqi had his moment in media, in an Express interview published January 18. He defended himself in the customary idiom of Muslim fundamentalist fanatics, saying first that Wahhabism represented the reform of Islam and great achievements in Saudi Arabia. Those accused of adherence to it, according to the radical cleric, were simply young people eager to "return" to religion, in defiance of old, traditional teachers--the latter, to the outrage of the Wahhabi preacher, are "guilty" of celebrating the birth of Muhammad. This custom, present everywhere in the Muslim world--even behind the walls of private homes in the Saudi kingdom--is despised by Wahhabis as an alleged imitation of Christianity's love of Jesus.

A cleavage between young and old, according to the Wahhabi advocate, is owed to a youthful "desire to turn now to a completely Islamic life." Krasniqi rebuked Kosovar political leaders for creating a secular state, when, according to this Islamist bigot, "The state should not have denied the reality in Kosovo where 95 percent of the people are Muslims." Rather, he argued, the government (in which no religious parties are represented because none are popular or even taken seriously in Kosovo), should "promote" and "sponsor" Islam with public financing. He credited "God's guidance" for the beating of Osman Musliu and other incidents of Wahhabi violence, and, in a menacing manner, counseled that if the Kosovo Muslims accept the Wahhabi interpretation of religion, "everything will be much easier for you." As a Bosnian Muslim dissident scholar told me, "that is the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam as a religion of peace. Submit to their dictation and you will enjoy peace!" Finally, Shefqet Krasniqi, the Wahhabi missionary, like others of his breed, denied there were any Wahhabis at all in Kosovo! Like Communists in the West 50 years ago, Muslim radicals try to deny their identity even as they seek to defend it, because they know that many ordinary Muslims hate them.

Kosovar contempt for the Wahhabis, as expressed in online reactions to the assault on the moderate mullah, proved this point, and was profoundly heartening. The majority of commentators on the Express website supported Osman Musliu and indignantly repudiated Wahhabi ambitions in Kosovo. An unidentified reader in Sweden wrote, "Osman is right when he says that in Kosovo mosques some suspicious imams are preaching. These 'imams' use a language that is crude and hateful. I am not against the free practice of religion, but please . . . now we are suddenly surrounded by people who hate other religions. . . . The most rigid Muslim nations are trying to reform and move forward while we are going backward."

Most Arab states have declined to recognize an independent Kosovo--among leading Muslim countries, only Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Malaysia have established diplomatic relations with the new country. Even Bosnia-Herzegovina, also under Serbian pressure, has avoided doing so. Kosovo Muslims were recently barred from a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the authoritative global Islamic forum, in Cairo. Reflecting these developments, an Albanian identified only as a "patriot" living in Germany wrote, "Better to live without the recognition of our independence by the Arabs than to allow the spread of this 'cancer' in Kosovo and throughout our Albanian lands." The same commentator repeated Musliu's condemnation of radical Islam as a worse problem than Serbian harassment. Other commenters mentioned significant evidence, circulating throughout the Balkans and far more substantial than the usual rumors, that the Saudi-backed Wahhabis and Serb radicals are conspiring together. (Similar claims are often, and credibly, heard in Russia about Wahhabi terrorists and Vladimir Putin's secret police.)

Dudi, living in Kosovo, contributed the following concise analysis: "The Albanians should read about the Wahhabis on line and they will find out everything about them. They are nothing but a mafia. . . . Kosovo is not Arabia. We are part of Europe and we intend to join Europe, and as for these Wahhabis, let them go live in Arabia."

A reader named Flutra, in Mitrovica, the northern Kosovo town where Serbs have lately relaunched a terror campaign, called the foray against the moderate mullah "an unprecedented catastrophe for all Albanians." Agon, in Pristina, the capital, appropriately condemned "Islamofascism, which these fundamentalists are trying to promote in Kosovo." A teacher from Western Kosovo addressed the Wahhabis bluntly: "You are not believers, you are criminals."

All that needs to be added is that that these events have been ignored in international media, and that while Britain is the frontline state against radical Islam in Western Europe, Kosovo is now the crucial battlefield in the Balkans. Both countries are friends of the United States, and our new administration should demonstrate the fresh approach to Islam announced by President Obama, by clearly siding with Muslim moderates under siege. A courageous cleric in a remote Balkan location, and his many defenders, should not be left on their own to carry on this struggle, which is a defense of all human civilization.

Stephen Schwartz is a frequent contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The Weekly Standard

Britain's Princess Anne visits Kosovo

PRISTINA (AFP) – Princess Anne, the only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II, on Wednesday became the first British royal to visit Kosovo since the disputed Balkan territory declared independence.

Kosovo Foreign Minister Skender Hyseni was on hand to welcome the princess at Pristina airport.

During her visit, Princess Anne was to "meet a variety of people from different communities within Kosovo," the British embassy said in a statement.

As the patron of the charity Save the Children, she plans to attend an eastern Kosovo pre-school which works toward integrating disabled children into the education system.

She is also scheduled to visit British peacekeepers and members of a European Union mission "in recognition of the role they are playing in Kosovo during this period of transition," said the statement.

"This visit reflects the importance that the United Kingdom places on its relationship with Kosovo," said, Andy Sparkes, Britain's ambassador to Kosovo.

Britain announced its recognition of Kosovo a day after the ethnic Albanian-majority region unilaterally seceded from Serbia on February 17, 2008.

Serbia, which still considers Kosovo its southern province, reacted by recalling its ambassador to London, only reinstating the envoy in October after it won the right to challenge Kosovo's independence before the world court.

AFP

World Bank Spent More Than a Year Covering Up Destruction of Albanian Village

Fox News

Managers at the World Bank provided false information to the agency's board of directors about a $39 million, politically-connected European "coastal cleanup" project that led to the destruction and destitution of a powerless village in Albania in 2007 — and then spent nearly two years trying to cover it up, FOX News has learned.

Bank insiders also misled and stonewalled a panel of independent investigators commissioned by the board to investigate the scandal, according to the investigators themselves.

World Bank sources tell FOX News that the panel's report, submitted to the 24-member board in late November, is one of the most damning independent assessments of the anti-poverty agency's behavior in the bank's 60-year history. The bank, the world's largest and most influential anti-poverty institution and part of the U.N. system, is doling out $100 billion over the next three years for development projects.

For its part, once the report leaked in Albania last week, the bank announced that further disbursements of the loan for the Albanian project had been temporarily suspended on Jan. 9 "due to certain outstanding policy and operational issues." A World Bank spokesman did not comment to FOX News by press time.

The scandal, laid out in documents also leaked to FOX News, paints a sharply-detailed picture of how the bank has responded to its own discovery of misconduct and potential corruption.

It also shows how projects ostensibly intended to improve the environment and living conditions in far-flung parts of the world can be abused and distorted in the name of the bank.

Moreover, as FOX reported in a series of articles since October, the bank has suppressed information on many other critical matters — from serious computer security breaches inside the institution to its troubling relations with Satyam Computer Services Ltd., the Indian outsourcing giant that collapsed last month in a billion-dollar accounting fraud.

In the case of Satyam, the bank concluded in 2005 that Satyam had engaged in improper financial relations with a top World Bank official, but did not suspend Satyam as a crucial supplier until February 2008, a suspension that turned into an eight-year ban in September.

Even then, the bank concealed both its corruption probe and the outcome from all other U.N. institutions, some of which also had contracts with Satyam.

But concealing data and dodging questions is now being called "an institutional and systemic issue" in a blistering 115-page report of the Albania incident by the World Bank's independent Inspection Panel, an investigative body created in 1993 by the board to try to ensure accountability in bank operations.

Indeed, the panel's chairman, Werner Kiene — a former U.N. World Food Program investigator and Ford Foundation official — took what he called "the unprecedented step" of sending the board a six-page personal memo chastising the bank's management and staff for having "hampered" and obstructed the probe.

"The Inspection Panel could not have imagined when it recommended an investigation to the board ... that this was going to become one of the most difficult investigations in its 14 years of operation," wrote Kiene. "Had the panel relied on the [initial] categorical assertions of bank management, this important investigation might not have gone forward."

• Click here for the Inspection Panel report and the chairman's memo (Warning: large file).

...

Artikulli eshte i gjate. Klikoni ketu per ta lexuar te plote.

PM Sanader: Croatia to Abolish Visas to Albania

More Croatian companies are investing in Albania, amongst others, Koncar and Dalekovod, and they plan on a joint nuclear power-plant.

Croatia will cancel visas to Albania this year, announced the Croatian premier Ivo Sanader on Tuesday, after a conversation with the president of the Albanian Cabinet Sali Berisha.

“Will we cancel visas? Yes. When? I cannot say at this moment, but it will certainly be this year” said Sanader, answering questions to the Albanian journalists.

The Albanian premier Berisha, who is on an official visit to Croatia, said how important the agreements signed on Tuesday are for the future cooperation between the two cabinets.

Special attention to energy

The two premiers stated that during their talks, they spent special attention to energy, on a very specific cooperation for the project of the trans-Adriatic pipeline (TAP), which would go from Iran and the Caspian region over Albania and the Adriatic to Italy.

Joint lobby

Croatia would, as they plan, connect to that link in Albania

“Today we decided to perform together, and to lobby for that project together” said Berisha in a statement for the press.

Javno

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Albania Gets Croatia Backing For Nuclear Plant

ZAGREB, Croatia (AFP)--Plans by Albania to build a nuclear power plant were backed by Croatia as a project that could benefit the entire Balkan region at a meeting Tuesday of the two countries' prime ministers.

"We have agreed to work together, to invite other countries in the neighborhood, Montenegro, Bosnia and others interested to work on this project," Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha told reporters.

"A nuclear plant would have significant importance and advantages for the region," he said after meeting in Zagreb with his Croatian counterpart Ivo Sanader.

Albania had worked on the project for the past two years, said Berisha, stressing it was "realistic enough to be achieved."

Sanader voiced his government's support to the project.

"We will call Bosnia and Montenegro for talks between the four countries about a possible nuclear plant to be built in Albania," Sanader said.

"We are very interested and we will try to reach an agreement between the four of us if there is an interest."

Albania has faced increasing problems in recent years to ensure enough electricity to satisfy its energy needs.

The impoverished Balkan country doesn't yet have any nuclear plants of its own, but Berisha said earlier that Tirana was working towards getting the approval of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

AFP / Nasdaq

Albania stands with U.S. against terror
Prime minister says country did not torture or host CIA secret prisons

Albania's prime minister would like the CIA and the U.S. government to know that he is delighted to do what he can to help them in the war on terrorism. "We have had, and still we have very close cooperation with CIA, and we will continue to have this," Sali Berisha said in an interview last week. He stipulated, however, that his country never hosted CIA secret prisons known as "black sites" or asked his security forces to assist in torture.

Mr. Berisha was less clear on the topic of rendition, when U.S. operatives snatch suspected terrorists in foreign countries and fly them to foreign or U.S. prisons outside of formal extradition procedures. He said he had allowed CIA flights in his country but later said the CIA did not ask for permission.

He then said he did not remember what flights he may have allowed the CIA from Albania since becoming prime minister in July 2005 and during the years he was president, from 1992 to 1997.

"We have a very good cooperation, since the very beginning," he said. "Albania's cooperation against terrorism with CIA is one of the most fruitful ones."

Mr. Berisha's comments come as human rights groups in his country are suing the government to determine the extent of its cooperation with CIA renditions. A group called the Center for the Development and Democratization of Institutions in Albania filed a civil lawsuit against the Albanian Defense Ministry over the weekend, charging that a suspected terrorist, Khaled el-Masri, was flown from the military airport at Kucova to Afghanistan, where he says he was later tortured.

The Albanian ambassador in Washington, Aleksander Sallabanda, offered no comment about the court case when asked on Wednesday.

Albania, a Chinese Maoist satellite during the Cold War and a majority Muslim nation, is also thought to be one of the countries the U.S. government cooperated with in the first years of President Clinton's rendition program against al Qaeda.

The Human Rights Watch report "Black Hole," which examined renditions under former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said, "In 1998, the U.S. government moved against a group of alleged militants living in Tirana, Albania. The Albanian secret police, in cooperation with the CIA, monitored the group for several years and observed members carrying out various low-level criminal activities, such as counterfeiting and the production of fake passports and visas."

Members of the cell in the Albanian capital were sent to an Egyptian special security prison where all the suspects were tortured, said the Egyptian lawyer for four of the men, Muntassir al-Zayyat, during an interview last month with The Washington Times.

"Historically, Albania has cooperated with the CIA to the extent of allowing suspects to be abducted from Albanian soil and delivered to Egypt, where they were tortured," said Joanne Mariner, counterterrorism director for Human Rights Watch, in an interview.

Mr. Berisha said the agency "never asked for wrongdoing of operations, for operations which are not [legal]." He said he considered the flights by the CIA to be legal requests from a legal organization.

Mr. Berisha, a Muslim, was in Washington last week in part to attend the National Prayer Breakfast. While in town, he met with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to discuss his country's bid to join NATO. Mr. Berisha said he received assurances from both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Biden that the United States would support Albania's bid to join the trans-Atlantic pact.

"Secretary Clinton told me that we are really impressed by the reforms in Albania, and so I think it was, for me, was really a driving motive. This NATO membership [has] become a powerful driving motive ... and not only for me but for all my nation," Mr. Berisha said.

A State Department official who asked not to be named confirmed Mrs. Clinton's remarks.

"The government and people of Albania are to be commended for their hard work to meet NATO's high standards," the official said. "Secretary Clinton conveyed this to the prime minister, as well as her expectations that the government of Albania would continue to meet its reform obligations."

Mr. Berisha also said Mr. Biden and Mrs. Clinton promised him President Obama would visit Albania, though he did not say when. Neither the State Department nor the White House would confirm the visit.

Mr. Berisha called Mr. Obama's victory a "great achievement for mankind."

"President Obama in some aspects is the president of all nations; all religions and races found a part of themselves in him. That's truth. That's why I think he has the same ratings in the world, as well as here."

Mr. Berisha also had some kind words for President Bush, who in 2007 became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the country. He said he visited Iraq in 2005 after the second round of national elections and he found people who were excited about the right to vote.

Mr. Berisha in the interview was most interested in talking about his commitment to the free market. He pointed out that he lowered taxes on small businesses to 1.5 percent and lowered the corporate and personal income taxes to 10 percent, making Albania one of the friendlier business climates in all of Europe. He added that he also has streamlined the process for business permits and helped eliminate corruption.

• Erin Spiegel and Nicholas Kralev contributed to this report.

Washington Times

Cosmote buys Albania telecom unit stake for 48.2 mln

TIRANA, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Greece's Cosmote bought 12.6 percent of the state-owned shares of its Albanian Mobile Communication (AMC) subsidiary for 48.2 million euros ($62,558 mln), a government official said on Wednesday.

The purchase brings Cosmote's stake in AMC to 97.6 percent.

Deputy Economy Minister Enno Bozdo said Cosmote, the mobile arm of Greece's main telecom group OTE (OTEr.AT), had outbid rivals Nexus Private Equity Partners, Bedminster Capital Management and Axos Capital GmbH.

"We consider this as a very successful sale and another vote of confidence of foreign investors in Albania. Its value is all the more as we see the European economy and some Balkan countries showing signs of recession," Bozdo told reporters.

Cosmote bought 85 percent of AMC's shares in July 2000 for $85.6 million, more than twice as much as the nearest rival, a venture of Greece's Panafon and Britain's Vodafone Airtouch.

In the third quarter of 2008, AMC had a revenue of 144.7 million euros and operating income 76.3 from its 1.31 million subscribers in a country of 3.2 million. It faces competition from Vodafone Albania and Turkey's Eagle Mobile.

Albania plans to issue a third GSM mobile phone licence in spring. (Reporting by Benet Koleka, editing by Adam Tanner and Elaine Hardcastle) 

Reuters

Albania approves construction of 13.2mln euro marina

Klodjan Seferaj - 13.02.2009

The government (www.keshilliministrave.al) approved construction of a 13.2-million-euro marina in Lalez Bay, north of Durrres, and 50km from Tirana.

The marina will house 400 yachts with a length of 6-15 metres under a 32-year build, operate and transfer arrangement.

A bonus of 8.3% in future evaluation of bids was awarded to Ener Alb- Projects shpk, which has already prepared technical and financial studies for the project.

Under current practice, a company already awarded bonus points is likely to win the bidding.

The Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Telecommunications (www.mpptt.gov.al) is the contracting authority.

Balkans.com

Tirana International Airport records 14.6% growth for 2008

In 2008, Tirana International Airport (TIA) served 1,267,041 passengers, recording further impressive growth at one of the best infrastructure facilities in the country. The Airport last year recorded 19,194 air traffic movements (ATMs) and handled 1,987 tons of cargo. In comparison with the previous year, passenger numbers increased by 14.6 per cent, ATMs by 5.1 per cent and cargo by 17.2 per cent.

“Tirana International Airport has witnessed further sustainable growth, reflected in the figures for last year, and we are very pleased to have ended 2008 with such success. We believe that TIA not only has a history of successes, but also has a very promising future, given the amount of investment planned for 2009,” said Mrs. Andrea Gebbeken, Chief Executive Officer of TIA.

TIA is finalising an important investment program this year: the extension of the passenger terminal (Phase B in the Airport’s development) is an investment of approximately EUR 20 million. These works will be completed in September 2009 and will facilitate TIA’s handling of 1.5 million passengers per year.

In 2008, the airlines carrying most passengers to and from Tirana were Belleair (36.5%), Alitalia (16%), Albanian Airlines (10.5%), Austrian Airlines (7.9%) and Turkish Airlines (6.0%). Currently, thirteen airlines fly in to and out of TIA, connecting directly the Albanian capital city with 32 destinations, including flights to Thessaloniki and Zagreb, inaugurated in the latter half of last year.

On 17 December 2008, TIA was honoured with the receipt of an Albanian Leadership Award 2008. The company received the award in the category of Private Sector/Business for “offering a new vision for the metropolitan region of Tirana…, an important step towards changing the image of Albania in the eyes of visitors and of foreign tourists as an open, stable and dynamic country for domestic and foreign investments.” For TIA this is a reward for the past achievements and a motivation for the future at the same time.

By keeping its promises to making further improvements, TIA is remaining loyal to its commitment to operate a safe and secure environment and to be involved in the social development of the area.

Albanian Economy News

First loans for rural Albanian branch promise growth for community

The opening ceremony of World Vision's new Building Futures branch in Librazhd brought together the mayor of Librazhd, Commune Leaders, Community-Based Organisation (CBO), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Village Association representatives, World Vision and Building Futures staff.

'Maybe for someone else this loan appears to be very small but for me and my family it is a really significant help', said Harif Nezha.

The first Building Futures clients in Librazhd received the loans to build or improve their small businesses.

'I have a small stall near the school where I sell a few things, but now I have the chance to build even a vineyard. I always wanted to do it but I didn't have the financial resources', added Harif Nezha.

Librazhd District is located about an hour and a half southeast of the Albanian capital city, Tirana. The United Nations Development Program 2002 report states that Librazhd is one of the poorest districts of Albania. Its primary sources of income are farming and agriculture, small businesses and remittances from abroad.

World Vision Albania through an Area Development Programme (ADP) in Librazhd has been working for more than two years on improving health and education.

'Having an Area Development Programme ADP, being a poor district and rural area with few microfinance providers was the main reason that we decided to open a new branch here in Librazhd', said Mike Low, Director of Building Futures.

'You are engaging these people in such businesses that are appropriate not only for Albania, but especially for the rural area here in Librazhd', said commune leader Firdus Kurti.

'This is a great possibility for the poor families that can not cope with the large interest of the banks. I'm sure that this is going to impact and develop the rural area here', concluded Mr. Kurti.

The Building Futures branch and World Vision Albania ADP will work together within the same communities (communes) in Librazhd District.

'Microfinance is an important tool used to help ADP-based clients to expand their businesses. When someone's business grows, the first people to benefit are the business owner and his/her family', said Jason Evans, World Vision Albania National Director.

'The community will also indirectly benefit because if a business owner's family is doing better, they will spend more in the community, which in turn will help others and potentially they may also be able to contribute more to community needs', he concluded.

Since 2001, Building Futures has been supporting poor Albanian families, with two branches, in Korça, southwest of Tirana and in Lezha, located an hour northwest of the capital. More than 1,500 clients have developed small businesses to provide not only for their families, but for the communities in which they live.

In the Librazhd branch, Building Futures is using a new methodology called Village Association used in developing countries such as Serbia, Montenegro, Georgia and Kosovo. It involves creating an association of villages, and then selecting one or more persons from those villages to be a Village Counsellor that helps with marketing, client selection and managing loan administration.   Reuters

Discord and dislocation in Albanian's exhibit

BY JOHN COPPOLA
Special to The Miami Herald

Bonnie Clearwater half-jokingly calls herself an expert on Albanian contemporary art, even though there is not much likelihood that any of her museum colleagues could make a more valid claim to that designation.

Clearwater, executive director and chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, was the commissioner for Albania's pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale, a task she was asked to undertake by the U.S. ambassador in Tirana, whose mother was a docent at the museum.

Albania is an enigma to most Westerners. Once allied with the Soviet Union, then with the People's Republic of China, the former communist country has had a difficult transition from its Stalinist past to its current open-market economy. Refugee crises in the early 1990s as well as economic collapse and social unrest have made it a poor performer by Western European standards.

Purchase Not By Moonlight the first major U.S. show for Albanian video artist Anri Sala, was jointly organized by MOCA and the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, where it will be on display after closing here. CAC director and chief curator Raphaela Platow curated the exhibition.

Albanian art, like its homeland, is foreign territory. Visitors to MOCA should try to orient themselves by watching the videotaped interview with the artist that's playing in the lobby and then peruse the show's brochure. All the works have been installed without labels, a device -- or non-device -- that enhances the message of dislocation but also deprives visitors of an understanding of the context for Sala's work.

The exhibition consists of seven videos as well as a handful of sculptures and photographs that metaphorically deal with Albania's social disruptions. Born in 1974, Sala is a member of the last generation of artists to come of age under the communist regime, which demanded strict conformity to social realism. By the time he entered the National Academy of Arts, he and his fellow artists had to confront the collapse of communism and engage with the international art world from which they had been shut off.

''His early works explored the ideological discussions that preoccupied his country and the role art can play in engineering social change,'' Clearwater says. ''More recent work explores ways light, sound and images can create a social space that mobilizes viewers and heightens their sensitivity to their environment.'' The new works included in the exhibition -- its title is a fanciful translation of a 19th century French advertising slogan encouraging shoppers to patronize stores with electrical lights -- are less political and more universal in focus.

Sala designed the exhibition's installation so that only one of his videos is playing at a time. When it concludes, everything goes silent and dark, and another video starts almost randomly in a different part of the museum space. A visitor may often miss the beginning of the next work, a discontinuity that evokes the rolling power shortages in Albania.

The artist calls this effect ''a choreography of time and space,'' but it is more. It enforces the exhibit on the visitor, turning it into a totalitarian guided tour that imposes sequence and duration rather than allowing the sort of wandering and free choice to which most museum-goers are accustomed. Although each of the videos can stand alone, in the MOCA's unobstructed space the interconnected, self-referential installation treats them as a single work.

Two of the newest and most evocative works in the exhibition epitomize how the lack of context can obscure the depth and nuance of the multilayered messages in Sala's work. Title Suspended focuses on two gloved hands slowly rotating. Only the thumbs and forefingers fill the glove; the others droop lifelessly. The hands connect in a perfect moment for just 10 seconds out of the two-minute rotation, a fleeting communication before the lights dim. In an interview with El Nuevo Herald, MOCA's education curator Adrienne von Lates notes the striking similarity to the position of the hands of God and Adam in Michelangelo's famous Sistine Chapel fresco.

In the video Answer Me, which premieres at MOCA, a woman tries to break up with her boyfriend, who is so consumed with playing the drums that he doesn't or can't hear her. She urges him to respond. He drums more insistently, the sound echoing even when he stops playing. Finally, she says, ''It's over. Admit it. That way everything will be in the open, and we'll know what to do.'' This failure to communicate takes place in a former electronic eavesdropping station between East and West Berlin -- a fact mentioned only in the gallery guide.

Sound is an active element in Sala's videos, not just background. The drumming in Answer Me, as well as sound from other videos activates a row of custom-made robotic drums. Keyed to low frequencies, they respond to the videos and add another sensory layer to the exhibition. Air Cushioned Ride was filmed from a moving car at an Arizona truck stop, its radio fading between classical and country-music stations. A transcribed version of this soundtrack is performed in an accompanying video, A Spurious Emission.

The absence of sound can also be a power tool in Sala's work. After Three Minutes is a mesmerizing pair of silent videos. The first is a three-minute close-up of a cymbal being played from below and lit by a strobe, its 100 flashes per second contrasting with the video camera's 25 frames per second. The second video is a re-shooting of the video as it is installed in an exhibition, using a two-frame-per-second security camera. The imbalance creates a discordant rhythm and a profound challenge to a visitor's sense of time and perception.

Miami Herald

Families oppose €40m scheme for Albanian resort

By Kerin Hope

Arben Leka carefully unfolds a document brown with age and runs a finger down a handwritten list of landholdings that was drawn up in 1937.

The Lekas are one of 129 families fighting the construction of Albania’s first five-star tourist resort.

The Tirana-based Riviera group wants to build an 800-bed resort at Kakome bay, an arc of white pebbles backed by olive trees, a swath of evergreen forest and the 13th-century convent of St Maria. The company has fenced off the bay and blocked access to the convent.

“We all have title deeds, we’re defending our ownership in the courts, yet bulldozers have moved in and we’ve lost access to our property,” says Mr Leka, a civil engineer.

Dritan Celaj, Riviera’s chairman, says Kakome is public land. His company was granted a 99-year lease in 2004 to develop the bay but the €40m ($51m, £35m) project was put on hold after protests by residents and a change of government.

Vladimir Kumi, mayor of Nivice village, 6km from Kakome, where most of the protesters live, says most families have three titles to their land. One dates from the 1870s when Albania was part of the Ottoman Empire, another was issued by the land registry set up by King Zog in the 1930s and a third covers the 1994 restitution of land collectivised under Communism.

Land-ownership disputes are rife along Albania’s mountainous southern coast, mainly because of its potential for development as one of the last unspoilt stretches of the Mediterranean. The restitution of land to pre-communist owners remains a thorny issue, with many claims still outstanding. A new land registry set up with the assistance of foreign experts has a long backlog of title deed applications.

Albania’s judicial system has been criticised by the European Commission as weak and open to influence, adding to the difficulties of settling a property dispute through the courts.

The protesters, who refer to themselves as “Club 129,” say they have no objection to the development of “soft” tourism at Kakome – small independent guesthouses or hotels – provided their ownership claims are recognised and they have a stake in the project.

The right-of-centre government of Sali Berisha, the prime minister, opposed the project while in opposition. Now it backs Mr Celaj,.

Ylli Pango, tourism minister, says the sector has been growing quickly, with a 60 per cent rise in arrivals last year to about 2m. “Most visitors come to Albania for inexpensive seaside holidays. But we need to develop a small number of high-quality resorts,” he says. “Kakome is one such example.”

Guests would fly to the Greek island of Corfu and cross a strait to Kakome by speedboat. Riviera plans to build an 800-bed, low-rise resort, which it says would create several hundred jobs. “Of course we’re going to offer jobs to local residents,” says Mr Celaj.

Most residents of Nivice left soon after the fall of communism to work in construction and tourism in Greece, leaving older people to tend the livestock and olive groves.

In summer the village population swells from about 400 to more than 2,000 as families return to renovate their houses and relax by the sea.

Thanks to contributions from its diaspora, Nivice raised €20,000 towards a World Bank-funded project to build a paved road and to bring running water to the village.

“Officials accuse us of abandoning our land and leaving the country,” says Vangeli Tsari. He worked for 10 years in hotels in Greece before returning to run the village café.

“In fact, we’re investing so that we can do tourism the way we want to.”

Financial Times

Kosova's Muslim World Dilemma
A Year After Independence

By Agron Bajrami
Editor-in-Chief of Koha Ditore Newspaper

On Tuesday, February 17, 2009, Kosova was celebrating its first anniversary as an independent state.

One year ago, this small Balkan state, which was a de facto UN protectorate since 1999, was completing a long quest for freedom and independence in face of a vehement and fierce opposition from Serbia.

The basis of Kosova's declaration of Independence was a proposal put forward in early 2007 after almost three years of extensive negotiations by a UN envoy, former president of Finland Martti Ahtisaari, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Dec. 2008.

Ahtisaari proposed independence for Kosova supervised by the European Union. This was supposed to be the final puzzle to be put in place in the Balkans, a region whose name became notorious due to the kind of atrocities committed in Croatia, Bosnia, and finally in Kosova.

What Is Needed

But, although all relevant actors agree that independence is irreversible, it still remains incomplete, because Serbia refused the UN-mediated compromise, even after additional UN mandated efforts to find common ground with Belgrade, led by the European Union- the United States-Russia troika.

Nevertheless, Kosova accepted it and declared its independence from Serbia.

With its 2.2 million people, of which absolute majority are Albanians, Kosova’s first year as a state was surprisingly peaceful, considering the widely believed predictions that once independence is attained, ethnic conflict will be renewed.

It was widely predicted that streams of minority Serbs will be leaving the country under the threat of violence and that Kosova will destabilize the whole region.

None of these gloomy predictions happened. Quite the contrary, while Kosova actually helped the region become more stable, it was Serbia and extremist Serbs in Kosova that proved themselves— again— to be the real troublemakers.

All year long they tried to provoke a conflict and block the new state from breathing normally.

Backed by its strong and big brother in faith Russia, Serbia has continuously blocked Kosova’s progress and integration in the international community. 

Belgrade’s agents in Kosova were sabotaging the newborn state, using even violence, most notably in the Serb-controlled areas north of the country, where the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica still serves as a reminder that there are still some things that are incomplete.

With the Serbian hard-line position still remains potently unchanged, Kosova has to face other challenges as well; State-building is a difficult task under any circumstances, and a new state, especially an economically weak one, needs assistance and help even under the best of circumstances.

Together with Moscow, Belgrade was continuously successful in preventing the Kosova's independence to be endorsed by the UN Security Council.

While extensive diplomatic efforts from Serbia and its allies have had an effect, Kosova is still waiting for full political recognition from the world and full integration into international community's institutions.

So far, 55 countries have recognized independent Kosova, including the United States of America and 22 out of 27 European Union members.

Kosova and the Muslim World

By far, the biggest surprise and disappointment for the people of Kosova was that only nine OIC countries have recognized Kosova as a state, of which only one is an Arab League member (Afghanistan, Albania, Turkey, Senegal, Burkina-Faso, Sierra Leone, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, and Maldives).

One year after declaring independence from Serbia, instead of wondering why the Muslim world mostly failed to recognize independent Kosova, we should have been talking weather the OIC would accept Kosova as its member.

For a long time, Kosova was misunderstood in Europe, Middle East, Asia, and Africa.

Because Albanian majority itself is mostly Muslim, most Western countries have extreme prejudices regarding the issue of Kosova and its people, culture, and society.

Throughout their history, Albanians have suffered due to this distorted image that others in Europe have had about them.

As one of the poorest regions in the Ottoman Empire, as well as later on in Yugoslavia, for most Europeans Albanians were considered to be alien and backward.

There was a Muslim Ottoman heritage as well as common religious affiliation that Kosova shares with the wider Muslim world. However, the relationship with the Muslim world has never been materialized fully and properly, except in very rare cases like with Turkey or Malaysia.

Furthermore, many Arab and Muslim governments have built for themselves distortedly wrong and one-sided image of the issue based solely on US supportive policy towards Albanians and Kosova.

Muslim countries shall think the opportunity of having a country like Kosova,  a state with majority European Muslims; A living proof that one can belong to both worlds and does not have to choose between the two.

Of course, the blame is rarely on one side alone.

All this time, especially after independence has been declared, Kosova's Albanian leaders— reflecting the opposite of the popular feeling— have openly distanced themselves from the Muslim world.

Maybe, it is attributed to their apparent complex and fear that they would be seen as not enough "Western" and "European", and their obvious lack of knowledge about diplomacy and global affairs.

And all this time, Serbia, an Orthodox Christian nation, tried hard to portray a picture that would benefit it, even by shamelessly manipulating with past and present.

When speaking to the West, Belgrade would say that in Kosova it is fighting against "Muslim terrorism" and "Islamic fundamentalism"; when speaking to Arab and Muslim world, Serbia was asking for help to resist American imperialism, calling itself a true successor of Tito’s Yugoslavia that was one of the pillars of the Non-Aligned Movement.

None of this was true, but it was only the West that realized it—  first in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995  and then in Kosova in 1999, when NATO waged a war against Serbia to put an end to the ethnic cleansing campaign that Belgrade orchestrated against the Kosova's Albanians.

In case of Kosova, the Muslim world has yet to see the light.

IslamOnline.net

The World Bank

WHEN Robert Zoellick took over the World Bank in 2007—after months of bitter wrangling over professional favours done by its former president, Paul Wolfowitz, for his girlfriend—many people hoped that happier times lay head for the institution. So it was a shock to hear Mr Zoellick describe as “appalling” the bank’s behaviour over a bungled project to develop the coast of Albania. He was responding to the findings of a bank-appointed panel which found a clear link between the wrongful demolition of 16 homes in the coastal town of Jale and the project, to which the bank had pledged $17.5m.

Mr Zoellick’s frank mea culpa sounded impressive, and the project has been suspended. The bank management’s response, in a document dated February 18th, is also contrite. And legal aid to the families affected, to help them seek compensation, has been promised.

But investigations have uncovered a sorry tale of incompetence, mismanagement, obfuscation and possibly worse. And they come barely a month after the bank was forced to issue a statement belatedly identifying three IT firms that had been debarred from bank projects—two of them, Wipro and Satyam, for providing “improper benefits” to bank staff. The imbroglio provides fresh fodder to critics of the bank who argue that it is slow, opaque in its decision-making and not sufficiently accountable to people its work affects.

In the Albanian project, this is one of the embarrassing things: an appraisal document included a crucial reference to an agreement with the government about a moratorium on the demolition of unauthorised buildings—until clear rules could be set for defining illegal activity and assisting those who were affected. In reality, no such agreement existed, something that at least some staff knew. Corrections to the document were made shortly before the project was presented to the bank’s board, then amended, then inexplicably dropped. As a consequence, some staff continued to think that an agreement was in place, and to refer to it in other documents. A charitable way to describe the process would be haphazard.

According to the report by the bank’s general counsel into the curious matter of the agreement that wasn’t, the bank has no clear procedure to fix responsibility for the accuracy of project appraisals. The response of the management admits the need for thoroughness in preparing for board meetings. Some might call this a statement of the obvious.

The Albanian project also sheds light on some murky questions about whom the bank recruits and co-operates with when it executes projects. In this case, the bank’s management told the investigation panel at first that there was no link at all between the demolitions in Jale and the coastal-redevelopment project.

Go directly to Jale

Indeed, the demolitions were carried out by the Albanian construction police, not the bank. But the panel found that the aerial photographs which identified the targets for demolition were provided by staff in the project co-ordination unit, and that they used World Bank funds to get them taken. These photographs were then sent to the construction police, along with a letter from the project co-ordinator asking for action to be taken “as fast as possible”.

The construction police responded to the project co-ordinator’s request with alacrity, arriving in the hamlet of Jale to demolish the “illegal” houses in the early hours of the morning. This eagerness to please was probably not entirely out of respect for the World Bank: the project co-ordinator was the son-in-law of Albania’s prime minister, Sali Berisha, who has recently turned his ire on the bank.

The inspection panel notes in its report that local World Bank staff were concerned both by the co-ordinator’s political links and by his qualifications. He was appointed anyway, getting his job just a few months after his father-in-law took over as prime minister.

This is unlikely to be the only case of its kind. The appointment of influential people with their own agendas, sometimes at loggerheads with the bank’s, poses a large problem for the way its projects are administered. The bank’s response to the Albanian case includes a commitment to try to avoid appointments that involve conflicts of interest “if possible”. But the problem, some would argue, is that having such people on its projects may allow the bank to cut through red tape by virtue of their connections, a valuable “skill” in difficult political environments. And this could provide an incentive for senior managers to look the other way when well-connected people are recruited.

Old-fashioned corruption is a problem too, as is apparent from the saga of the two IT firms mentioned above. There is also a huge brouhaha about fraud in health projects in India, where investigations that ended in 2008 revealed “unacceptable indicators of fraud and corruption”, according to Mr Zoellick.

On the positive side, the bank has at least learnt to admit serious errors when they are proved to have happened. And it has wrestled seriously in recent years with the tough question of whether or not to cut off funding when corruption is suspected. Empowering its inspection panel to look into matters of corruption, which are currently not within its remit, would also be a useful step.

The Economist

Ismail Kadare doesn't need to be dissident to be good

Heather McRobie

The arguments about the Albanian novelist's relationship with the Hoxha regime grumble on, but they miss the point.

Perhaps the Nobel prize is too politicised to be a true index of the finest world literature; and perhaps "world literature" is too problematic a category to begin with. Still, the question remains of why the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare has both missed out on the Stockholm award, and is barely acknowledged in the English-speaking world despite being widely published in French. Basic translation problems account for some of it: under Enver Hoxha's Maoist regime, Albania never signed a copyright convention, meaning no respectable publishing house would buy translation rights, and the lack of English-Albanian translators has continued the problem: most of Kadare's work available in English comes through David Bellos's translations from the French.

Still, Le Clézio's 2008 Nobel win shows that limited availability in English is thankfully no bar to the prize. What does stand in his way, by all accounts, is the persistent taint of his perceived co-operation with the Hoxha regime. Although not a party member, Kadare was at one point chairman of a cultural institute run by the dictator's fearsome wife, Nexhmije. More damningly, some claim, Kadare's works written during the Hoxha reign – notably The Great Winter – clearly praise the leader and his split from the Soviets in 1961, after which the country's communism was synthesised with ultra-nationalist mythology.

Such criticisms are hardly helped by Kadare's very honest admission that he never considered himself a dissident. Dissidence was an identity later imposed upon him by foreign journalists, he says, which he was then criticised for failing to live up to.

More importantly, Balkan history was always Kadare's inspiration. The whole history of Albania is almost completely retold through his numerous novels, from the ancient Greeks, to the Ottomans, to the present day – and, within this, during the Hoxha years there's some indication Kadare was participating in the re-writing and use of history as a weapon. Even The Siege, depicting a medieval Albanian city-state under gruelling attack by the Ottomans, has been read as a thinly coded endorsement of Hoxha's nationalist obsession with fighting off Soviet influence.

Robert Elsie attempts to salvage some of Kadare's political reputation, calling him a "profoundly dissident writer" who led a "collaborationist life". But why do we still require Kadare to have been a political dissident? And why have sympathetic critics been so ready to re-paint him as one, as though it lends his work a greater weight? As Kadare has often said himself, writing itself was an act of resistance in his country. Since it was impossible to even mildly criticise the Hoxhas, Kadare took refuge in historical and allegorical fiction, pushing against the confines of communist social realism. Far from romanticising Albania's ancient heritage, in The File On H, Kadare both satirises foreigners searching for the "authentic" Albania of Homeric poetry and delivers a veiled swipe at Hoxha's policy of isolationism. In his masterpiece, The Palace of Dreams, set in a "United Ottoman States" where dreams are scrutinised for signs of coming political unrest, he not only mocks authoritarian regimes' mania for surveillance, but also explores the contrast between modern Albanian identity and the "great past" Hoxha tried to invent.

I find criticisms of The Siege the most curious. It's been accused of mythmaking about noble Albanians and barbarian Ottomans, but it's quite clearly a complex and tender picture of the Balkans that is now more relevant than ever. Though the Albanian half of the story is narrated through the collective voice of a chorus, the Ottomans are depicted in all their vivid, multi-ethnic humanity. Kadare uses the Ottomans to explore the various co-existing identities of the region in a story, first published in 1970, which gained poignant resonance from the events in 1990s Sarajevo.

David Bellos writes in his introduction that the novel also doubles as a study of the "mentality of siege" under Hoxha – but the accusation will probably always stick that Kadare's recent fiction only condemns the Hoxha regime because it's now expedient to do so. But his writing doesn't lie: The Palace of Dreams, The Siege, and the novels he's written since the fall of communism, are all clearly expressions of the same artistic vision.

Guardian

BRAIN regions key to cognition are smaller in older people who are obese compared with their leaner peers, making their brains look up to 16 years older than their true age. As brain shrinkage is linked to dementia, this adds weight to the suspicion that piling on the pounds may up a person's risk of the brain condition...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327222.400-expanding-waistlines-...

Me pak fjale ne shqip, bajtha eshte ne korrelacion te zhdrejte me trurin. Think about this guys, next time you look at girls' asses.

France warns Serbia on Kosovo  

(PARIS) - France warned Serbia on Friday that if it wants Paris' support for its bid to join the European Union it will have to adopt a more "constructive" attitude over the sovereignty of Kosovo.

France's minister for European affairs, Pierre Lellouche, issued a strongly worded statement after meeting Serbia's deputy prime minister for European integration, Bozidar Djelic, in Paris.

"France's engagement in favour of Serbia depends on Serbia's approaching the European Union in a spirit of reconciliation and cooperation that conforms to the values that underly European integration," Lellouche said.

The minister "called on Belgrade to adopt a constructive attitude on Kosovo ... and to show more realism in terms of an eventual reconciliation, as other European countries have done," the French statement added.

The Kosovo region has enjoyed de facto independence from Belgrade since 1999, when NATO forces drove out Yugoslav troops and seized control of the area in a bid to halt the persecution of its ethnic Albanian majority.

Kosovo became first a UN protectorate garrisoned by NATO troops and then, in February last year, its government, led by ethnic Albanian former separatist rebels, declared independence.

The move has so far been recognised by 60 countries, including the United States and all but five of the 27 members of the European Union.

Serbia, backed by several allies including Russia, has refused to recognise Kosovo as independent and insists on its own sovereignty over the region, which has a Serb minority population and several sites of symbolic importance.

The issue is one of two main stumbling blocks as Belgrade attempts to join the list of candidates for integration into the European Union.

Lellouche also repeated Europe's longstanding demand that Serbia find, arrest and extradite former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, who is wanted for war crimes by international prosecutors.

EUBusiness.com / AFP

Albania’s electricity production up 50% in H1 year-on-year

Albania’s production of electrical energy reached 2,994 GWh in first half 2009, marking a large increase of 50% year-on-year, the National Institute of Statistics (www.instat.gov.al) reported.

According to Instat’s figures, Albania’s total sources of electrical power, which include domestic production and imports, increased 40% in first half 2009, while the quantity of electric power generated and imported totaled 4,868 GWh.

The main impact on domestic production was due to the substantial rise in hydropower plant production, up 50.5% year-on-year.

According to the new report, the import (including exchanges) of electrical power increased by 26% in first half 2009.

Balkans.com