Shtypi i huaj mbi shpalljen e pavarësisë së Kosovës

[Homza]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7246809.stm



Kosovo vow as independence looms

Mr Thaci said Kosovo was the homeland of all its citizens
Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has vowed to protect the rights of all minorities as the province prepares to declare independence from Serbia.
The declaration is widely expected on Sunday, but Mr Thaci refused to set a date at a news conference in Pristina.

The US and most EU states are preparing to recognise Kosovo quickly, but Serbia and Russia strongly oppose the move.

Serbia has threatened to use diplomatic and economic measures against Kosovo, though it has ruled out using force.

"I will never give up fighting for our Kosovo," Serbian President Boris Tadic said as he took the oath of office on Friday, 10 days after being re-elected for a second term.

In Kosovo, there will be security for all citizens. The government is committed to looking forward to the future and overcoming the sad past

Kosovo's PM Hashim Thaci

Separately, the Russian foreign ministry warned on Friday it would have to "take into account" any declaration of independence by Kosovo in regard to its relations with Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Moscow has previously hinted that it could recognise the regions, if the West recognises Kosovo.

EU mission

Speaking to hundreds of reporters in Kosovo's capital Pristina, Mr Thaci pledged that the rights of all communities in the province, including Serbs, would be guaranteed.



He said no citizen of an independent Kosovo should feel discriminated against and no-one would be left out.

"In Kosovo, there will be security for all citizens. The government is committed to looking forward to the future and overcoming the sad past.

"I invite all those who want to, to return to their homes and their property, including displaced Serbs living outside Kosovo," Mr Thaci said.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch issued a report describing violence against ethnic minorities as a persistent feature of Kosovo's post-war history.


See a map of Kosovo's ethnic breakdown
It also expressed concern about violence against women, and the difficulties which face refugees who want to return home.

The United Nations has administered Kosovo since a Nato bombing campaign in 1999 drove out Serb forces accused of persecuting the province's majority ethnic Albanians.

A civilian police and justice mission for Kosovo is expected to be given the go-ahead by EU member states on Monday.


There is a festive mood in Pristina, correspondents say

BBC News website world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says the US and a number of EU countries, including the UK, will recognise Kosovo shortly afterwards.

Kosovo's assembly will make the declaration of independence on Sunday, he says, making clear its acceptance of the limitations on independence outlined in the UN plan drawn up by Martti Ahtisaari.

These include supervision by an international presence; limited armed forces; strong provisions for Serb minority protection; commitment to multi-ethnic democracy; and neither Kosovo nor any part of it will be allowed to join another country.

Celebrate with dignity

The BBC's Nick Thorpe in Pristina says there is a festive mood in the capital, with people thronging the streets and flags flying everywhere.

Posters have gone up across Pristina thanking Britain and the US for their support for independence.

"Celebrate with dignity. For a good start. Kosovo welcomes the future," the posters raid.

Tons of fireworks have already arrived from Bulgaria.

The mood among the remaining 100,000-plus Serbs of Kosovo is very different, our correspondent says.

He says there has been no major exodus but some have decided to spend the next few days in Serbia.





CDO NJERI QE FLET ANGLISHT, TE DALI DHE NE FUND TE KETIJ ARTIKULLIT TE LINKUT TE MESIPERM, SHKRUANI DHE JU PERSHTYPJET TUAJA NE MBESHTETJE TE PAMVARESISE SE KOSOVES.....ESHTE SHUM E RENDESISHME....TE FITOJME KTE DUEL MEDIATIK...ESHTE BBC NJEREZ, FLISNI ME NJE FJALOR FORMAL.

[Albo]

February 18, 2008

Kosovo Declares Its Independence From Serbia

By DAN BILEFSKY

PRISTINA, Kosovo — The breakaway province of Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Sunday, sending tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians streaming through the streets to celebrate what they hoped was the end of a long and bloody struggle for national self-determination.

Kosovo’s intent to be recognized as Europe’s newest country — after a civil war that killed 10,000 people a decade ago and then years of limbo under United Nations rule — was the latest episode in the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia, 17 years after its dissolution began.

It brings to a climax a showdown between the West, which argues that Serbia’s brutal subjugation of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority cost it any right to rule the territory, and the Serbian government and its allies in the Kremlin, which counter that Kosovo’s independence is a reckless breach of international law that will spur other secessionist movements across the world.

As Albanians danced in the streets and fired guns in the air in the capital, Pristina, international reaction was sharply divided, suggesting that the clash between the principles of sovereignty and self-determination was far from resolved.

Britain, France and Germany were expected to be the first recognize the new nation, as early as Monday, while other nations, fearing separatist movements within their own borders, have said they would refuse. Russia demanded an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council to proclaim the declaration “null and void,” but the meeting produced no resolution.

In declaring independence, Kosovo’s prime minister, Hashim Thaci, a former leader of the guerrilla force that just over 10 years ago began an armed rebellion against Serbian domination, struck a note of reconciliation. Addressing Parliament in both Albanian and Serbian, he pledged to protect the rights of the Serbian minority.

“I feel the heartbeat of our ancestors,” he said, before paying tribute to Kosovo’s war dead and to the European Union and the United States. “We, the leaders of our people, democratically elected, through this declaration proclaim Kosovo an independent and sovereign state.”

Ethnic Albanians from as far away as America streamed into Pristina this weekend, braving freezing temperatures and heavy snow, to dance in frenzied jubilation. Beating drums, waving Albanian flags and throwing firecrackers, they chanted: “Independence! Independence! We are free at last!” A 100-foot-long huge birthday cake was installed on Pristina’s main boulevard.

In an outpouring of adulation for the United States, the architect of NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign against Serbian forces under President Slobodan Milosevic, thousands of revelers unfurled giant American flags, carried posters of former President Bill Clinton and chanted “Thank you U.S.A.” and “God bless America.”

The spirit of exaltation in Pristina contrasted sharply with the despair, anger and disbelief that gripped Serbia and the Serbian enclaves of northern Kosovo.

In Belgrade, up to 2,000 angry Serbs converged on the United States Embassy, hurling stones, smashing windows and lighting firecrackers.

In the Kosovo Serb stronghold of Mitrovica, long a flashpoint, a grenade was thrown at a United Nations building, the police said. No one was injured.

Vojislav Kostunica, the prime minister of Serbia, which has regarded Kosovo as its heartland since medieval times, vowed that Serbia would never recognize the “false state.”

In an address on national television on Sunday, he said Kosovo was propped up unlawfully by the United States and called the declaration a “humiliation” for the European Union. The Serbian government has ruled out using military force in response, but was expected to downgrade diplomatic ties with any government that recognized Kosovo.

Demonstrations are planned Monday in Serbian enclaves across Kosovo, with the expectation that Serbs will seek to entrench the parallel institutions they have set up as part of their rejection of Pristina’s rule.

European Union officials said that Britain, France and Germany were expected to recognize Kosovo 48 hours after the declaration, in part to try to prevent Russia and Serbia from rallying opposition to recognizing Kosovo. Recognition by the United States other European Union member states was expected to follow in the coming days.

At the Security Council, Russia argued that the proclamation violated the 1999 resolution that established the United Nations mission in Kosovo. “Our position is that the declaration should be disregarded by the international community and declared null and void,” said Vitaly I. Churkin, Russia’s ambassador.

But Alejandro D. Wolff, the deputy American ambassador, said, “In our view this declaration is logical and consistent and completely in line with” the 1999 measure.

In a statement on behalf of the European members of the Council, Johan Verbeke, the ambassador of Belgium, said, “Internationally supervised independence is the only viable option to deliver sustained stability and security.”

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon read a statement that avoided taking sides and pleaded with all parties “to refrain from any actions of statements that could endanger peace, incite violence or jeopardize security in Kosovo or the region.”

The council agreed to a request by Russia and Serbia to hold an open meeting on Monday that will be addressed by the Serbian president, Boris Tadic.

The declaration followed nearly two years of United Nations-sponsored negotations between Pristina and Belgrade. Those talks failed, as did a Security Council effort in December to resolve Kosovo’s future.

President Bush, speaking Sunday in Tanzania on a tour of Africa, said the United States would continue to work to prevent violence in Kosovo, while reaching out to Serbia.

“On Kosovo, our position is that its status must be resolved in order for the Balkans to be stable,” he said. “We also believe it’s in Serbia’s interests to be aligned with Europe, and the Serbian people can know that they have a friend in America.”

The European Commission, the European Union’s executive branch, appealed for calm, while NATO’s secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said the alliance would respond “swiftly and firmly against anyone who might resort to violence.”

The Vatican called for “prudence and moderation.”

Ulrich Wilhelm, the spokesman for the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said Germany would decide what to do on Monday. “The last open question of the breakup of Yugoslavia must be answered now, because it impedes the security, stability and economic development of the entire region,” he said.

Kosovo played a central role in the collapse of the Yugoslav federation built by the Communist strongman Josip Broz Tito after 1945. When Tito died in 1980, Western observers expected strife between Yugoslavia’s two biggest rival ethnic groups, the Serbs and Croats.

In fact, Albanian nationalism erupted first, leading to bloody clashes in 1981. As the ’80s wore on, Mr. Milosevic used Serbs’ enormous sense of grievance that their ancestral heartland was now dominated by Muslim Albanians to come to power in Serbia. By 1989, he had abolished Kosovo’s autonomy, fired tens of thousands of Albanians from their jobs, suppressed Albanian language education and controlled the territory with a heavy police presence.

In 1989, at celebrations of the 600th anniversary of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, Mr. Milosevic delivered a thinly veiled warning that Serbs would fight to preserve their lands outside Serbia if rival republics such as Croatia declared independence.

In 1991, that occurred, plunging the Balkans into almost a decade of wars that cost more than 200,000 lives.

Ten years ago this month, Mr. Milosevic’s forces moved into Kosovo against the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, killing a guerrilla leader and his family at their compound. As violence escalated, NATO intervened in a 1999 bombing campaign that caused hundreds of thousands Albanians and Serbs to flee.

An estimated 10,000 civilians were killed in the 1998-99 conflict, many of them Albanians, while 1,500 Serbs perished in revenge killings that followed. Another 5,000 people were reported missing, of which half were never found.

Kosovo — a predominantly Muslim, poor, landlocked territory of two million — has been a United Nations protectorate since 1999, policed by 16,000 NATO troops.

For the ethnic Albanians who make up 95 percent of the population, independence marks a new beginning, after decades of repression and war.

“Independence is a catharsis,” said Antoneta Kastrati, 26, an Albanian from Peja, who said her mother and older sister were killed by their Serbian neighbors in 1999. “Things won’t change overnight and we cannot forget the past, but maybe I will feel safe now and my nightmares will finally go away.”

Newspapers in Belgrade lamented that the Albanians “have stolen Kosovo.”

In Mitrovica, small groups of Serbs gathered at the bridge between the town’s Serbian north the Albanian south. Serbs said they were under orders from Belgrade to ignore the independence declaration and remain in Kosovo in order to keep the northern part of the territory under de facto Serbian control.

“I will stay here forever ,” said a 70-year-old engineer who would give only his first name, Svetozar. “This will always be Serbia. I am not afraid of Kosovo’s independence because I don’t recognize it.”

When a knot of Albanians tried to cross the bridge into the Serbian part, they were held back by the police and 10-foot-high metal barriers wound with razor wire.

In Serbia, the police had to stop several hundred Serbian veterans of the 1998-99 Kosovo war from crossing into the territory before the independence declaration. The group, dressed in military uniforms, broke through a Serbian police cordon at the Merdare border crossing between Serbia and Kosovo before being held back.

Kosovo’s declaration created immediate ripples in the former Soviet Union, where small separatist areas — one in Moldova and two in the republic of Georgia — have existed since the early 1990s.

All three enclaves receive extensive political support from the Kremlin, and exist as Russian protectorates. Two of them — Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia — released coordinated statements announcing an intention to seek recognition as independent states by Moscow, the United Nations and members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the loose alliance of 11 former Soviet republics.

Conversely, several of the European Union’s 27 member states — including Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia and Romania — oppose recognizing Kosovo because they fear encouraging secessionist movements within their own borders.

In Brussels, where retaining European Union unity over Kosovo has proved as tortuous a foreign-policy challenge as any dealing with Yugoslavia’s breakup, officials were drafting a statement for a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday. Senior European Union officials said they expected it would acknowledge Kosovo’s independence declaration without explicitly endorsing it.

On Saturday, however, the European Union approved a police and judicial mission that will help Kosovo’s government run the territory after the United Nations leaves.

While the declaration of independence raises the prospects of a new constitution and emblems of nationhood, Kosovo’s sovereignty remains severely circumscribed, making it reliant on the international community. NATO still provides international security, while the European Union will have an administrative oversight role.

Kosovo is desperately poor, with a war-torn infrastructure, an unemployment rate of about 60 percent and average monthly wage of $250. Electricity is so undependable that lights go out in the capital several times a day. Corruption is rife and human trafficking threatens to entrench a lawless state on Europe’s doorstep.

In a sign of how hard it will be for Kosovo to forge the kind of multiethnic, secular identity urged on it by foreign powers, the government held a contest for the new flag, choosing one bearing a map of Kosovo topped by six stars.

But the distinctive two-headed eagle of the red and black Albanian flag — displayed on the battlefield and reviled by Serbs — was everywhere Sunday, held by revelers, draped on horses, flapping out of car windows and hanging outside homes and storefronts across the territory.

Warren Hoge contributed reporting from the United Nations, Nicholas Kulish from Berlin and C.J. Chivers from Moscow.







Kosova në festë në Ditën e Pavarësisë
Lajmi më i fundit nga Kosova e Pavarur
Deklara e Pavaresise se Kosoves dhe reagimet e botes shqiptare mbi te.
Fjala juaj për këtë ditë historike
Albumi Fotografik i Pavarësisës së Kosovës
Qëndrimi zyrtar i shteteve të huaja mbi pavarësinë e Kosovës
Shtypi i huaj mbi pavarësinë e Kosovës
Reagimet kundër pavarësisë së Kosovës

[RaPSouL]

Po ja filloj me nje artikull nga mediat amerikane, me saktesisht CNN.

Kosovo declares independence from Serbia

PRISTINA, Kosovo (CNN) -- Kosovo has formally declared its independence from Serbia and become the world's newest state in a move opposed by Serbia and Russia but backed by many western governments.

Lawmakers in the legislature of the former Serbian province approved the declaration of independence at an extraordinary session Sunday afternoon. It was read out in Albanian, Serbian and English by Prime Minister Hashim Thaci before the approval of state symbols including Kosovo's new national flag and anthem.

Thaci said that Kosovo was an "independent and democratic" state, adding: "From this day onwards, Kosovo is proud, independent and free."

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica promptly denounced the move.

"Citizens of Serbia, we have to come together and show the world that we do not acknowledge the creation of a false state on our territory," Kostunica said. "We will do our utmost to bring the province of Kosovo to where it rightfully belongs." He added, "As long as there are Serbian people, Kosovo is Serbian."

CNN's Alessio Vinci, reporting from Kosovo's capital of Pristina, said that thousands of Kosovar Albanians had braved the freezing wind and cold to sing, dance, wave flags in the streets and light firecrackers ahead of the much anticipated vote. Some revelers were even said to be firing guns skyward. "It's been like this for several hours now," he said.

"It's a day they have been waiting for for such a long time that many of them are trying to figure out just how they got to this day."

In Belgrade, Serbia's capital, riot police used flares and tear gas Sunday evening to disperse several hundred people protesting outside the U.S Embassy, said Time magazine's Dejan Anastajevic. Some of the protestors carried Serbian flags, and some threw things at the embassy, Anastajevic reported. Video from the scene also showed some demonstrators throwing things at police.

Video also showed one apparently injured police officer being taken to an ambulance.

President Bush said Sunday that Kosovo's status must be resolved before the Balkans can become stable and that the United States supports the Ahtisaari plan, which calls for a form of supervised independence.

The United Nations Security Council said it would hold an emergency session Sunday to discuss Kosovo's declaration, at Russia's request. Russia has also called for an open Security Council meeting on Monday so that Serbian President Boris Tadic can attend, Russia's ambassador to the U.N., Vitaly Churkin, said. He said that the Council was expecting a briefing from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday.

Russia -- Serbia's historic ally -- has remained opposed to Kosovo's independence. Russia, which has fought two wars against separatist rebels in its southwestern republic of Chechnya, has said that U.S. and European support for Kosovo's independence could lead to an "uncontrollable crisis" in the Balkans.

The European Union decided Saturday to launch a mission of about 2,000 police and judicial officers to replace the United Nations mission that has been controlling the province since the end of the war with Serbia in 1999.

Kosovo has been under U.N. supervision and patrolled by a NATO-led peacekeeping force since the end of the three-month war, in which NATO warplanes pounded Serbia to roll back a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" of the province's Albanian population under former President Slobodan Milosevic.

The disputed province is dear to the Serbs -- Orthodox Christians who regard it as Serbian territory. But it is equally coveted by Kosovo's ethnic Albanians -- Muslims who have a 90 percent majority. Two years of talks on its final status ended in failure last December.

"Its status must be resolved in order for the Balkans to be stable," Bush told reporters Sunday during a news conference in Tanzania.

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States was reviewing the situation.

Bush said the Ahtisaari plan -- named for former Finnish President Marti Ahtisaari -- is the best option. The proposal would give Kosovo limited statehood under international supervision.

Bush added that "it's in Serbia's interest to be aligned with Europe and the Serbian people can know that they have a friend in America."


"We are heartened by the fact that the Kosovo government has clearly proclaimed its willingness and its desire to support Serbian rights in Kosovo," Bush said.

Thaci said Thursday he would establish a new government office for minorities and it would protect the rights of minorities after the province declares independence.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic has promised his country will refrain from using force against Kosovo after independence, though he has warned that Serbia will take punitive diplomatic, political, and economic measures against the province.


The EU said Saturday that "around 1,900 international police officers, judges, prosecutors and customs officials and approximately 1,100 local staff will be based in headquarters in Pristina or located throughout the judicial and police system in Kosovo."

The EU mission's objective is "to support the Kosovo authorities by monitoring, mentoring and advising on all areas related to the rule of law, in particular in the police, judiciary, customs and correctional services," it said.


CNN News.

[RaPSouL]

Po vazhdojme me nje artikull nga gazeta me e madhe Gjermane ajo "Bild".

Gazeta gjermane po refen per Kosoven ne menyre te pergjithshme duke filluar nga pozita e deri tek banoret e saj!

Nur halb so groß wie Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

Die südserbische Provinz Kosovo, die an Albanien, Montenegro und Mazedonien grenzt, ist mit knapp 11.000 Quadratkilometern etwa halb so groß wie Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Von den geschätzten 2,1 Millionen Einwohnern sind 95 Prozent Albaner. Die serbische Minderheit zählt nur noch 100.000 Menschen. Die Kosovo-Bevölkerung wächst im Rekordtempo: 40 Prozent der Einwohner sind unter 20 Jahre alt.

Heute wird der Kosovo unabhängig

Die extrem hohe Arbeitslosigkeit von mehr als 80 Prozent in einzelnen Regionen der serbischen Provinz begünstigt allgegenwärtige Korruption und Vetternwirtschaft. Der Kosovo ist auch ein Dreh- und Angelpunkt für Menschenschmuggel, Zwangsprostitution sowie Waffen- und Drogenhandel.

Weil es praktisch keinen Warenexport gibt, ist das Land von ausländischen Hilfen und Gastarbeiterüberweisungen abhängig. Experten sehen Chancen im Ausbau des maroden Bergbaus und des Energiesektors, wofür allerdings Rieseninvestitionen für erforderlich seien.

Der Kosovo war kurz vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg gewaltsam dem serbischen Königreich eingegliedert worden. Das Verhältnis zwischen der albanischstämmigen Bevölkerungsmehrheit und Belgrad blieb über die Jahrzehnte gespannt, bevor das Gebiet 1999 einer UN-Verwaltung unterstellt wurde.

Die traditionellen Clan- und Großfamilienstrukturen sind im Kosovo noch weitgehend intakt. Der vorherrschende Islam ist weltlich geprägt und weit von jedem Fundamentalismus entfernt. Die orthodoxen Serben wanderten seit dem 15. Jahrhundert nach Norden aus.

Im Kosovo befindet sich auch das historische Amselfeld (Kosovo polje), an dem die Serben 1389 die Schlacht gegen die vorrückenden Türken verloren.

Mit der Unabhängigkeitserklärung wird der Kosovo zu einem Binnen-Zwergstaat, der nördlich an Albanien angrenzt und vorerst zu den ärmsten in Europa zählt.

[RaPSouL]

Artikulli i radhes eshte i marrur nga mediat amerikane me saktesisht BBC.

Kosovo MPs proclaim independence

Kosovo's parliament has unanimously endorsed a declaration of independence from Serbia, in a historic session.
The declaration, read by Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, said Kosovo would be a democratic country that respected the rights of all ethnic communities.

But Serbia's PM denounced the US for helping create a "false state" and protesters in Belgrade later pelted the US embassy with stones.

The UN Security Council is meeting in an emergency session to discuss Kosovo.

The meeting was demanded by Serbia's ally Russia.


See a map of Kosovo's ethnic breakdown
Tens of thousands of people had thronged the streets of Kosovo's capital, Pristina, since the morning.


When news came of the declaration in parliament, the centre of the city erupted with fireworks, firecrackers and celebratory gunfire.

Hundreds of ethnic Albanians staged noisy celebrations in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, and in Brussels, outside the headquarters of Nato and the European Union.

Hand grenades

The first sign of trouble in Kosovo came in the ethnic Serbian area of the flashpoint town of Mitrovica, where two hand grenades were thrown at international community buildings.

One exploded at a UN court building while the other failed to go off outside offices expected to house the new EU mission.

In Belgrade, demonstrators threw stones and broke windows at the US embassy as riot police tried to fend off a crowd of around 1,000 people.

The protesters, described as gangs of youths, also attacked a McDonald's restaurant, the Serbian government building and the embassy of Slovenia which currently holds the EU presidency.

Several Serbian ministers had travelled to Kosovo to show their support for the ethnic Serbian minority.

Kosovo's 10 Serbian MPs boycotted the assembly session in protest at the declaration.

Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica blamed the US which he said was "ready to violate the international order for its own military interests".

"Today, this policy of force thinks that it has triumphed by establishing a false state," Mr Kostunica said.

Search for equality

The declaration was approved with a show of hands. No-one opposed it.

"We have waited for this day for a very long time," Mr Thaci told parliament before reading the text, paying tribute to those who had died on the road to independence.

From today, he said, Kosovo was "proud, independent and free".

"The independence of Kosovo marks the end of the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia," the prime minister said.

He said Kosovo would be built in accordance with the UN plan drawn up by former Finnish President, Martti Ahtisaari.

The international military and civilian presence - also envisaged by the Ahtisaari plan - was welcome, the PM said.

There should be no fear of discrimination in new Kosovo, he said, vowing to eradicate any such practices.

The declaration was signed by all the MPs present.

Russian protest

The UN Security Council went into emergency session on Sunday evening after Russia called for the United Nations to declare the Kosovo declaration illegal.

Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters that the resolution allowing the UN to administer Kosovo since 1999 had been violated and said the council had a duty to annul the declaration.

Three other permanent members of the council, the US, the UK and France disagree. Serbian President Boris Tadic is heading to New York for a second emergency session due on Monday.


BBC UN correspondent Matt Wells said Russia was using every means at its disposal to make the strongest possible diplomatic protest.

The declaration approved by Kosovo's parliament contains limitations on Kosovan independence as outlined in Mr Ahtisaari's plan.

Kosovo, or part of it, cannot join any other country. It will be supervised by an international presence. Its armed forces will be limited and it will make strong provisions for Serb minority protection.

Recognition by a number of EU states, including the UK and other major countries, will come on Monday after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, says the BBC's Paul Reynolds.

The US is also expected to announce its recognition on Monday.

Three EU states - Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia - have told other EU governments that they will not recognise Kosovo, says our correspondent.

Russia's foreign ministry has indicated that Western recognition of an independent Kosovo could have implications for the Georgian breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

BBC

[RaPSouL]

Gazeta BBC e shkruan nje fjale teper interesante lexoni:

Joy in Kosovo and anger in Belgrade at independence move

[RaPSouL]

Mediat Australiane reth pavarsise se Kosoves shkruajne.

World's Newest State

Kosovo declares independence

KOSOVO has declared its independence from an angry and anxious Serbia in the final fallout from the conflict-strewn break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

Tens of thousands of flag waving people packed the capital, Pristina, as the Kosovo parliament voted a declaration of independence that insisted the world's newest state would be "dedicated to peace and stability".

The parliament also approved a new flag for the landlocked state of about two million people.

While the United States and European Union are quickly expected to recognise the new state, Serbia is infuriated by the move and has been given strong support by Russia.

Serbia's President Boris Tadic said his country would never accept the move.

Kosovo police had to stop several hundred former Serbian army reservists - veterans of the 1998-99 Kosovo war - from crossing into the territory ahead of the independence declaration.

The group, dressed in military uniforms, broke through a Serbian police cordon at the Merdare crossing before being held back.

On the eve of the declaration, the NATO-led peacekeeping Kosovo Force - with 17,000 troops from 34 nations - said it would intervene robustly to prevent any inter-ethnic violence.

Belgrade, which insists it retains sovereignty over what it considers the cradle of Serbian culture and religion, has branded independence an illegal act and a geopolitical land grab by the European Union.

"Whatever happens in Pristina tonight it will not be the end of a part of our history, but just the beginning," said the influential Politika newspaper, summing up the mood in Belgrade.

Independence would bring down the curtain on the long and brutal break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s that followed the demise of communism in Europe and witnessed the continent's worst atrocities since World War II.

About 10,000 people died in the 1998-1999 war as Serb forces tried to put down ethnic Albanian separatists. A NATO air war against late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic halted the conflict and Kosovo has since been under UN administration.

"We've been waiting for this day for such a long time," said Sherife Bajrami, a Pristina doctor and mother of four.

"We'll celebrate with dignity, with respect for minorities, for all to live happily in the land of Kosovo."

The declaration started a 120-day transition period and the deployment of a 2000-strong EU police and judicial team to help the transition.

A constitution - based on a blueprint for "supervised independence" proposed by UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari that Serbia refused to accept - would come later.

Russia blocked the Ahtisaari plan at the UN and Kosovo's independence declaration will be made without UN security council approval, despite its backing by Western powers.

The US today reaffirmed its strong backing for an independent Kosovo.

"On Kosovo, our position is that its status must be resolved in order for the Balkans to be stable," US president George W Bush said.

With an estimated 40 per cent unemployment, and half its population under the age of 25, Kosovo will nevertheless remain highly dependent on massive infusions of Western economic aid.

Many of its neighbours fear its independence will unsettle a region still rife with inter-ethnic tension more than a decade after the end of the Balkan wars.

Within the EU, countries such as Greece, Romania and Bulgaria which are close to Serbia, or which like Spain and Cyprus have their own separatist problems, have said they would not recognise Kosovo.

Serbia has vowed to oppose the EU police mission. Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic said in a formal protest to Brussels that only the UN security council could rule on Kosovo's status.

Russia - Serbia's closest partner on the global stage, and mindful that Kosovo's independence might set a precedent in restive corners of its vast territory - is certain to block such moves.

An estimated 120,000 Serbs live in Kosovo, which is home to some of the most important shrines of the Serbian Orthodox faith. More than 220,000 others have left since 1999.

Belgrade is imploring Serbs in Kosovo to stay put as an act of defiance - a message echoed yesterday by the pretender to the long-abolished Serbian throne, Crown Prince Aleksandar II.

"The most important thing for you is to stay here and remain calm," he told a Serb crowd in the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, where he attended Orthodox mass.

"Wisdom, calm, along with law and order are our only weapons. You must not forget that."

Russia has condemned Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia and called for an immediate meeting of the UN Security Council, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

The declaration of independence "violates the sovereignty of the republic of Serbia," the statement said.

"Russia is calling for an immediate emergency session of the UN Security Council to consider the situation."

News Au

[RaPSouL]

Mediat Australiane kesaj radhe ABC News shkruan:

Kosovo declares independence from Serbia

Kosovo has declared independence from Serbia, ending a long chapter in the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia.

The proclamation was made by leaders of the breakaway province's 90 per cent ethnic Albanian majority, including former guerrillas who fought for independence in a 1998-99 war which claimed about 10,000 civilian lives.

"We, the leaders of our people, democratically elected, through this declaration proclaim Kosovo an independent and sovereign state," said the text read out in parliament by Prime Minister Hashim Thaci.

"This declaration reflects the will of the people."

He said Kosovo would be a "society that respects human dignity" and that was committed to confronting the "painful legacy of the recent past, in a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness".

All 109 deputies present at the session in the capital Pristina voted in favour with a show of hands. Eleven deputies from ethnic minorities, including Serbs, were absent.

Belgrade bitterly opposes the secession. Backed by Russia, Serbs vow never to give up the territory, in which their history goes back 1,000 years.

But the West supports the demand of Kosovo's two million ethnic Albanians for their own state, nine years after NATO went to war to save them from Serbian forces.

Kosovo will be the sixth state carved from the former Serbian-dominated Yugoslav federation since 1991, after Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro.

It will be the world's 193rd independent country but Serbia says it will never win a seat at the United Nations.

Serbs in the north of Kosovo will reject independence, cementing an ethnic partition that will weigh on the new state for years to come.

Fewer than half of Kosovo's 120,000 remaining Serbs live in the north, while the rest are in scattered enclaves protected by NATO peacekeepers.

The United States and most EU members are expected to quickly recognise Kosovo, despite failing to win United Nations Security Council approval - blocked by Russia last year.

The EU will also send a supervisory mission to take over from the current UN authorities.


Celebrations

Tens of thousands of cheering, flag-waving Kosovars flocked onto the streets of Pristina ahead of the declaration of independence.

The joyful scenes were a repeat of the all-night partying that broke out the day before after Mr Thaci confirmed the long-awaited declaration was imminent.

Young and old alike mingled shoulder-to-shoulder along the pedestrianised Mother Teresa avenue, snapping pictures of each other with pocket cameras or mobile phones, as the odd firecracker went off.

Beneath a statue of Zahir Pajaziti, a slain hero of the Kosovo Liberation Army's guerrilla war against Serbia a decade ago, a merry crowd danced to music and drumbeats, under a bright winter sun.

Everywhere, the blood-red Albanian flag - flown here in the absence of Kosovo's own standard - could be seen, alongside those of the United States, Britain, Germany and the NATO military alliance.

In one part of downtown, a giant barbecue was being prepared, the centrepiece of which was a 180-kilogram bull on a spit. Elsewhere, a giant cake in the shape of the province was ready to eat.

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ABC News shkruan reth paregullsive qe ndodhin dhe kan ndodhur diten e sotme si gjate festimeve ashtu edhe gjate protestave.

Grenades thrown during Kosovo independence protest


Hand grenades have been thrown at buildings of the European Union and United Nations in the Kosovo Serb stronghold city of Mitrovica.

Kosovo earlier declared independence from Serbia, ending a long chapter in the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia, but Serbia has vowed to resist it.

One grenade exploded at the UN mission causing no significant damage, a Western source in the city said. EU officials evacuated their building, which houses the team preparing a mission to supervise Kosovo's independence.

"Officials abandoned the [EU] building. Security guards said two hand grenades had been thrown. One had exploded," the source said.

Police sources said a vehicle belonging to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was damaged in the blast at the UN carpark.

French troops of the NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR earlier prepared concrete and wire barriers to close off the bridges dividing Albanians and Serbs in Mitrovica in case of clashes.

The ethnically divided town, where 20,000 Serbs live in the north and 80,000 ethnic Albanians in the south, symbolises the tensions of Kosovo.

Nationalist Serbs are fiercely opposed to the independence of Kosovo, which has dozens of centuries-old Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries, and which they consider their historic heartland.

In Serbia's second largest city Novi Sad, several hundred people gathered on the main square in the city for a protest march, Tanjug news agency said. No incidents were reported.

Earlier, several hundred former Serbian army reservists were prevented on from crossing into Kosovo ahead of its independence declaration, witnesses said.

Dressed in military uniforms, the group broke through a Serbian police cordon before being stopped on the other side of the border by the Kosovo Police Service (KPS), Beta news agency and B92 radio reported.


'Null and void'

Russia UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said his country wanted the UN mission in Kosovo to declare "null and void" the independence.

Speaking shortly before the start of an emergency meeting of the Security Council, Mr Churkin said he would insist on council "resolution 1244 and other relevant documents being implemented by the leadership of UNMIK (UN mission in Kosovo).

"In accordance with those, they are supposed to declare the proclamation of independence null and void," he added.

Resolution 1244, adopted at the end of Kosovo's 1998-1999 war, gave the disputed province "substantial autonomy" under Serbian sovereignty and put in place the UN mission and NATO-led peacekeepers.


US in damage control

The United States has been the most powerful backer of Kosovo, but must now limit the damage to relations with Serbia and its strong ally Russia, which reject Kosovo's action.

The US cautiously acknowledged the declaration, saying it would review the move with European allies and meanwhile calling for "utmost restraint" in the region.

But in fact the US has backed Kosovo's breaking away from Serbia since 1999, when then-president Bill Clinton spearheaded the NATO bombing campaign that stopped Belgrade's bloody crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in the province.

US President George W Bush has stuck to that position, even as tensions grew deeper with Belgrade and Moscow as Kosovo's declaration grew closer.

"At some point in time, sooner rather than later, you got to say 'enough's enough, Kosovo's independent,'" Mr Bush said last June on a visit to Albania, the first by a US head of state while in office.

The stance earned Mr Bush a rapturous welcome in Tirana, and two days later, the US State Department said Washington was ready to recognise a unilateral declaration of Kosovan independence.


'Recognise' independence

Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu on Sunday called on "all the countries of the world" to recognise Kosovo's independence from Serbia which was proclaimed earlier by its parliament.

"I have the honour to ask that all the countries of the world recognise [our independence] and establish normal diplomatic relations with us," he told a press conference.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said that stability in Kosovo and the whole Balkan region was essential.

"I urge everybody to act calmly and in a responsible way," he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Vatican has called for "prudence and moderation" in Kosovo and Serbia.

The Holy See urged politicians in the region to show "a decisive and concrete commitment to ward off extremist reactions and violence", Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

The respect of all ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities in Kosovo must be ensured, he said, and he called for its Christian artistic and cultural heritage to be safeguarded.

"The Holy Father continues to look with affection at the people of Kosovo and Serbia, is close to them and is praying at this crucial moment of their history," the statement said.

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NPR News reth pavaresis se Kosoves dhe shtetit me te ri ne bote shkruan:

Kosovo Parliament Declares Independence

Kosovo is declaring independence. During a special parliamentary session Sunday, Serbia's breakaway province proclaimed itself the world's newest state.

The declaration received a stern reaction from the Serbian president, who said his nation would never accept an independent Kosovo. President Bush said the U.S. would work to prevent violence after the declaration and the European Union also appealed for calm.

Deputies unanimously approved the declaration of independence in a solemn session of Parliament. Prime Minister Hashim Thaci . read the declaration, saying, "We the leaders of our people, democratically elected, through this declaration proclaim Kosovo an independent and sovereign state," adding, "This declaration reflects the will of the people."

Across the capital, Pristina, revelers danced in the streets, fired guns into the air and waved red and black Albanian flags in jubilation at the birth of the world's newest country.

Earlier, Thaci delivered a speech underscoring that the new state would ensure the rights of all minorities and will be democratic and multiethnic.

By sidestepping the U.N. and appealing directly to the U.S. and other nations for recognition, Kosovo set up a showdown with Serbia — outraged at the imminent loss of its territory — and Russia, which warned that it would set a dangerous precedent for separatist groups worldwide.

From NPR reports and The Associated Press