By Hannes Artens

No doubt, this Sunday's parliamentary elections in Serbia are the most decisive in the country's short but turbulent democratic history. Never since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic the stakes have been so high and prospects so ominous. In two days, the Serbian people will decide on whether they still envision a future in the European family of nations for their nation or decay into self-inflicted isolation and the status of a Trojan Horse for Russian great power aspirations. For the European Union, the elections will determine whether it can count on having an interlocutor in Belgrade to negotiate with past May 11, or face up to a nationalist Serbia acting as a permanent spirit of discord for the entire Western Balkans.

The unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo on February 17, sent shockwaves through the country that not only culminated in the ravage of several Western embassies and brought the government down, but also dominates this election campaign right down to the last comma on every stump. The collective national trauma of having ultimately lost the very territory mystified as the cradle of the Serbian nation and the impolitic signals the EU sent out over the last weeks render a radical-nationalist landslide a given. According to most recent polls, the nationalist bloc could bank on winning a super-majority of 55%, relegate all reform-minded powers into opposition, and set off to permanently disengage Serbia from Europe.

Richard O'Mara | Baltimore, MD | April 15

CSM - Deciphering latent script on ancient parchment makes curator Will Noel's job an Indiana Jones-style adventure

This is about an ancient book called The Archimedes Codex, bought for $2.2 million in October, 1998, at an auction in New York City by an anonymous collector who sent it to the Walters Art Museum, here to be restored, conserved, and probed for its content. It was thought to contain mathematical theses conceived by the genius of Syracuse (287-212 BC), whose name it bears, ideas not found anywhere else in the world.

Ian Traynor | March 25

The Guardian - Serbia has formally proposed partitioning Kosovo along ethnic lines for the first time, asking the United Nations to ensure that Belgrade can control key institutions and functions in areas of the newly independent country where Serbs form a majority.

In a document sent to the UN in New York, proposed to the UN in Kosovo last week and published in the Belgrade press yesterday, the government in Belgrade insists that Serbia be allowed to control the police, the courts, the judiciary and customs in the Serbian enclaves in Kosovo and in the northern strip around the tense Serb-controlled town of Mitrovica.

Described as a blueprint for the "functional division of Serbs and Kosovo Albanians" by the Serbian minister pushing the policy, the proposal is the nearest Serbia has come to calling openly for partition, although it is working on the ground on Kosovo to make the division a reality.

Belgrade | March 22

Reuters - Serbia has proposed a plan for the "functional division of Serbs and Kosovo Albanians" in Kosovo, Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic was quoted on Saturday as saying.

He said the plan referred to all of Kosovo and was part of the government's action plan to reject Kosovo's independence, declared with Western support on February 17.

Diplomats said it amounted to a plan for partition which the West rejects.

Samardzic said Serbia respected a U.N. resolution on Kosovo which turned the province over to U.N. administration and NATO protection in 1999, and the mission that has run it ever since, known as UNMIK.

Dmitry Solovyov | Moscow | March 20

Reuters -

Moscow will meet NATO to discuss Washington's authorisation for arms supplies to Kosovo, Itar-Tass news agency quoted Russia's envoy to the alliance as saying on Thursday.

By supplying weapons to Kosovo's government, the United States was arming "former terrorists" and the move could stoke violence in the region, Tass quoted Russia's ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin as saying.

U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday authorised arms supplies to Kosovo, saying it would "strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace", according to a document on the White House Web site.

"They (Washington) say the weapons will help fight terrorism. At the same time, it is namely former terrorists who are in power in Kosovo right now," Itar-Tass quoted Rogozin as saying in Brussels.

"How can you fight terrorism, supplying weapons to former terrorists?"

"I have addressed NATO's secretary-general with a proposal to hold an emergency meeting of the Russia-NATO council to discuss U.S. plans to supply weapons to Kosovo." He said the meeting could take place on March 28, Tass reported.

Earlier thread: NATO puts north Kosovo under NATO military law

Branislav Krstic | Mitrovica, Kosovo | March 17

Reuters - NATO troops came under fire during Serb riots in the northern Kosovo flashpoint of Mitrovica on Monday, in the worst violence in the territory since the Albanian majority declared independence last month.

The riot posed a direct challenge to NATO, the United Nations and Kosovo's fledgling European Union justice mission, underscoring fears in the West that Kosovo could be heading for ethnic partition one month after breaking away from Serbia.

A U.N. spokesman said the riot "crosses one of the red lines that had clearly been articulated by the U.N. to the leaders of Kosovo Serbs in the north and to officials in Belgrade."

A U.N. police spokesman said 25 officers were hurt.

Tirana | March 15

Reuters -

Some 63 people working near the site of a major explosion at an Albanian army base may have been killed or seriously injured by the blast, Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha's spokeswoman said on Saturday.

"We do not know the exact number," Juela Mecani told Reuters, "but we fear the worst for the three teams, each of 21 people, working there at the time. Several were U.S. citizens." The U.S. embassy in Tirana told Reuters it could not confirm the presence of U.S. military personnel at the site.

Kosovo declared independence on the 17th of February but that isnt the end of the story. Separatists from Europe to Asia were encouraged by the event whilst many countries with active politically orientated minorities feared the repercussions.

By: Metodija A. Koloski

The Republic of Macedonia is one of the U.S.’s staunchest allies, yet several members of Congress support efforts by Greece to destabilize Macedonia and the Balkans.

Greece initiated a baseless “dispute” 16 years ago over the Republic of Macedonia’s name and identity. Unfortunately, over 100 Representatives and Senators, including Senator Barack Obama, a presidential candidate who has plans to lead our country one day, support proposed resolutions in each chamber -- H. Res. 356 and S. Res. 300 -- that recite Greece’s churlish anti-Macedonian stance and call for an end to nonexistent Macedonian “hostile propaganda.”

Ellie Tzortzi | Belgrade, Serbia | February 21

Reuters -

Serbian nationalists set alight the United States embassy in Belgrade. ~ AFP

Scores of protesters smashed their way into the U.S. embassy in Belgrade on Thursday in anger at Kosovo's independence, ransacking rooms and setting fires before riot police dispersed the crowd.

Police, nowhere to be seen earlier as the building was attacked, moved in half an hour later, firing teargas and beating and detaining rioters.

Local media said more than 30 people were injured, half of them police, and taken to hospital.

Police in armoured vans secured the streets and tried to cordon off the whole embassy district. Local agencies reported attacks on missions of several other countries, among them Britain, Croatia, Bosnia and Turkey.

Tens of thousands protest Kosovo’s declaration of independence

At least 150,000 Serbs gathered in central Belgrade today in a massive protest against Kosovo’s declaration of independence, raising fears of street violence.

At a Kosovo border checkpoint, hundreds of Serbian army reservists chanting "Kosovo is ours! Kosovo is Serbia!" hurled stones at police and NATO-led peacekeepers as they crossed into Kosovo. They later dispersed and crossed back into Serbia.

The crowd waved Serbian flags and carried signs reading "Stop USA terror." One group set fire to a red-and-black Albanian flag. Most of Kosovo’s population is ethnic Albanian.

Please check comments for additional articles and updates

(cross-posted at The People's Republic of Seabrook)

Today is a day of celebration for me. Though most of the world will neither notice nor much care, Kosovo is today an independent nation (and you can thank Bill Clinton for this triumph of American foreign policy). After 60 years being under the thumb of first Yugoslavia and then Serbia, Kosovo's Albanian population is now able to determine their own course, free from the oppressive rule of their former Serbian overlords.

In reality, of course, Kosovo has been free of Serbia since the end of the 1999 war, but the province has been administrated by the United Nations. As of today, though, Kosovo will make it's own way...and believe me, this newly-independent nation has a LOT of work ahead of it. Independence is not the panacea that many Kosovars may believe it is, but at least they'll be in charge of their own fate from here on. It's about damn time.

Just off the wires:

Prime Minister Hashim Thaci began reading the declaration proclaiming the Republic of Kosovo as ''an independent, sovereign and democratic state.'' Parliament will then vote on the declaration. The move was carefully orchestrated with the backing of U.S. and key European powers, and Kosovo was counting on swift international recognition as the world's newest nation.

Doesn't sound exactly like independence to me, as parliament hasn't ratified it, but still the Russians aren't happy--or the Serbs.

Luke Harding | Moscow | February 15

The Guardian - President Vladimir Putin yesterday accused Europe and the United States of double standards over their support for an independent Kosovo, and warned that any declaration of statehood by Pristina would be "illegal, ill-conceived and immoral".

Putin said that Russia remained utterly opposed to Kosovo breaking away from Serbia. If Kosovo's Albanian leaders ignored Russian objections and announced independence this Sunday Moscow would be forced to act, he said.

He did not spell out what precisely Russia would do. There has been speculation that Moscow could retaliate by recognising the breakaway Georgian republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and the separatist Moldovan enclave of Trans-Dniester.

"Other countries look after their interests. We consider it appropriate to look after our interests. We have done some homework and we know what we will do," he warned

by Christopher Deliso. A must read for anyone interested in Sibel Edmonds, etc.

In 22 January, Turkish police arrested 33 individuals, some connected with the military, in the largest concerted action against the "deep state" – that shadowy underworld linking extremists and criminals from the spheres of military, political, judicial and the academy. Some were accused of belonging to an ultranationalist group, Ergenekon, that was allegedly "preparing a series of bomb attacks aimed at fomenting chaos ahead of a coup in 2009 against Turkey's center-right government, whose European Union-linked reforms are opposed by ultranationalists." The ultranationalists (who also distrust the Erdogan government for its alleged Islamist agenda) were plotting to assassinate prominent cultural figures, such as Nobel-prize winning novelist Orhan Pamuk, journalist Fehmi Koru, and possibly Kurdish politicians. The deaths of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, two Italian priests and three Protestant missionaries have already been blamed on ultranationalists associated with the Ergenekon group.

Robert Marquand | Belgrade, Serbia | February 8

CSM - Belgrade power broker Vojislav Kostunica is shaking the newly elected government over Kosovo.

Serbia's most skillful politician rarely smiles, doesn't socialize, and believes religiously in a special destiny for Serbia. Now, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica is shaking Serbia's newly elected government – over the destiny of Kosovo.

Days after 2.2 million Serbs voted to join Europe by reelecting President Boris Tadic, Mr. Kostunica is playing a high-stakes game that has helped paralyze the government. He has accused the European Union of "jeopardizing the territorial integrity … of Serbia" as it prepares to send a mission to Kosovo, and blocked Mr. Tadic from signing an EU premembership agreement – saying it is a European quid pro quo for Kosovo's independence from Serbia.

The result could be to boost the radical leadership Serbia just voted narrowly against, analysts say – and promote policies that Europeans worry could destabilize the Balkans. Before elections, some analysts felt the government might fall if pro-Russia radical Tomislav Nikolic was elected. Now the way may be paved anyway by a statesman who is showing a talent akin to that of former hard-line Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic – whom he helped oust – for writing Serbia's script from behind the scenes, analysts say.

February 3

BBC News - Counting is under way after polls closed in a knife-edge presidential election in Serbia, which could determine its relations with Europe.

Exit polls gave the Western-leaning President Boris Tadic a slight lead over his challenger, Tomislav Nikolic.

A pro-Russian nationalist, Mr Nikolic was beaten by Mr Tadic in a similar run-off in 2004.

The election is taking place amid a looming independence declaration from Kosovo, which both candidates oppose.

Quetin Peel | January 25

Financial Times - Russia will reap its first big reward on Friday for supporting Serbia in trying to stop Kosovo from declaring unilateral independence. Next week the European Union may suffer a serious reverse for doing the opposite, if Serbia elects a hardline nationalist president. The price of Kosovo’s freedom is high. Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled gas monopoly, is to acquire a majority shareholding in NIS, the Serbian state oil monopoly, and in return incorporate the former Yugoslav republic into its proposed South Stream gas pipeline that will run under the Black Sea via Bulgaria to Greece and

Belgrade, Serbia | January 11

UPI - Serbia's election commission has banned British and U.S. embassy officials from monitoring presidential elections this month.

It was the first time that Serbia banned foreign observers from monitoring any elections since the overthrow of the regime of the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, Belgrade's B92 Radio said Friday.

Slavoljub Milenkovic, an election commission member of the opposition Serbian ultra-nationalist Radical Party, said the United States and Britain want to "destroy" Serbia and rip off Serbia's mainly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo province.

Other members of the commission said U.S. and British observers are not welcome because their governments support Kosovo's plans to declare independence from Serbia in coming months.

Robert Marquand | Paris | Dec 19

CSM - The council takes up the issue Wednesday after 18 months of lower-level negotiations failed.

After some 18 months of talks, countless missions, painstaking mapmaking, hand-holding, and hand-wringing – the sticky situation of Kosovo's status will be taken up by the United Nations Security Council Wednesday.

The meeting, to take place in private, constitutes the first test at the highest level of diplomacy of whether Russia intends to make independence for the Serb province a difficult if not nasty process for the West.

Russia has loudly backed Belgrade's desire to retain Kosovo and says it will veto Kosovo independence in the Security Council – despite what US officials privately say was a prior "understanding."

"What's happening [on Kosovo] is an extension of two wars," says Marshall Harris, a former US diplomat and adviser to the president of Kosovo. "The first is the Milosevic wars in the Balkans ... and the second is the cold war. The independence of Kosovo needs to happen for this reason. You can't reintegrate Kosovo into Serbia. The Security Council meeting may reveal what Russia's bottom line will be."

Mark Almond |London |December 6

IHT - The recent gathering at Annapolis of most sides in the world's most intractable political dispute has focused attention on the Middle East, but another set of bitter geopolitical problems is rapidly elbowing its way into the international limelight - unrecognized states in the Balkans and the Caucasus.

The failure of the American-EU-Russian troika to resolve Kosovo's status by consensus sets in motion a declaration of independence from Serbia by its Albanian majority within weeks. That could re-ignite conflicts across the former Yugoslavia and in the disputed territories scattered around Russia's rim in the old Soviet Union. With Washington and Moscow at loggerheads as the U.S. takes sides with the Albanians and Russia with the Serbs, it is time to look beyond the local Balkan issue. As one negotiator in the troika ruefully admitted, if 120 days of negotiation couldn't reconcile the bickering parties, 1,020 would do no better. More than Kosovo is at stake.

Julian Borger | Dec 6

The Guardian - Background: 'They're always being told it's three months away'

The EU special envoy on Kosovo today demanded a retraction of a threat by a senior Serbian official that his country could resort to war if the mostly ethnic Albanian province declares independence.

Aleksandar Simic, an advisor to Serbia's prime minister, was quoted in the Belgrade media as saying that Serbia had the legal right to use war as a means of defending its territory if Kosovo, a UN protectorate for the past eight years, declares independence in the coming weeks as expected.

Oct 26

BBC - The chief prosecutor for the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague says Europe's most wanted man, Radovan Karadzic, has "gone off the radar screen" and no one knows where he is.

There has been speculation for some time that a secret deal may have been done between Mr Karadzic - the Bosnian Serb wartime leader - and US officials at the end of the Bosnian War.

Now The Hague has asked prosecutors in Serbia to examine the claims. The BBC's Nick Hawton investigates.

In a restaurant in Belgrade, Vladimir Nadezdin greets me with a smile and offers me coffee.

A former senior official in the government of ex-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, he says he saw a document relating to the deal, signed by Mr Karadzic and the American negotiator, Richard Holbrooke

Judy Dempsey | Berlin | Sept 25

IHT - The United States and the European Union will recognize Kosovo if the Balkan province declares independence from Serbia in early December when last-ditch negotiations end, senior U.S. and European officials said Monday.

The officials spoke as the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians prepared to sit down this week at the United Nations for talks that diplomats have billed as part of a final effort to get agreement on the issue. It has turned into a confrontation between the West and Russia, which has threatened to veto any Security Council resolution approving independence for Kosovo.

"The game plan is set," said a senior European diplomat who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "The talks end on Dec. 10. If there is no sense then that Serbia and Kosovo can agree on the province's future, then Kosovo will make a unilateral declaration of independence. The U.S. will recognize that independence, and the Europeans, as far as they can remain united, will follow, too," he said.

The EU will support the U.S. stance despite a clear preference for a UN-backed solution. But it will find it difficult to speak with one voice for all the 27 member states, diplomats said.

New York | September 24

PressTV - Serbia is going to offer a solution to the Kosovo issue which will be acceptable to all sides in the upcoming direct negotiations in New York.

"Our proposal offers internal independence to Kosovo, or an opportunity for the ethnic Albanians to manage their own lives," Serbian negotiation team member Goran Bogdanovic was quoted as saying.

Kerin Hope | Athens | September 16

FT - Greece's centre-right New Democracy party won a second four-year term at Sunday's snap general election but will have only a wafer-thin majority in the 300-member parliament.

With more than 50 per cent of the vote counted, the conservatives were projected to win 42 per cent and 153 seats under a proportional electoral system that favours the frontrunning party.