Word: albania
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...could do business, prospects for winning NATO support for formal independence for Kosovo dimmed even further. That, and President George W. Bush's campaign promise to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from the Balkans, may have prompted Albanian nationalists across the region to step up their campaign for a Greater Albania, by launching new insurgencies in Serbia's Presevo Valley (which falls in a demilitarized buffer zone adjacent to Kosovo) and in northern Macedonia. But in the absence of Serb abuse and ethnic cleansing, NATO has shown little tolerance for the new Albanian adventurism...
...Bosnia and Kosovo has created a burgeoning market for sex workers, while an infrastructure battered by war has allowed traffickers to flourish. Investigators say the Balkans have become a kind of training ground for women and girls brought in against their will from Eastern Europe and bound for Albania, southern Italy and points west...
...Army learned the importance of speed in Kosovo, where it was humiliated when it took a month to ship 24 Apache helicopters 800 miles from Germany to Albania. It vowed to transform itself into a lighter fighting force. It is spending $4 billion for a fleet of light, wheeled armored vehicles to be carried to battle aboard moderate-size but plentiful C-130 cargo planes. To keep the Crusader relevant, the Army wants to shrink the two-vehicle system from its current 110 tons to a relatively svelte 80 tons. But each system will still require a gigantic...
...irrelevant opposition leader now, but the Balkans' woes are from over. Kosovo's Albanians still want independence, but most of NATO is inclined to keep the territory nominally under Serb sovereignty although autonomous for all practical purposes. European NATO powers fear full-blown independence will link Kosovo with Albania, and prompt new conflicts throughout the region. But recent attacks on NATO forces by Albanian nationalists seeking to colonize a tiny strip of ethnic-Albanian inhabited Serb territory just across the border from Kosovo are a sign that some Albanians won't be taking no for an answer...
...That suggests that the majority of the ethnic-Albanian community are willing to pursue their desire for independence via negotiation with the new regime in Belgrade. But for those KLA hard men who remain determined to use any means necessary to win independence for Kosovo and unite it with Albania, NATO troops may become an obstacle in their path. And that could make the peacekeeping mission more than a little distasteful to some key NATO members...