Word: albanian
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...blinks out again in his office in downtown Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. "Some government," he groans. Following elections on Nov. 17, the former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, is expected to be sworn in soon as Kosovo's Prime Minister. If he and other Kosovo Albanian leaders declare independence from Serbia by early next year, as is widely expected, Thaci will become the Prime Minister of a newly sovereign state. The former guerrilla leader dismisses fears that Kosovo's proposed "unilateral declaration of independence" could trigger renewed violence in the region. "The time...
Back in the spring of 1999, Ramadan Ilazi was among the nearly 1 million ethnic Albanians forced to flee Serb ruler Slobodan Milosevic's attempt to "cleanse" them from Kosovo. It was amid the endless lines of U.N.-issued tents in the Senokos camp in Macedonia that I first met this boy, known to his friends as Dani. As a reporter covering the Albanian exodus, I would talk to scores of refugees. But Dani, who was then 14 years old and looked no more than 10, would prove to be a one-in-a-million encounter...
...speech in Ferizaj, Clinton famously told the Albanian crowd: "No one can force you to forgive what was done to you. But you must try." Dani traces his own tolerance to his mother, who always taught him to have basic respect for others. Even during the war, Dani recalls, he did not have the feeling of "hate that others had." Then again, he adds, "I don't know how I'd feel if they'd killed my father. I want to think my ideas wouldn't be different, but I don't know...
What he is eager to speak out about is politics. Like most Albanians, Dani still loves the U.S., but "sometimes more the idea than the reality." He's noticed that some U.S. troops in Kosovo come after tours of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan and bring with them prejudices against Muslims. But his main focus is Kosovo, where he says the "status" question - of when and how to extend independence to the Albanian-majority nation - has become a way for political leaders to distract citizens from more concrete problems. Basic infrastructure is decrepit (electric power is cut twice...
...Nationalism is on the rise again in Serbia due to the imminent secession of Kosovo, the mostly ethnic-Albanian province which is seeking independence from Serbia with the backing of the West, while Belgrade - backed by Moscow - remains fiercely opposed. Following the footsteps of Milosevic, Seselj is also expected to use the courtroom as a platform for further hate speech, thus advancing the electoral prospects of his deputy Tomislav Nikolic, who is running for president in Serbia's January elections. Nikolic, the caretaker of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party in Seselj's absence, is running neck-and-neck with incumbent...