Albanian Language Media:

• COVID – 19: 15 deaths, 875 new cases (media)
• Hoti: We’re committed to the issue of missing persons (media)
• Gerxhaliu: We’re waiting for official invitation to go to Raska (Telegrafi)
• Hoti in an online meeting with Macron, attempt to resume dialogue? (Lajmi)
• Trepca mineworkers protest over October wages (media) 
• Minister: €1 million executed for wages of Trepca mineworkers (media)
• “Kosovo won’t be represented by UNMIK at Energy Community Treaty” (media)

Serbian Language Media:

• One death, 68 new cases in Serbian communities in Kosovo (Kontakt plus radio)
• EP worried by Serbia’s ruling party dominance during June general elections (N1)
• Lawyer Tapuskovic: If killed journalists are not in the indictments, the trial of KLA leaders of no use (Kontakt plus radio, UNS)
• The Kosovo inspection checks one pharmacy in North Mitrovica, citizens resented (KoSSev, Kontakt plus radio, Kosovo Online)
• Kisnica: Family Trajkovic worried, provocations continue (KiM Radio, Kosovo Online, Radio Gracanica)
• Borrell: The EU expects Serbia and Kosovo not to move the embassies to Jerusalem (N1)
• Doctors: SPC Patriarch’s health condition deteriorating due to coronavirus (media)
• Dacic: There must be justice for Serbian victims as well (B92, Tanjug, TV Happy)

Opinion:

• Language Is Politics, and Not Just In the Balkans (bnnbloomberg.ca)

International:

• Would-be Balkan EU Members Remain Hostage to Vetos (Balkan Insight)

Humanitarian/Development:

• “Europe can avoid quarantine on one condition and I stand behind that claim” (Tanjug, B92)

Albanian Language Media 

COVID – 19: 15 deaths, 875 new cases (media)

875 new cases of COVID – 19 and 15 deaths from the virus have been recorded in the last 24 hours in Kosovo. 2,004 samples were tested. The highest number of new cases is from the municipality of Prishtina (349). 702 persons have recovered from the virus during this time. There are 12,906 active cases of coronavirus in Kosovo.

Hoti: We’re committed to the issue of missing persons (media)

Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti said in his address to the Kosovo Assembly today that state institutions are committed to treating the issue of missing persons, together with the families of missing persons and international partners. He pledged that the process would continue until the fate of the last missing person is resolved.

Hoti said the Washington agreement on September 4 does not mention the word condition on the issues of missing persons and IDPs. He said point 12 of the agreement clearly specifies that both parties pledge to step up efforts to locate and identify the remains of missing persons. 

Hoti said the families of missing persons have repeatedly called for the issue of missing persons to be internationalised and for the international community to apply pressure on Serbian authorities and that all of Kosovo’s actions were in the function of these demands.

“The issue of refugees and IDPs too requires a long-term and sustainable solution and you can see that there is no condition on this matter … If there will be an agreement it will have international guarantees that the issue of missing persons will be resolved. I think the issue of missing persons must not be politicised.”

Gerxhaliu: We’re waiting for official invitation to go to Raska (Telegrafi)

Kosovo Forensics Institute chief Arsim Gerxhaliu said in an interview with the news website that they have waited for five years to find the mortal remains that were recently found in two locations in Serbia and which are believed to be of Albanians from Kosovo. He said they are waiting for an invitation from Serbian authorities to continue with their work. 

“We’ve been on standby since that day [when the remains were found] … Together with Makolli as head of the working group we are preparing for an invitation to go to the site. So far we have no official information or invitation to access the site. We don’t know what measures will be enforced. From the moment that the remains were found, the case has gone from the prosecutor to the judge, in line with Serbian laws … It is not easy to access that kind of terrain. It is mountainous terrain and very steep. Our goal is to reach point 0. On Monday we came across remains for a work that we’ve been waiting for five years,” Gerxhaliu said.

Hoti in an online meeting with Macron, attempt to resume dialogue? (Lajmi)

Citing Kosovo’s Deputy Prime Minister Driton Selmanaj, the news website reports that Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti had a meeting via video call with French President Emmanuel Macron. Although the topic of the discussion was not revealed, the news website asks whether attempts are underway to resume the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia.

Trepca mineworkers protest over October wages (media)

Several news websites report that around 200 mineworkers in the Trepca mining complex are protesting inside the mine demanding their October wages to be paid. A secretary of the mineworkers union told Klan Kosova that the miners have stopped their work and that once the wages are paid in their accounts work will resume.  

Minister: €1 million executed for wages of Trepca mineworkers (media)

Kosovo’s Minister of Economy and Environment, Blerim Kuci, said today that €1 million have been executed for the wages of Trepca mineworkers. Kuci said in a Facebook post that the funds were executed this morning and that an additional €100,000 will be transferred later this week.

“Kosovo won’t be represented by UNMIK at Energy Community Treaty” (media)

Kosovo’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Meliza Haradinaj – Stublla, ruled out today the possibility of UNMIK representing Kosovo at the meetings of the Energy Community Treaty. “It is an internationally recognised fact that in the Republic of Kosovo there is now a new political and legal reality based on the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the decision of the International Court of Justice, and other applicable laws. This means that the Republic of Kosovo, cannot in any case be represented in any international initiative under the name of UNMIK, especially given the fact that for us this mission has ended on February 17, 2008,” Haradinaj – Stublla said in a meeting with EU Head of Mission in Kosovo, Thomas Sunyog. 

The European Commission plans to adopt on November 27 an amendment in the Energy Community Treaty signed in 2005 where a founding member was also the Republic of Kosovo but at the time represented by UNMIK.

Haradinaj – Stublla turned down the request for Kosovo to be represented by UNMIK at the next meeting of the Energy Treaty Committee and also called on all Kosovo institutions not to agree on participation under the name of UNMIK.

“This is a tendency of Serbia and in addition to being anti-constitutional for us, it is also illegal internationally,” Haradinaj – Stublla said. She also wrote on Twitter: “Reiterated that Kosovo’s representation with UNMIK is unconstitutional & internationally illegal, especially after the International Court of Justice’s ruling in 2010 that Kosovo’s independence is in full accordance with international law and norms”.

Serbian Language Media

One death, 68 new cases in Serbian communities in Kosovo (Kontakt plus radio)

The Mitrovica North Crisis Staff announced today that according to the latest data, in Serbian communities in Kosovo one person died as a result of covid-19, while 68 new cases of infection and 25 cures were recorded, reported Kontakt plus radio. 

The deceased is from Priluzje (Obilic).

Out of 188 processed samples, positive cases were recorded in the municipalities: North Mitrovica (27), Zvecan (21), Gracanica (8), Zubin Potok (4), Priluzje (3), Lipljan (2), Gnjilane (2) and Strpce (1).

25 patients recovered: 16 North Mitrovica, five from Zvecan and one person each from Leposavic, Zubin Potok, Priluzje and Kamenica.

62 people were hospitalized in the North Mitrovica Health Center, and two patients in the Nis Health Center. 

The measure of home isolation was determined for 521 people.

There are currently 585 active cases. So far, a total of 1,101 people have recovered. 

Since the beginning of the epidemic, a total of 7,381 people have been tested, of which 1,731 people have been confirmed to have the coronavirus.

45 people lost their battle with the virus in Serb areas in Kosovo.

EP worried by Serbia’s ruling party dominance during June general elections (N1)

In a draft annual report about Serbia, Vladimír Bilčík, the European Parliament (EP) Rapporteur, called on Belgrade authorities to pursue reforms in the areas of the rule of law, fundamental rights, the functioning of democratic institutions and public administration, and to deliver concrete results to Brussels, adding the EP was concerned over the ruling party’s dominance during Serbia’s last elections in June.

Bilčík welcomed the fact that the European Union remained Serbia’s strategic goal and was satisfied with authorities in Belgrade’s efforts to align regulations with EU standards.

However, he said the pace of European integration would primarily depend on the rule of law and respect for fundamental rights, adding the normalization of relations with Kosovo was one of the key conditions for that.

Bilčík insisted on the importance of the OSCE / ODIHR election report saying, the election process was efficient, but added that he was very concerned about the dominance of the ruling parties, particularly in the media, and called on the authorities to implement the OSCE report’s recommendations before the next election cycle.

He also regretted the decision of the majority of the opposition to boycott the last parliamentary elections in Serbia.

“I reiterate that the only way to ensure the political representation of their voters is through participation in political and electoral processes,” Bilčík said in the draft report.

The draft report will be on the agenda of the EP Foreign Affairs Council in December, while the voting on the report is scheduled for February 2021.

The draft report available at: https://bit.ly/3pCdp2e

See at: https://bit.ly/3kJ5j4o

Lawyer Tapuskovic: If killed journalists are not in the indictments, the trial of KLA leaders of no use (Kontakt plus radio, UNS)

Lawyer Branislav Tapuskovic believes that without the “public dimension” of the indictment against the leader of the former so-called KLA, this process “does not serve the purpose”, especially as there is no information about the lost lives of journalists. 

The indictments against former KLA leaders Thaci, Veseli, Krasniqi and Selimi do not mention crimes against journalists. According to the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS), from 1998 to 2005, 17 Serbian and Albanian journalists and media workers were killed and disappeared in Kosovo, who resented the so-called KLA and post-war rulers of Kosovo.

“It is incomprehensible that people lost their lives doing journalistic work and that it was not stated that anyone would be charged with these crimes,” Tapuskovic, a well-known Belgrade lawyer who was a “friend of the court” (amicus curiae) at the Slobodan Milosevic trial in the Hague, told UNS. 

He points out that everywhere in the world, in war zones, it is insisted on the sufferings of journalists especially.  

There is no mention here of the murder of Serbian and Albanian journalists in Kosovo, adding that it is especially problematic that parts of the indictments have been kept secret. 

“If the trials are not public, they are not trials,” Tapuskovic concludes.

“When the word about crimes during the war was supposed to reach the Serbian public, the mouths of journalists were blocked. There is no information about the loss of journalists’ lives either, because we know nothing about the indictments. As long as it is in the form of mystery, there is no question that someone can make a serious assessment,” the lawyer states.

Lawyer Tapuskovic points out for UNS that “the most important dimension of every court process is the public”, as well as that in his work so far, he has encountered indictments that were complete, with all the information.

“From the beginning, I did not understand why in the five years of the work of that court, no criminal act was known that could be included in the indictment,” says Tapuskovic, who claims that “there can be no justice if there are no ‘Yellow house’ charges and the expulsion of 250,000 Serbs upon the arrival of international forces.”

The Kosovo inspection checks one pharmacy in North Mitrovica, citizens resented (KoSSev, Kontakt plus radio, Kosovo Online)

Several media reported today that the action was ongoing in one of the pharmacies in North Mitrovica. According to the media it was the action of seizure of medicines that are not licensed for sale in Kosovo.

Kontakt plus radio reported that after the gathering and disapproval of the citizens, the action was stopped. The action was carried out by the economic crime unit from Pristina, with the assistance of the police from the north of Kosovo. 

Pharmacist Vojislav Laketic said that it was worrying that something like this was happening in the middle of a pandemic. According to him, it is a direct blow to the health of citizens in northern Kosovo. 

“If this continues like this, we can all collectively close pharmacies, because our doctors prescribe the medicines in line with the Serbian system. We must have those medicines. If they confiscate all those medicines, we will be left without key medicines. Especially at the time of this pandemic and the alarming numbers of those who tested positive for COVID-19 that we are currently seeing”.  

He also added that no one informed him about this action. Laketic noted that such gatherings should not happen at all, because there were almost fifteen of them indoors. ‘’They themselves are breaking the law in the middle of a pandemic, seizing medicines that are in use. It’s unbelievable that it’s happening right now”. 

A representative of businessmen from the north of Kosovo Aleksandra Arsenijevic recalled a similar action last year, and said:

-The point is clear. Now they will go after medicines, then after small businessmen, then after the others. Prices will surely rise. Ordinary citizens with their salaries will not be able to survive here. Although we have subsidies from the Government of the Republic of Serbia, it is unlikely that anyone will stay here to live. The small number of us that are here, we certainly will not be here anymore. We are looking for a better alternative and a safer place to live, Arsenijevic said and added that even Albanians from the south were coming here to buy medicines, because, as he said, they have been checked, in comparison to the rest of Kosovo. 

Kosovo Police Deputy Commander for North Region Besim hoti told portal KoSSev: 

“We have no information about what this was about. These are centralized units, they asked for assistance for security and we gave it to them.” 

Hoti added that the inspection was performed in only one pharmacy, but also that their regional police had no information what was specifically inspected. 

He confirmed that the action had ended in the meantime, and that this unit had left Mitrovica. 

Kisnica: Family Trajkovic worried, provocations continue (KiM Radio, Kosovo Online, Radio Gracanica)

Kosovo online reports that the placement of billboard with KLA emblem and the inscription “Freedom has a name, KLA” caused anxiety among the inhabitants of Gracanica and the surrounding Serbian villages. 

After a group of Albanians attacked Zoran Trajkovic in front of his house in Kisnica near Gracanica two days ago, his wife Jelena Trajkovic told RTV Gracanica that if similar incidents would continue, they would contemplate moving away. 

“They continued with provocations today as well. They were calling out/chanting, I really don’t know where this is leading and whether anyone will react. It is obvious that stones and bottles were not enough for them last night and that something much worse needs to happen for someone to react,” Jelena said. 

As her husband Zoran emphasized, since he is living in that village, he does not want to have any problems with anyone. He added that he did not have them until two days ago.   

Analyst Zivojin Rakocevic opined that this was another type of pressure on Serbian population to move out. 

“It is a severe provocation that tries to tell Serbs this is your freedom, the KLA is your freedom, you have to agree to the KLA values and it is not placed there by pure chance, it is a border where we disappeared in Kisnica, where people were evicted from, one can see the burned houses from there and they decided to say- observe well and watch out this is your freedom – that is the message of the billboard,” Rakocevic said 

Kosovo police investigated and arrested a young man after yesterday’s attack, and the investigation is ongoing., according to RTV Gracanica. 

Borrell: The EU expects Serbia and Kosovo not to move the embassies to Jerusalem (N1)

The European Union expects Serbia and Kosovo not to move their embassies in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, said Josep Borrell, vice president of the European Commission and head of EU diplomacy, reported regional broadcaster N1.

In response to the MP’s question, Borell stated that he expects that both Serbia and Kosovo will “act in accordance with the commitment of the EU”, but also in accordance with their European aspirations.

“The EU’s long-standing position is that negotiations must find a way to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of both countries and that the aspirations of both sides must be met,” he said, adding that “the issue of Jerusalem is a matter of final status.”

“In accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 478 of 1980, which calls on all UN members to move their embassies to Tel Aviv, all embassies of EU member states, as well as the EU Delegation to Israel, are located in Tel Aviv,” explained Borell.

He reminded that both Kosovo and Serbia have identified EU integration as their strategic priority.

“The EU expects that both will act in accordance with this commitment,” said the head of EU diplomacy, reiterating the position that Serbia is expected, within the process of EU accession talks, to ”gradually harmonize its legislation and policies towards third countries  with the EU acquis and policies”.

Doctors: SPC Patriarch’s health condition deteriorating due to coronavirus (media)

General health condition of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Patriarch Irinej has deteriorated on Thursday, the doctors at a military hospital in Belgrade said.

Irinej was hospitalized on November 4, after tested positive for the coronavirus.

His condition was reported stable on Saturday.

Dacic: There must be justice for Serbian victims as well (B92, Tanjug, TV Happy)

According to the President of the Assembly of Serbia Ivica Dacic it will be difficult to predict whether lawsuits against former members of the KLA for war crimes would end with verdicts, and that it was important to talk about it because there must be justice for Serbian victims as well, reported B92. 

Dacic reminded that the War Crimes Court was formed at the request of the UN Security Council and that it would be formed even if Pristina did not do it, which, as he assessed, now is fleeing from reality and wants to abolish it.

“One of Pristina’s demands at the meeting in the White House was the provision that we should work together to abolish international courts,” Dacic told Happy TV.

Recalling that the former president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci, mentioned the initiative to declare a general amnesty for both Serbs and Albanians, when it comes to war crimes, Dacic stated that it was common after the war, except for the most serious acts, but that should be applied not only in Kosovo, but also in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia…

“We have been proposing this for years, but they do not want it, because they think that only Serbs should be held accountable for war crimes,” said Dacic.

Commenting on accusations from Pristina that he allegedly committed war crimes in Kosovo and calls for him to be heard in court, Dacic said that ‘’he did not deal with state affairs in the 1990s, but was a spokesman for the SPS, unlike Fatmir Limaj and other KLA members. as he said, they were in the forest, involved in killing Serbs’’.

Asked about the outcome of the American elections, Dacic reiterated that he did not expect a change in the new American administration towards Serbia and rejected claims that Serbia would bear the consequences because, allegedly, it indirectly participated in Donald Trump’s election campaign.

“As president, Trump scheduled foreign policy activities, what Serbia should have done? To wait and see if he would be re-elected president,” Dacic commented.

He expressed confidence that there would be no return to the 1990s with Biden when it comes to US relations with Serbia, adding that “nuances” could be sought in Biden’s or Trump’s team’s different approach to certain issues, such as the dialogue on Kosovo or the issue of embassy in Jerusalem.

“Biden was one of the fiercest and most active in the 1990s when it came to the guilt of Serbia and the Serbian people, but that is the past,” Dacic told Happy TV.

He added that he met Biden in 2009, when he visited Serbia as the vice president of the United States, and that they met several times after that, and that there was an obvious change in his rhetoric and attitude towards Serbia.

“Biden was moderate then, he spoke about the need for reconciliation around Kosovo and Metohija, to overcome the problems, that history is ‘the biggest enemy of the future’,” Dacic said.

Opinion

Language Is Politics, and Not Just In the Balkans (bnnbloomberg.ca)

(Bloomberg Opinion) — The late linguist Max Weinreich put it best. “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy,” he said almost a century ago. The distinction, in other words, has less to do with linguistics and more with politics. This explains many conflicts past and present, including a controversy now raging in the Balkans.

This week Bulgaria, a member of the European Union, vetoed the start of formal accession negotiations to let its neighbor North Macedonia join the bloc. One of Sofia’s stated reasons is that Skopje refuses to acknowledge certain historical “truths,” including the view that Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian and thus doesn’t deserve the formal status of an “EU language.”

That’s hard to swallow for the North Macedonians, who’ve already made other painful concessions to become an EU candidate. In 2018, they even changed their name to please Greece — which has a region also called Macedonia — by adding “North” to distinguish their small Slavic country.

Well, you might shrug, that’s why the Balkans gave us “Balkanization.” The region is a hodgepodge of tongues and ethnicities once tenuously held together by the Ottomans and Austro-Hungarians. Ever since those empires declined and nationalism rose, the locals have been reviving, editing or inventing narratives about their languages, identities and histories for the purposes of nation-building.

But there’s nothing particularly Balkan about redefining languages as dialects and vice versa. Nations new and old, rising and falling, have been at it almost everywhere. In the jargon of social sciences, sometimes it suits the people in power to be “splitters,” emphasizing differences more than similarities. Other times, they’d rather be “lumpers,” declaring even quite different tongues to be just parts of one mother language.

These days, for example, it may be moot whether Norwegian, Danish and Swedish are bona fide languages or just forms of Scandinavian. (A humorous distinction I once heard is that Danish basically sounds like Norwegian spoken underwater.) But during the modern era, the three Nordic nations, once united in the Kalmar Union, wanted to form separate identities. So they became linguistic splitters.

See more at:https://bit.ly/33g8Zor

International

Would-be Balkan EU Members Remain Hostage to Vetos (Balkan Insight)

The EU’s rule on unanimous decision making has brought many simmering Balkan bilateral disputes to the fore – though the perspective of EU membership has also helped solve some of them.

Monday’s Conference of EU ministers is expected to bring more bad news for EU hopeful North Macedonia.

Its neighbour, EU Member State Bulgaria, has already warned that it intends to wield its right of veto on the start of the former’s accession talks.

Bulgaria mainly objects to North Macedonia’s views on their shared history – Bulgaria long laid claim to Macedonia – and to the Macedonian language, which it considers a dialect of Bulgarian.

Despite strong EU efforts, above all from the German EU presidency, to solve the issue before the meeting, both sides now seem stuck in their respective trenches.

See more at: https://bit.ly/35KuVJW

Humanitarian/Development

“Europe can avoid quarantine on one condition and I stand behind that claim” (Tanjug, B92)

New introductions of quarantine measures in Europe can be avoided, and one of the possible ways to achieve that is for almost all citizens to wear masks.

This was stated by the regional director of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Europe, Hans Kluge, at a press conference, and he added that he was behind his claim that the introduction of quarantine could be avoided and that this was the last resort.

If 95% of citizens wore masks, quarantine would not be necessary, he pointed out.

The WHO regional director for Europe said that primary schools should remain open and added that children and adolescents are not the initiators of the spread of the coronavirus and that closing schools is not efficient, Reuters reports.

See at: https://bit.ly/2HeJoEj