• New U.S. Ambassador arrives in Kosovo (media)
• Rizvanolli on action in Leposavic: We saved over €50,000 per month (RTK)
• Finance minister on crypto ban: One man’s gain is everyone else’s burden (euronews.al)
• Kosovo Police Seize Crypto-Mining Equipment After Govt Ban (BIRN)
• Focus on final settlement overshadows implementation of other agreements (Koha)
• Minister Haxhiu sees undoing of Specialist Chambers as “impossible” (EO/media)
• Gervalla: Unlawful decisions taken in last years to be invalidated (media)
• Abrashi: Declaration of UNMIK officials “persona non grata” is inapplicable (Koha)
• Haradinaj to Kurti: Weren’t you the government of hope? (media)
• Meir: Turkey’s influence hinders Kosovo’s EU integration process (Lajmi)
• Police Errors Blamed for Woman’s Murder by Husband (BIRN)
• Mothers’ Stories Highlight Tragedy of Kosovo’s Disappeared (BIRN)
• Serbia’s back-door bid to embed Chinese snooping tools in Kosovo (RFE)
• COVID-19: 304 new cases, no deaths (media)
• Kosovo braces for new wave of COVID-19 as it records over 1,000 cases in nine days (Express)

New U.S. Ambassador arrives in Kosovo (media)

Newly appointed US Ambassador to Kosovo, Jeff Hovenier, has arrived in Pristina, Gazeta Express reports.

Chargé d’Affaires, at the U.S. Embassy Pristina, Nicholas Giacobbe, has announced that the new Ambassador Hovenier has already arrived in Kosovo. “Today I welcomed Ambassador-designate Jeff Hovenier to Pristina. It has been an honour to serve as Chargé d’Affaires for the past several months. Continue to follow @UsAmbKosovo for updates on Ambassador Hovenier’s first weeks, including his credentialing ceremony tomorrow,” Giacobbe wrote on Twitter.

Rizvanolli on action in Leposavic: We saved over €50,000 per month (RTK)

Kosovo’s Minister of Economy, Artane Rizvanolli, stated that from the action in Leposavic where 272 devices for the production of cryptocurrencies were confiscated, over 50,000 euros were saved.

She thanked all the institutions involved in this action for the excellent cooperation.

“Over 50,000 euros per month of taxpayers saved only by this action. I thank all institutions, especially the Kosovo Police, for the excellent cooperation,” Rizvanolli wrote.

Finance minister on crypto ban: One man’s gain is everyone else’s burden (euronews.al)

The decision to temporarily ban all mining of cryptocurrencies until further notice was the right step to take due to the current energy crisis in our country, said Kosovo’s finance minister, Hekuran Murati.

In addition, Murati said that this decision became necessary seeing that the profit of some individuals is being subsidized while regular citizens get drained.

“It would be very unfair if us – the government – subsidize the profit of a few while causing others a burden. This is why it became necessary for us to make this decision, which temporarily limits the mining or production of cryptocurrencies so that we can ultimately save our citizens more money – the reason being that as some profit, the cost of taxpayers or their burden increases. This was ultimately the reason why we made this decision” – he said.

During the week, the government of Kosovo announced that all competent institutions would be committed to banning the production of all cryptocurrencies, because the hardware used in their ‘mining’ i.e., production, requires high energy consumption.

For years now, Kosovo has been reporting instances of electricity misuse in the northern region of Mitrovica, where crypto mining has been spreading exponentially.

In four of the Serb-majority communes, Leposavic, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Northern Mitrovica, citizens are exempt from making payments towards their electricity bills, which is covered by the Kosovar government due to an agreement signed after the Kosovo War.

Various experts of cryptocurrencies have harshly criticized the government’s decision to ban crypto-mining, regardless of the fact that Kosovo’s taxpayers are the ones, who have to pay for the electricity used in the process of mining cryptos.

Kosovo Police Seize Crypto-Mining Equipment After Govt Ban (BIRN)

A week after the Kosovo government banned crypto-currency mining, partly to save energy, police on Thursday said they had confiscated 70 items of crypto-mining equipment in two locations.

In two different operations in Mitrovica South and Podujeve municipalities, Kosovo Police seized 70 items of crypto-mining equipment as part of raids following the ban on crypto-mining announced by the government last week.

In the first operation, in Mitrovica South, 67 crypto-producing machines were confiscated, Police said they identified the location in an apartment where investigators found a suspect dealing with “illegal activity”

In the second case near Podujeve, police seized three pieces of crypto-mining equipment.

“We have informed Customs officials and we will take subsequent action in coordination with them,” a police press release said.

No actual arrests, in either case, were reported.

Last week’s decision by the government to ban cryptocurrency mining, citing concerns about energy in a country with an energy crisis, has drawn questions concerning its legal basis.

The Minister of Economy, Artane Rizvanolli, announcing the ban on cryptocurrency mining, referenced emergency measures for electricity protection imposed by the government on December 24, to “restrict the energy supply, valid for a maximum of 60 days”. The government implemented power reductions on December 22 due to the serious energy crisis.

But Arber Jashari, a Kosovo-based legal expert, told BIRN: “There is not enough of a legal basis for the ban of cryptocurrency mining, considering that no special law regulates this issue.”

While the government has the legal basis to take restrictive measures on electricity, there appears to be no legal framework to ban cryptocurrency mining.

On October 2021, Kosovo announced it had drafted a law on cryptocurrency which parliament was expected to adopt by the end of the last year – but the regulation is still pending.

The chairman of parliament’s Committee on Economy, Ferat Shala, was cited as saying that most activities related to cryptocurrency were registered in northern Serb-run parts of Kosovo.

This phenomenon in the north, and associated energy costs, according to him, had pushed the committee to accelerate the drafting of a law to regulate the sector.

Read more at: https://bit.ly/33dlWC6

Focus on final settlement overshadows implementation of other agreements (Koha)

The focus of the parties and the dialogue facilitator on the achievement of a final settlement between Kosovo and Serbia has put the implementation of other agreements on a back burner, Koha Ditore reports on the front page, adding that there are a number of agreements the parties reached ten years ago and which are yet to be implemented.

According to the paper this is due to the absence of an overseeing mechanism that would monitor the level of implementation of agreements.

Analyst Dritero Arifi said the lack of implementation of agreements shows how fragile the negotiations process is. “To discuss only on one issue for ten years and fail to implement it in a way also demonstrates the seriousness of the facilitator, namely the European Union, because there are no mechanisms in place to make the parties implement the signed agreements,” he said.

Minister Haxhiu sees undoing of Specialist Chambers as “impossible” (EO/media)

Albulena Haxhiu, Kosovo’s Minister of Justice, said in an interview with Ekonomia Online news website that there are no possibilities available for Kosovo institutions to “undo” the Specialist Chambers as it is now part of the Constitution of Kosovo. She also recalled that the Vetevendosje Movement opposed the creation of the Specialist Chambers as it considered it would provide a “distorted” picture of what happened in Kosovo.

“All doors for any other action are closed because, as you know, the Specialist Chambers have been incorporated in the Constitution and we cannot remove them. The Ministry of Justice has doors closed in every aspect regarding the Specialist Chambers expect for the division on legal and financial support of persons at The Hague,” Haxhiu said.

Haxhiu also said that the Ministry of Justice has begun work on drafting a law for establishment of an institute to document all war crimes committed in Kosovo. “In addition, we have increased the capacities for the Special Prosecution to deal with war crimes cases and the strategy for transitional justice and we have also eliminated the shortcomings on the Criminal Procedure Code concerning trial in absentia of Serb perpetrators,” she said.

Speaking about the judicial vetting process, Haxhiu noted that they are preparing constitutional amendments but that this is something that requires the support of two-thirds of majority community MPs as well as two-thirds of non-majority communities. “I have invited political parties in separate meetings, but also joint ones, because I consider it is important to have consensus. I did not have the opportunity to meet the opposition and the Serbian List parliamentary group.”

Gervalla: Unlawful decisions taken in last years to be invalidated (media)

Kosovo’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Donika Gervalla, said that as the merging of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and that of Diaspora enters the final stage, “we are ahead of the implementation of a new internal regulation that enables a better and more effective functioning of this institution.”

Gervalla noted that the Ministry would be invalidating all “unlawful” decisions taken in the last few years. “We will issue new vacancy announcements, based on transparent professional criteria to enrich the MFAD with well-qualified diplomats, in order to create a solid and promising professional team for the future of our diplomacy. In conversation with genuine professionals at home and abroad, we will continue to redefine the professional criteria for qualification and appointment and we will not hire people who do not meet the basic standards needed to serve our country abroad or at home,” Gervalla wrote on social media.

Abrashi: Declaration of UNMIK officials “persona non grata” is inapplicable (Koha)

Emir Abrashi, foreign policy expert, said that the decision of Kosovo institutions to declare UNMIK’s Russian officials “persona non grata” is inapplicable and in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

“Article 9 of this Convention that regulates the functioning of relations stipulates that diplomats of other countries can be declared ‘non grata’ but the article does not state that the same applies to UN personnel,” Abrashi said, adding that the reaction from the UN Secretary-General was precisely on this point.

Abrashi argued that Kosovo should have presented its facts to UNMIK regarding violations of the Russian officials and if the mission failed to remove them, it could have tried along with international partners to lodge a request at the UN headquarters in New York.

Haradinaj to Kurti: Weren’t you the government of hope? (media)

The leader of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) Ramush Haradinaj, commented on the data of citizens who have applied for visas to leave Kosovo. He said that they are leaving because this government and this Prime Minister are trying to turn Kosovo into Venezuela, they are not showing the ability for economic revival, on the contrary, they are day by day sinking the economy even more in crisis.

“Why this silence? Weren’t you the government of hope? Why do so many citizens rush to leave the country?” Haradinaj asked.

According to him, the government with extreme leftist policies, intimidated the local capital by taking it out and reducing the amount of investments. In addition to not supporting it, it created animosity with the private sector. He also accused the government of extreme leftist policies, and for arousing anti-American sentiment, and, as he said, for following in Chavez’s footsteps.

“Citizens are fleeing because they are being punished with energy cuts and inflated energy bills that the government buys with their own money, while citizens in the north of the country are paid tens of millions for energy. They rejected and destroyed the golden opportunity for Kosovo to become an energy power in the region, rejecting both the new Kosovo and American gas, only to buy energy at prices ten times higher than the energy mafia,” he wrote.

“Prime Minister, the citizens have been robbed of hope through tender mania, one-source tenders, clientelism, politicization of boards and employment of family members of your party officials.

Citizens of various professions want to leave the country, because the Kurti government does not have on its agenda the wage law but the fight against unions.

In fact, this government is fighting anyone who does not think like its leader, but it will backfire and its imaginary internet militants will not be able to save it.

Over 50,000 citizens are trying to leave the country. This is a sad fact, it is an alarm for Kosovo. It is an indication that this government has neither vision, nor knowledge, nor governing actions,” Haradinaj wrote.

Meir: Turkey’s influence hinders Kosovo’s EU integration process (Lajmi)

American professor and expert on the Balkans, Alon Ben Meir, said that Turkey’s influence in Kosovo could become an obstacle to Kosovo’s membership in the European Union.

Ben-Meir has made these statements on his Facebook profile as he says that Erdogan despite his economic problems, is following the situation in the Balkans, especially in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Ben-Meir also said that Kosovo should be aware that being close to the Erdogan regime would damage their prospects for membership in the European Union.

“Despite his economic problems, Erdogan continues to follow developments in the Balkan region, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said that Turkey shared common values with Kosovo, emphasizing that we are closely following developments in the Balkans, especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina and a friendly and fraternal Kosovo. Kosovo and Bosnia must be aware that being close to the Erdogan regime will damage their prospects for EU membership,” Ben Meir wrote.

It is worth noting that Erdogan considers Kosovo and Bosnia as closer states because of their religious affiliation and not because they share common political values, lajmi.net reports.

Police Errors Blamed for Woman’s Murder by Husband (BIRN)

The murder of a 48-year-old woman on January 5 in the village of Llausha in the Municipality of Skenderaj/Srbica by her husband has exposed police failure to protect a victim of domestic violence.

Skender Qerimaj, 51, was arrested and ordered into police detention, while  police seized a pistol with three bullets and six cartridges at the scene.

It is reported that the victim requested a protection order on January 1, 2022, but that it was released only after her murder.

Qerimaj, according to the prosecution, took the weapon out of his jacket pocket and shot six times in the direction of his wife, later turning himself in to the police, where he reported that he had killed his wife.

Five days before the murder, Lirije Qerimaj had reported phycological violence by her husband to the police. But, after being interviewed, on the order of the custodial prosecutor Stojanka Kasalovic, he was released.

The Office of the Chief State Prosecutor in Mitrovica, Hatixhe Latifi, on January 6 admitted that the victim had asked for protection, but due to the holidays, no decision was taken.

The police commander in Skenderaj/Srbica, Muhamet Kajtazi, said the police did not request a protection measure for Lirije Qerimaj because they had no indication that the case would end this way, after she returned to her husband after reporting domestic violence.

“This case, reported on January 1, gave no indication that it was an emergency … because no one interpreted that as an emergency, nor did the victim give the conviction that it was an emergency,”  Kajtazi said.

Two days after the murder, the police presented its side of the whole event and how the case was handled.

According to them, the victim was offered shelter, but at the urging of her son, she returned to the family.

“The complainant / victim was given… the opportunity to obtain a protection order and be housed in a shelter … but at the insistence of her son (adult), who asked his mother not to leave the house, or go to her family, or to the shelter, as there was no reason to leave the house, and as they would take care that the parents no longer had problems with each other, she agreed and decided to stay with the family and not go to a shelter,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, the police inspectorate has started an investigation about the way this case was handled, and the delay in issuing the protection order as requested by the victim.

Chief Prosecutor Aleksander Lumezi called for investigations and disciplinary measures for the prosecutor who ordered the husband to be released. The Minister of Justice, Albulena Haxhiu, also reacted, admitting that institutions were responsible for the killing.

On Saturday, a protest by women from the village of Llausha in Skenderaj demanded the dismissal of the police commander, Muhamet Kajtazi and responsibility from the institutions.

The Kosovo Women’s Network, KWN, reacted to the murder demanding a maximum sentence for the perpetrator.

Mothers’ Stories Highlight Tragedy of Kosovo’s Disappeared (BIRN)

In his latest book, author Ag Apolloni tells the stories of two Kosovo Albanian mothers whose sons went missing during the 1998-99 war, but whose lives took very different directions as a result of the misery they endured.

A few days after her sons’ remains were brought to her, Pashka committed suicide by burning herself alive.

Her sons had been killed during the Kosovo war, and like many others, their bodies were only found and buried many years afterwards. Pashka found she could not live in a world that was indifferent to her prayers and to the crimes against her children.

For Ferdonije, another Kosovo Albanian mother who lost her four sons and husband to the war, things turned out differently. After she received the remains of two of her sons, she continued waiting for the others who remained missing. She continues waiting to this day.

The history of these two, real-life women, connected by similar tragedies but separated by different fates, is told by Kosovo writer Ag Apolloni in his recent documentary novel, ‘Nje Fije Shprese, Nje Fije Shkrepese’ (‘A Sliver of Hope, A Sliver of a Matchstick’), which was published in 2020.

The novel describes three friends’ visit to Ferdonije’s house in the town of Gjakova/Djakovica, exploring their memories of wartime as well as hers and those of Pashka.

“The idea for the book came quite by accident, out of an invitation made to me by one of the two friends with whom I travelled to Gjakova to visit Ferdonije,” Apolloni recalled.

“During that visit, I realised that she was living to keep the memories of her missing family alive, and there I finally decided to write a novel to help that mother perpetuate the memory of her sons and husband,” he said.

Apolloni, who is now 39, was a teenager during the Kosovo war, and remembers it as a tragic period in his life and the lives of those close to him. “Memories of the war are the most traumatic memories I have, of course,” he said.

He recalls panic, gunfire, refugees fleeing through the mountains and the screams of people who had just found out that their families had been massacred – all of which made it seem to him at the time that “humanity was in its death throes”.

“Considering the war did not come by surprise but as a conflict [that started] after inhuman and systematic oppression by the Serbian regime, the whole period of my life until the liberation of Kosovo was a difficult time for both me and Kosovo,” he added.

Read more at: https://bit.ly/33195TG

Serbia’s back-door bid to embed Chinese snooping tools in Kosovo (RFE)

Kosovo risks becoming a reluctant laboratory for invasive Chinese surveillance technology at the hands of neighboring Serbia, an “iron-clad” friend to Beijing.

Belgrade is quietly financing an effort to install advanced and largely unregulated Chinese surveillance tools in Kosovar communities that are partly outside Pristina’s control, RFE/RL’s Balkan Service has learned.

A predominantly Serb provisional authority in southeastern Kosovo signed a deal last month to purchase tens of thousands of euros’ worth of small surveillance cameras, digital recorders, and other equipment from the U.S.-blacklisted company Zhejiang Dahua Technologies to monitor schools in a dozen communities, according to publicly available documents.

The documents said a Serbian government office that steers relations with the former province provided the funding.

Central Kosovar authorities including the government, police, and customs office have responded with silence or said they have no information about the plans by Belgrade, which still does not recognize Kosovo’s 2008 independence declaration.

The scheme could contribute to a Chinese foothold in facial-recognition and other artificial-intelligence-based technologies in Kosovo, one of the Western Balkans’ staunchest holdouts against the presence of Huawei, Dahua, and other technology and infrastructure companies that are thought to cooperate closely with Beijing.

U.S. ally Kosovo has largely spurned such products and pledged support for Washington’s “Clean Network” initiative to ring-fence advanced Chinese technology.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, on the other hand, has aggressively courted Beijing within a “four-pillar” foreign policy to leverage Serbian relationships with the European Union, the United States, Russia, and China.

He has embraced Chinese trade and investment, particularly in the high-tech sector, while shrugging off Serbian protests at the rollout of thousands of cameras and other smart surveillance tools purchased from Chinese vendors amid accusations of creeping authoritarianism.

Read more at: https://bit.ly/3F45UaY

COVID-19: 304 new cases, no deaths (media)

304 new cases with COVID-19 were confirmed in Kosovo in the last 24 hours. Three persons recovered from the virus during this time.

There are 1,552 active cases with COVID-19 in Kosovo.

Kosovo braces for new wave of COVID-19 as it records over 1,000 cases in nine days (Express)

Kosovo registered 1,193 new COVID-19 infections since 1 January 2022. Only Sunday health authorities reported 304 new infections, which is the record number of infections since September last year. As COVID-19 cases continue to surge, Kosovo is making necessary preparation to brace for the new wave of infections, Gazeta Express reports.

Following confirmation of the first nine cases of new variant Omicron on 24 December, the number of new COVID-19 infections has surged. Kosovo in the first nine days of 2022 has reported record number of cases since September 2021. In the last three months Kosovo has reported a low number of new COVIDS-19 cases, several times less than 10 new infections in 24 hours. Today Kosovo has 1,552 active COVID-19 cases of 453 reported on 31 December 2021.  With the identification of the Omicron variant, health professionals have warned of increase of infections with this variant, stating that Kosovo is not immune to the new worldwide wave of infections. Doctor of infectious diseases Hamdi Ramadani told Gazeta Express that visits of Kosovo diaspora during New Year Holidays has led to increase of new COVID-19 cases. He urged citizens to respect COVID-19 cases and take booster shot of vaccine to make a new wave manageable.

General Director of the University Clinical Centre of Kosovo, Valbon Krasniqi, has stated earlier that they expect the number of hospitalisations with those infected with Omicron variant to increase. He called on citizens to get vaccine and booster shot to prevent a new wave of infections.