• COVID-19: 888 new cases, one death (media)
• Silence in the face of growing cases of COVID-19 (Radio Free Europe)
• Ministry: Start of school year depends on vaccination of teaching staff (Telegrafi)
• Court allows Gasic to stay in her apartment (media)
• Albanian PM criticises Kosovo leaders about Open Balkan again (media)
• Peja municipal director for cadaster and property arrested (media)
• Dozens of suspected arsonists arrested in Balkans over blazes (BIRN)

COVID-19: 888 new cases, one death (media)

Kosovo has recorded 888 new cases with COVID-19 and one death from the virus in the last 24 hours. 38 persons recovered from the virus during this time. 16,905 vaccines were administered in the last 24 hours. To date, 521,737 vaccine doses have been administered in Kosovo. There are 3,489 active cases with COVID-19 in Kosovo.

Silence in the face of growing cases of COVID-19 (Radio Free Europe)

The epidemiological situation with COVID-19 in Kosovo is deteriorating as the country has gone from 14 cases with COVID-19 on July 26 to 888 cases on August 11. Measures against the spread of the virus are largely being disregarded and the attitude of citizens towards the pandemic is almost negligible. Masks and physical distance have already been forgotten, the news website reports.

A spokesman for the Kosovo government told Radio Free Europe that “continuous meetings are held with health experts to get their recommendations in the face of the epidemiological situation and the vaccination trend”.

Kosovar microbiologist Lul Raka tells Radio Free Europe that the reasons for the increase in the number of cases are the rapid spread of the Delta variant, people neglecting the preventive measures, including not wearing masks indoors or on public transport, gatherings and intensification of contacts.

According to him, there are not enough inspections by the police and central and municipal inspectorates to comply with the measures.

“Due to the insufficient number of the fully vaccinated population, the wearing of masks indoors should be strengthened, avoiding crowds and restrictive measures that are initially focused on the unvaccinated. In the event of a dramatic increase in hospitalizations and deaths, the restrictive measures will have to be strengthened,” Raka said.

For epidemiologist Isuf Dedushaj, the rapid increase of COVID-19 cases is worrying. He considers that if such a trend of infections continues, measures should be taken that would prevent further spread of the infection. “People have forgotten what the pandemic was like. The only way is to increase the number of vaccination coverage. If the spike continues like this, then of course other measures must be taken against the pandemic", Dedushaj told REL.

Kosovo authorities said on Wednesday that the number of people vaccinated with both doses of vaccines has gone up to 174,991, while the total number of vaccines given is 521,737.

The Ministry of Health has launched an awareness campaign to encourage citizens to respond to the immunisation campaign.

The World Health Organization says wearing masks should be used as part of a comprehensive measures strategy to prevent the transmission of the virus and save lives.

Ministry: Start of school year depends on vaccination of teaching staff (Telegrafi)

Kosovo’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) told the news website on Wednesday that the start of the new academic year in schools depends on the vaccination of teaching staff against COVID-19. The Ministry again called on all education staff not to hesitate to get the vaccine. “MEST is planning to start the new school year in schools and regular classes. But for this to happen, teachers must be vaccinated. This is why we once again call on all education staff, including those in pre-university and higher education, to get vaccinated. We also call on students that want to use dormitories at the Student Center to get vaccinated before the start of the new academic year,” the Ministry said.

Davenport: OSCE ready to support implementation of dialogue agreements (Koha)

OSCE Head of Mission in Kosovo, Michael Davenport, said in an interview with KTV on Wednesday evening that this mission is ready to support the implementation of agreements from the Brussels-facilitated talks between Prishtina and Belgrade. He said the mission helped with the implementation of the justice agreement in the northern municipalities, the local elections there and the integration of the police.

“The OSCE and the mission in Kosovo have a history of supporting the implementation of agreements in the dialogue … for example with regards to elections, the integration of the judiciary and the police. So we are ready to offer our support in the future,” Davenport said.

Watch the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg5YouwMF98

Court allows Gasic to stay in her apartment (media)

Most news websites reported on Wednesday that the Basic Court in Gjakova has rejected as ungrounded a request from the municipality of Gjakova to not allow Serb returnee Dragic Gasic to stay in her apartment. The municipality asked the court to set a security measure which would prohibit the Serb returnee to stay, use or live in the apartment.

The court said in a press release that procedures in the legal dispute will continue according to the rules and procedures and the parties have the right to appeal the decision within seven days. Gasic is thus allowed to stay in the apartment in which she had returned in early June. Gasic is the first Serb that returned to Gjakova after the end of the war in 1999.

Albanian PM criticises Kosovo leaders about Open Balkan again (media)

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama took to Twitter on Wednesday to say that the German federal government supports the Open Balkan initiative and that it called for the urgent signing of agreements for the Common Regional Market before the EU – Western Balkans Summit in October. “The German government is supporting the Open Balkan, differently from what is being told to people in Prishtina and Tirana by those that don’t care about the United States and not only that … The German government says that Open Balkan must be all-inclusive and certainly the door will be open but we cannot force anyone to join and we will also not wait for those that don’t want to understand that this is the road toward the future,” Rama tweeted.

Peja municipal director for cadaster and property arrested (media)

Most news websites reported on Wednesday that the prosecution in Peja municipality issued a press release saying that the municipal director for cadaster and property and another three municipal officials were arrested by the police. Kallxo news website recalls that two weeks the prosecution in Peja had ordered the detention of the director of urbanism in Peja, Istog, Klina and Decan, on the suspicion of corruption. Several other municipal officials were also arrested.

Dozens of suspected arsonists arrested in Balkans over blazes (BIRN)

As blazes rampage all over the Balkan region, police have arrested dozens of people suspected of settling light to fields and forests deliberately.

Albanian police on Tuesday said 15 people had been arrested for deliberate arson since July 25 in connection to wildfires burning for about two weeks in the country.

Wildfires have destroyed hundreds of hectares of forests in Albania while authorities have struggled for days to put them under control. On Monday the authorities called on the Kosovo Security Force, KSF, to help extinguish fires threatening the highway that connects Albania and Kosovo.

On Wednesday, police announced that another person had been arrested for “destruction by fire of forests and the forest environment” and three people were declared wanted. Criminal proceedings were initiated against one other person.

In neighbouring Kosovo, 20 people have been arrested recently for intentional arson in connection with the blazes while 41 other suspects have been identified.

“Kosovo Police identified 109 cases of arson; 71 cases of ‘causing general danger’, and 95 fire incidents ‘endangering the lives of citizens but also property in general, both private and state,'” police told BIRN.

Police said they started criminal proceedings to all the above-mentioned cases and another 41 suspects had been identified and 20 them had been arrested.

In Greece, three people have been arrested for the fires raging in the country. According to the Greek outlet ethnos.gr, a 43-year-old accused of arson in Kryoneri was pretending to be a volunteer; a 47-year-old is accused of trying to set fire to Petroupoli and Agios Dimitrios in Athens and a woman was arrested in a park in Athens.

In Turkey, exact data on the number of people arrested because of the fires is absent, although last week four persons were arrested in Antalya and Bodrum for alleged roles in arson.

In Bulgaria, on August 10, a man in the village of Petrichko near Blagoevgrad was arrested for causing a fire. Otherwise, despite wildfires blazing near Kyustendil, Blagoevgrad, Sliven and the Borovetz winter resort, there hasn’t been much police activity in terms of arrests.

North Macedonia, which since last week was devastated by wildfires across the country, has so far detained 14 people on suspicion of having caused fires.

Most were spotted by authorities lurking in the vicinity of the fires, the Interior Ministry said. In some cases, the alleged culprits admitted that they had caused fires.

On Monday, near the capital Skopje, police detained an elderly person for lighting some stubble that caused a smaller wildfire. According to the authorities, he had admitted doing so.