• Institutional leaders meet to discuss international empowerment of Kosovo (media)
• Blinken meets Borrell, Western Balkans among issues discussed (media)
• President Osmani met with Austrian MEP Sagartz (RTK)
• Energy office board to review tariff proposals (media)
• German diplomat criticises renovation of Nazi ally’s house in Kosovo (BIRN)
• RTK board dismisses director of Radio Kosovo (media)
• Kosovo charges two company officials over water poisoning case (BIRN)
• Serb forces alleged to have raped Albanian women in UP campus, authorities have no information (Reporteri.net)
• Police confiscates money in a raid in Mitrovica North (Kallxo)
• COVID-19: 754 new cases, eight deaths (media)

 

 

Institutional leaders meet to discuss international empowerment of Kosovo (media)

The President of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani has announced that during the day there was a weekly coordination meeting on foreign policy.

She wrote in a Facebook post that the meeting was attended by Parliament Speaker Glauk Konjufca, Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Deputy Prime Minister also the Foreign Minister Donika Gervalla.

"Weekly coordination meeting for foreign policy with President Konjufca, Prime Minister Kurti and Deputy Prime Minister Gervalla. We discussed the initiatives for international strengthening of the statehood of the Republic of Kosovo and our engagement in the dialogue focused on recognition," Osmani wrote on Facebook.

Blinken meets Borrell, Western Balkans among issues discussed (media)

EU High Representative Josep Borrell met on Monday with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to discuss a range of geopolitical issues, including the situation in Ukraine and the Russian threat. They also discussed clean energy and Western Balkans.

Blinken said that the U.S.-EU clean energy collaboration is nowhere seen better than in the Western Balkans.  "For years, the United States has supported efforts at connecting the energy grids of the Western Balkans with those of the European Union’s to speed up the transition away from coal and other fossil fuels.  Over that same time, the EU has provided grants and investments to help develop the Western Balkans energy grids, including most recently through the Green Agenda Action Plan," he said as quoted by the State Department.

"We’ve seen the difference that these efforts have helped make.  Albania and Kosovo have established a common electricity market, renewable energy generation has skyrocketed, countries across the region are now diversifying how they get their energy," he added.

Borrell meanwhile thanked the U.S. for the cooperation in strengthening the transatlantic relations. "I think that we have to send a strong message to show determination to bolster energy security for Europe and for our direct neighbours, in Ukraine and in the Western Balkans," he said.

President Osmani met with Austrian MEP Sagartz (RTK)

The President of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani received on Monday in a meeting the Member of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) in the European Parliament, Christian Sagartz.

President Osmani and MEP Sagartz talked about political and economic cooperation between Kosovo and Austria. They also discussed developments in the region and the integration of the countries of the region into the European Union.

President Osmani also praised the positive role of the European Parliament in supporting the visa liberalization process for the citizens of Kosovo.

Energy office board to review tariff proposals (media)

The Board of the Energy Regulatory Office (ERO) is expected to meet today to discuss the proposals regarding the increase of electricity tariffs.

ERO has proposed doubling the price of energy for households that consume over 600 kilowatts per hour. The opposition has rejected plans for any energy price increase.

German diplomat criticises renovation of Nazi ally’s house in Kosovo (BIRN)

Germany’s ambassador to Pristina said he is “very concerned” about the renovation of the former house of Kosovo Albanian politician Xhafer Deva, who was interior minister in a Nazi collaborationist regime during World War II.

The German ambassador to Pristina, Joern Rohde, said on Monday that he is “very concerned” about the renovation of the former house of “known Nazi collaborator” Xhafer Devi in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica.

“No history whitewashing! Don’t distort the truth about the Holocaust or war crimes committed by the Nazis and local collaborators,” Rohde wrote on Twitter.

“Memory culture and preserving cultural heritage must be taken as opportunities to deal with the past in an open, truthful way,” he added.

Deva was the interior minister of Axis-occupied Albania as part of a Nazi collaborationist government in 1944, and recruited Kosovo Albanians into units of the Waffen-SS, the Nazi Party’s armed force.

The renovation of Deva’s former house in Mitrovica is one of several projects to protect cultural heritage in Kosovo, supported by the United Nations Development Program, UNDP, and the European Union.

The director of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Efraim Zuroff, describing it as a mockery of the victims of the Nazis and their local collaborators in the Holocaust.

“I plan to write a strong protest letter to the EU ambassador to Israel and Katerina von Schnurbein, the EU ambassador in charge of the fight against anti-Semitism,” Zuroff told local Kosovo Serb media outlet Kosovo Online on Sunday.

Kosovo’s Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Hajrulla Ceku, wrote on Facebook on Sunday that after it is renovated, the house will be used for “institutional and community functions”.

The Ministry of Culture declined to give a comment to BIRN for this article.

The UN Development Program, the EU’s Kosovo office, and Kosovo’s Ministry of Culture said in a joint statement on Friday that Deva’s house, which is on Kosovo’s cultural heritage list, “was built in 1930 by Austrian architects and workers” and deserves preservation because of its architectural importance.

“Since 1945, the building has been publicly owned and used as a health care centre, a shelter for homeless families, orphanage, and at one point in time it served as a municipal building. The building belongs to the modern Western-European style and is the first one of its kind in Mitrovica,” the joint statement said.

It explained that despite being a cultural heritage monument, the building “has fallen into despair”.

After renovation, the building will house the Regional Centre for Cultural Heritage, the statement said.

RTK board dismisses director of Radio Kosovo (media)

The members of the Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK) board approved the proposal of the acting director Shkumbin Ahmetxhekaj for the dismissal of Ernest Luma, director of Radio Kosovo.

"Every RTK employee should be clear about the nature of the operation of the public broadcaster, making sure not to hold political views, as this could damage RTK's image as an independent public broadcaster," Ahmetxhekaj said in his proposal.

Luma said his dismissal is politically motivated and tied it to a statement he made about the party established by President Vjosa Osmani.

Kosovo charges two company officials over water poisoning case (BIRN)

The prosecution has charged two Hidrodrini company staffers over a case of contaminated water that caused hundreds of locals in Decan/Decani to fall ill in July 2021.

The Peja/Pec Basic Prosecution charged two officials of the Kosovo water supply company Hidrodrini in Peja/Pec, related to water poisoning in Decan/Decani in July 2021.

Prosecutor Dorjan Juniku confirmed on Monday that they were charged with involvement in the poisoning of around 1,500 people in the Decan/Decani area.

Juniku told the media that “872 [people] had water poisoning symptoms”, adding: “The head of a department is charged with the crime of causing general danger,” while a chemist was charged with “not preventing” the danger.

According to Juniku, the water contained bacteria and there were either no tests or few tests conducted.

At first, two ethnic Serb officials were named as suspects. However, they “turned out not to be involved in the case”.

On July 13, 2021, the municipality of Decan/Decani declared a state of emergency after around 880 people fell ill as a result of drinking supposedly contaminated water.

Residents in the villages of Prejlep, Rastavica, Irzniq, Gllogjan, Shaptej, Gramaqel, Baballoq, Ratisha and Jasic i Ri all claimed they suffered from diarrhoea, dizziness, nausea and vomiting.

Suspicions were raised that the reported illnesses were caused by drinking water supplied by a company called Hidrodrini.

Based on these suspicions, the prosecution said Hidrodrini’s water should not be used for drinking in ten villages in Decan/Decani.

The head of the National Institute of Public Health, NIPH, Naser Ramadani, said at the time that, “according to first results, chemically there is no problem with the drinking water”.

But the company stopped the water supply the moment that reports appeared that people had fallen ill.

It later said the water supply for the area in question would be restored but cautioned that the water should “not be used for drinking, but only for sanitary and hygienic needs”, for the moment.

Zenel Kadriaj, from the village of Rastavica, had told BIRN that the water was coloured and had a large amount of chlorine in it. But another man, Hysni Alickaj, from Irzniq, said that his five daughters fell ill – but not as a result of the drinking water because he did not have running water in the house.

Ramadani, director of NIPH, had also told the media that some people displayed symptoms who had not consumed water supplied by Hidrodrini.

Serb forces alleged to have raped Albanian women in UP campus, authorities have no information (Reporteri.net)

Reporteri news website published what it says is the first part of a series of articles focusing on allegations of wartime rape in Kosovo, committed by Serbian forces against a number of Albanian women in the building of the Faculty of Economics and Law, inside the campus of the University of Prishtina.

The reports include the story of a woman who claimed to have been raped and ill-treated by Serbian paramilitaries 23 years ago in one of the halls of the building that is still used by Faculty of Law in Prishtina.

In an interview in 1999 for "Human Rights Watch", Sevdie Ahmeti, the now deceased civil society activist, described the situation in which he found the building of the Faculty of Economics and Law immediately after the war. Based on what she and others had encountered, according to Ahmeti, this facility was used for the sexual violence against women during 1999.

Although the possibility of rape and other sexual violence acts was reported 22 years ago, there is still no officially identified case with Kosovo institutions. In a response to the Online Newspaper Reporteri.net, the Government Commission for the Recognition and Verification of the Status of Persons Violated during the War said that of all those treated so far there is no case from the building of the Faculty of Economics and Law.

Police confiscates money in a raid in Mitrovica North (Kallxo)

A police operation took place last night in Mitrovica North with sources saying that the target of a raid was an apartment in the northern part of the city.

The police seized over €50,000 whose origin was not known. A person was detained but then released and is facing money laundering charges.

COVID-19: 754 new cases, eight deaths (media)

754 new cases of COVID-19 and eight deaths have been recorded in Kosovo in the last 24-hour period, the Ministry of Health said. 3,900 persons recovered during this time.

There are 23,823 active cases of COVID-19 in Kosovo.