I interviewed Vlora Çitaku, the Kosovo Ambassador to the US about the NYTimes story published 21 May that portrayed Kosovo as “fertile ground for ISIS.” The article asserted that Gulf monies from Saudi, Kuwaiti, Emirati and Qataris have transformed Kosovo from a previously tolerant, secular nation to an intolerant, Wahabi dominated country.
Times Insider delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how news, features and opinion come together at The New York Times. In this article, Carlotta Gall, a reporter in Pakistan and Afghanistan, shares the personal back story to her recent news analysis of how Kosovo has changed since she set eyes on it in 1999.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/insider/a-reporter-returns-to-kosovo-15-years-later.html?_r=0
Every Friday, just yards from a statue of Bill Clinton with arm aloft in a cheery wave, hundreds of young bearded men make a show of kneeling to pray on the sidewalk outside an improvised mosque in a former furniture store.
Kosovo's outgoing president, Ahtifete Jahjaga, says international experts have concluded that a border demarcation deal with Montenegro is in line with international standards.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/03/31/world/europe/ap-eu-kosovo-montenegro-border.html?_r=0
Unesco, the United Nations' cultural agency, narrowly denied Kosovo membership on Monday, handing a sizable political victory to Serbia, which had fought a fierce battle against the bid for months.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/world/europe/unesco-rejects-kosovo-membership-in-a-victory-for-serbia.html?_r=0
PRISTINA, Kosovo — Kosovo is signing a stabilization and association agreement with the European Union, a historic milestone that will help the economic growth of one of Europe's poorest countries.
A court in Serbia has sentenced nine defendants to suspended prison sentences for setting fire in 2008 to the American Embassy in Belgrade during riots over Kosovo’s independence.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/world/europe/serbia-nine-get-suspended-sentences-for-attacking-us-embassy-in-08-riots.html?_r=0
On weekends, Kosovo’s millennials dance to Smiths and New Order songs from the 1980s as if they were hearing them for the first time at the new Irish pub Miqt (facebook.com/MIQT.NET) in Pristina. The bar is by turns trendy and louche and hidden down one of the many bumpy, half-paved roads in Kosovo’s capital.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/travel/pristina-kosovo-beer.html
Five people were in custody in Kosovo on Sunday, suspected of a terrorist plot to contaminate the water supply in the capital, Pristina, after exhortations on recent videos released by the Islamic State to poison the country’s food and water supplies.