Kosovo

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — The NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, KFOR, on Tuesday raised the number of its troops injured in fierce clashes with ethnic Serbs to 30.

The Serbs had tried to take over the offices of one of the municipalities in northern Kosovo where ethnic Albanian mayors took up their posts last week.

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci, who is on trial in The Hague on 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, was in Kosovo on Monday to visit his sick mother, the court said.

An email message from the Kosovo Specialist Chambers said that “due to compelling humanitarian grounds, … the Trial Panel has instructed the Registry to manage a custodial visit to Kosovo for Hashim Thaci to meet family.”

ZVECAN, Kosovo, May 26 (Reuters) - The United States and allies rebuked Kosovo for escalating tensions with Serbia on Friday, saying the use of force to install mayors in ethnic Serb areas undermined efforts to improve troubled relations with neighbouring Serbia.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic placed the army on full combat alert and ordered units to move closer to the border following clashes on Friday between Kosovan police and protesters opposed to the ethnic Albanian mayors.

ZVECAN, Kosovo, May 26 (Reuters) - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic placed the country's army on full combat alert and ordered army units to move closer to the border with Kosovo on Friday, after protesters and police clashed in a majority Serb town in the neighbouring country.

"An urgent movement (of troops) to the Kosovo border has been ordered," defence minister Milos Vucevic said in a live TV broadcast. "It is clear that the terror against the Serb community in Kosovo is happening," he said.

MITROVICA, Kosovo (AP) — A new mayor has been sworn in in northern Kosovo after a vote in April that was boycotted by the ethnic Serb minority which dominates the area.

Erden Atic, who is from the Bosnian minority, took up his post in the northern, Serb-dominated part of the divided city of Mitrovica on Friday, calling on citizens to cooperate.

“We shall work for all citizens of Mitrovica’s northern commune, without any discrimination,” said Atic, who represents the Self-Determination Movement, or Vetevendosje! of Prime Minister Albin Kurti.

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo meet in Brussels on Tuesday to continue talks on the implementation of a European Union-backed 11-point plan to normalize ties between the two, but tensions continue to simmer.

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti called on Western powers not to pressure his tiny Balkan country into accepting a contentious association of five Serb-majority municipalities that is ramping up tensions between Kosovo and Serbia.

Kurti told The Associated Press that the focus instead should be on making Serbia more democratic and getting rid of what he called Belgrade’s hegemonistic ideas.

PRISTINA, Jan 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A man was arrested after a gunman shot and wounded two Serbs, one an 11-year-old child, in Kosovo on Friday, Orthodox Christmas Eve, police there said, sparking protests.

Kosovo police said in a statement that they had arrested “a 33-year-old man” in southern Kosovo, who Defence Minister Armend Mehaj said the man was a member of the security forces.

Shortly after the shooting incident, local Serbs blocked traffic on a regional road in protest, Serbian national television (RTS) reported.

PRISTINA, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Protesting Serbs in the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo erected new barricades on Tuesday, hours after Serbia said it had put its army on the highest combat alert following weeks of escalating tensions between Belgrade and Pristina.

Serbia's defence ministry said that given the latest events in the region and Belgrade's belief that Kosovo was preparing to attack Serbs and forcefully remove the barricades, President Aleksandar Vucic had ordered Serbia's army and police to be put on the highest alert.

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Serbia on Monday placed its security troops on the border with Kosovo on “the full state of combat readiness,” ignoring NATO’s calls for calming down of tensions between the two wartime Balkan foes.

Serbia’s Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic said he “ordered the full combat readiness” of police and other security units and that they be placed under the command of the army chief of staff according to “their operational plan.”