Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Kosovo government to tackle corruption, Premier Ceku says in radio address

Text of report by Radio-Television Kosovo TV on 17 April

[Announcer] Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku today pledged that he and the government will fight corruption in Kosovo society. In his weekly radio address Prime Minister Ceku said that the Kosovo government will not accept corrupt individuals and that they will be subject to the law.

[Reporter] Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku saw fit to address Kosovo citizens and call on them to fight corruption. He added that in this phase we are working for the establishment of the state of Kosovo at the same time as the formation of the backbone of the state and that he sees Kosovo as a functioning state. Kosovo has to be a state that produces peace and stability and this is in the public interest, it is higher and noble aim. This is the kind of Kosovo that we want, and there will be no room for corrupt individuals in the Kosovo government since no one is untouchable, Prime Minister Ceku said. To achieve this, we need the good will of the people and above all reforms of the judicial system.

We need people who respect institutional logic and place the law above every personal interest; for this we need time, patience and commitment, Prime Minister Ceku said in his weekly radio address.

Source: RTK TV, Pristina, in Albanian 1730 gmt 17 Apr 06

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Outlaw, you are pathetic. Not only you personally, but this whole range of ignorant radicals that desperately try to portait Kosovo as some sort of haven for islamic terrorists.

Let me just tell you one thing and you go on with your propaganda: there are currently 20 000 (twenty thousand) soldiers of NATO alliance, a few thousand international policemen from western countries, all the intellegence services that operate freely... all this is in a territory that is a bit bigger then the state of Delaware. If, and I cannot stress enough how big of an "if" this is, Kosovo is really a playground for islamic terrorists, then the western world should surrender to them today!!!

Anonymous said...

Listen guys I know this shit for brains "lawyer". Do not engage him in an argument. He pretends to be a sofist but has a pea size brain. He is like all serbs; if you argue with you must stoop to their rapist level and then they beat you with experience.

Anonymous said...

How do sewerbeings come up with this shit.


UNHCR and WHO to displace Serbs | 14:03 April 19 | Beta
Marko Jaksic at today's press conference (FoNet)
Marko Jaksic at today's press conference (FoNet)

BELGRADE -- Kosovo Serbs officials claim that the UNHCR and WHO plan on forcing Serbs out of the region.

At a press conference, Milan Ivanovic and Marko Jaksic said that the UNHCR and the World Health Organisation in Denmark are preparing a plan for relocating 40,000 Kosovo Serbs to Central Serbia, once the final status is decided. The UNHCR denied the claims.

Jaksic said that Kosovo Serbs will not accept being relocated to Serbia, but will rather stand in front of the embassy and ask for visas for relocating to countries of Western Europe and the Republic of Srpska and Bosnia-Herzegovina, where they will ask for the rights of a constituted community.

Commenting the “announcement of relocating and adapting” Kosovo Serbs to Central Serbia, Jaksic said that with ethnic cleansing and institutional pressure, everything is being done to create one “monstrous Albanian nation in the Balkans.”

Rada Trajkovic, vice president of the Serbian National Council in Kosovo, also said that the WHO, along with the UNHCR, is preparing a project for relocating 40,000 Serbs.

“Crisis centres are already in the works.” Trajkovic said, adding that the position of coordinator for was offered to a Serb official who, according to the information given to her, turned down the offer.

UNHCR denied the claims
The UNHCR’s office in Belgrade has stated that it is not concerned with relocating people and that they do not know “where Rada Trajkovic got such information from.”

“There is no plan that we are creating for evacuating the population. There are normal plans for coming to the help of these people in any kind of situation.” UNHCR official Vesna Petkovic said.

“The UNHCR is a humanitarian organisation that deals with the protection of people who are in trouble and must always be prepared to offer help to people, whether their troubles are the result of a natural catastrophe or the result of any other incident that would cause people to have to leave their homes.” Petkovic said.

The UNHCR’s Kosovo office also denied the claims.

“I do not know where she received this information and why she is commenting this, because she was never in the UNHCR nor has she ever had any sort of contact with us.” Petkovic said, referring to Trajkovic.

Anonymous said...

Too many ifs dont you think nyouthouselawyer? Furthermore no one can compare to serbo-fascists who raped thousands of women and shot in the back unarmed women and children.

Anonymous said...

First of all Ceku himself is a terrorist criminal murdere and Kosovo with him as leader and any former KLA will be great for crime and corruption in Kosovo. The best solution is to put Belgrade in charge of Kosovo as Kosovo is a part of Serbia and always will be.

Anonymous said...

ha ha ha ha ha. Your delusions are not Kosova's concern. You claimed the same thing about Krajina, Bosnia and look where it got you. I wish you would try though.

Anonymous said...

Albanians are writing like that Serbs are not residents of Kosovo-they must be planning an ethnic cleansing campaign.

Anonymous said...

What the hell is this drool-filled-shit-for-brains is saying?

Anonymous said...

Read how serbia deals with gypsies.



Balkan Insight
Belgrade Roma Rot In Cardboard City

Few Serbian Roma put much faith in official promises to tackle their poor conditions.

By Zelimir Bojovic in Belgrade (Balkan Insight, 12 Apr 06)
In the so-called Cardboard City, crammed beneath the Gazela, one of the busiest bridges in Belgrade, hundreds of Roma families live in what looks like a landfill site.

Most Roma here make a precarious living from collecting and selling cardboard, or from whatever they find in rubbish containers. Walls made of cardboard, wooden planks and nylon offer no protection against rain and snow, so their hovels are soaked through in winter.

Afrodita Saitovic, 18 years old and eight months pregnant, has lived in Cardboard City with her husband and two children for seven years.

Her family fled Kosovo in 1999, after NATO air strikes drove out the Serbian authorities. Kosovo's Roma bore the brunt of local Albanian rage for siding with the Serbs - but Serbia has been far from welcoming. Saitovic's family has been without running water or sewage since they got to Belgrade, though the city has now supplied them with electric power.

Despite the fact that she was suffering excruciating pains in her stomach, doctors at Belgrade 's Narodni Front hospital refused to examine her as she did not have a healthcare card.

"They said I should pay 1,800 dinars [about 20 euro], but I don't have enough money for food, let alone a medical examination," she said.

Saitovic said she may have to give birth in her cardboard room at home.

This family's problems are common to Roma all over Serbia. Living in unauthorised settlements, they cannot register as residents and obtain the documents they need to get access to healthcare, education and the job market.

The police require at least a house number in order to grant a residence permit, the gateway into the Serbian legal system. For people in Cardboard City, this is impossible.

The Minority Rights Centre, CPM, a Belgrade-based non-governmental organisation, is trying to help people like Afrodita Saitovic obtain residence permits.

"If the city of Belgrade changes the law and grants addresses to these settlements, a great number of people could gain access to healthcare, the jobs market and send their children to school," said Petar Antic, CPM's executive director.

The health issue is probably the most serious problem facing Roma in the cardboard slums, where unhygienic conditions are a fertile breeding ground for viruses and ailments of all kinds.

Osman Balic, head of the YUROM Centre, a Roma non-governmental organisation based in Nis, said poor healthcare cuts the average lifespan of the community very significantly.

"Only one per cent of all Roma in Serbia live to the age of 60," he said.

Dragoljub Ackovic, vice-president of the World Roma Parliament, a Roma lobby group, agreed. He said the average lifespan of Roma in Serbia was only 47, which is 20 years less than the rest of the population.

Belatedly, Serbia's ministry of health says it is taking steps to address the problem.

Djordje Stojiljkovic, the deputy health minister, said the government had launched a 60,000,000 dinar (700,000 euro) project together with the World Bank and other international organisations. The move is timed to coincide with the Decade of Roma Inclusion, an international effort to raise the economic and social status of Roma.

Some Roma activists doubt whether the Serbian government project will get far, given the small amount of money involved.

"Those funds are just a drop in the ocean of our needs," complained Ackovic.

He said the health ministry was not truly interested in tackling the poor health of the Roma. "All they want to do is to implement some projects so that they can say they are working on something," he said.

One of the many problems with addressing the Roma community's plight is the lack of hard information.

No one knows exactly how many Roma live in dire poverty. The most recent government survey, in 2002-03, suggested only that more than 80 per cent of Roma in Serbia lived in impoverished areas, most of them concentrated in some 600 unauthorised settlements.

Zarko Sunderic, from the deputy prime minister's team on poverty reduction, said, "Around 35 per cent of Roma have no access to a water supply, 65 per cent have no sewage systems, 45 per cent have no proper streets in their settlements and about one tenth of Roma live without electricity."

Sunderic added that few Roma children were vaccinated against diseases. "Tuberculosis, skin and venereal diseases, as well as asthma, are common among both grown-ups and children," he said.

Unofficial estimates suggest about 30,000 of the 100,000 Roma in Belgrade live in unsanitary settlements like Cardboard City. One of them is Halid Hasani, 32, who lives there with his wife and two daughters.

Since the last rainfall, the family have been unable to use one of their rooms, fearing that the ceiling might fall in as they sleep. But the biggest problem is the lack of water and sanitation, Hasani said.

"We used to go for water to the nearby gravel pit, but now the security guards there often refuse to give us water," he added.

Elizabeta Maloku, 24, also from Cardboard City, said her biggest problem was the rats that swarmed all around the place, keeping her awake at night.

Her daughter is already an invalid at only four years old, after being born with a lump on her neck. As is typically the case, doctors would not treat her without a healthcare card.

Antic said such people are living in a kind of limbo, with their children growing up illiterate and wholly unequipped for life in the wider society.

"If they don't get the help, the consequences could be alarming", he said, pointing to the obvious danger of these children falling into lives of crime.

Ackovic fears that the Roma cannot rely on the goodwill of Serbian officials, but should put their faith in international pressure instead.

"If Serbia wants to adopt European standards and join the European Union, then it must look after the Roma people and their health," he said.

In the meantime, the residents of Cardboard City rely on their own resources, as they have always done.

"If you have the money, you can get medical treatment," Ajeti Ilfan, 43, said. "If you can't, you might as well drop dead."

Zelimir Bojovic is a Deutsche Welle correspondent in Belgrade. Balkan Insight is BIRN's online publication. This article was published with support from Freedom House.

Anonymous said...

I think what NATO has to do is clear. Invade Serbia and remove anybody in a position of power because they are all racist and evil Milosevic wannabes. NATO should take over Serbia.

Anonymous said...

I think what NATO has to do is clear. Invade Serbia and remove anybody in a position of power because they are all racist and evil Milosevic wannabes. NATO should take over Serbia.

you are very stupid, you think NATO can invade serbia. More Serbian soliders died from terrorist type attacks from the KLA, than NATO.

Many people have said Serbs are terrorists, thats funny considering there are ZERO know Serbian terrorists or associates of terrorists and everyone in the KLA is a terrorist. There is evidence that members of the KLA were involved in suppling terrorits in the madrid train bombing and the london subway bombings with the explosives used in the bombings.

but if all that nyoutlawyer has said is bullshit how could terrorists enter western europe, because surly if they came through other countries the explosives would be found at the borders, but somehow they managed to slip past the "anti corrupt" countries of Kosovo and Albania.

Who are the real Terrorists?

Anonymous said...

The poster above just proved that his brain is pea sized.

Anonymous said...

4:22 is your middle name perhaps DopeMan?

You are an insult to evolution, you and that guy who said there were 27% Albanians in Kosova prior to 1998.

Anonymous said...

Nyouthouselawyer talking about sins is a blasphemy. Thousands of women raped, children killed in cold blood. Priests blessing massmurderers and the list goes a mile long and still these bitches dont acknowledge their own shit. The radiclas could win the election today if ther were elections in serbia.

Anonymous said...

Those articles excuse your nation raping thousands of women in Kosova and Bosnia? Interesting serb logic.