Thursday 31st July 2008 MEDIA
HEADLINES IN ENGLISH
You’re listening to NEWS REPORT, a summary of
today’s media, prepared by UNMIK ON AIR
Kosovo starts issuing passports,
AK party let off by Turkish Court, and
Bush triples AIDS budget
KOSOVO
After meeting UNMIK chief Lamberto Zannier, Kosovo’s Prime Minister
Hashim Thaci said yesterday that UNMIK can officially talk to Belgrade
only on technical and practical issues but not on anything related to
Kosovo’s independence and sovereignty.
Prime Minister Hashim Thaci yesterday presented the
first Republic of Kosovo passports. Thaci told a ceremony that the issuing
of Kosovo passports rounds off the creating of the state. It is unclear
whether the papers will be accepted by countries which have not acknowledged
Kosovo's independence.
Smuggling of goods in northern Kosovo where Albanians
and Serbs are involved has been seen as a “recipe for cooperation”.
UNMIK chief Lamberto Zannier said yesterday that “This can be
encouraging because it indicates that with a little good will there
can be interethnic cooperation in other fields too,” while Thaci
agreed that crime in the north is of an interethnic nature.
Belgrade requested that the Serb officers in the Kosovo
Police Service work under the command of UNMIK’s police. At a
meeting yesterday in Pristina between the head of UNMIK and Serbia’s
Minister for Kosovo, Goran Bogdanovic police and justice in the north
were also discussed.
Kosovo customs discovered 20 kilograms of explosives
at the Merdare border crossing. The explosives were found in a van with
Slovenian license plates. Police and KFOR were notified, the customs
service said, adding that an investigation is underway.
Pristina District Court received three more charges
made by the police in relation to the attack at Prime Minister Hashim
Thaci’s home two months ago. The suspects are believed to have
provided medical assistance to the main suspect Fazli Sejdiu, after
the alleged attack.
KFOR removed its trucks yesterday from the site of
the water supply project in Suhodoll in the Mitrovica region, thus ending
the project over local Serb pressure. The project is now planned to
take a different route thus avoiding Suhodoll and that all the expenses
for this change will be covered by UNMIK.
Kosovo Serbs continue to get their information through
Belgrade-based media, according to the Centre for Peace and Tolerance.
Zeljko Joksimovic said, adding that Serbian media filter the information
based on Belgrade governmental policies. “While information on
Kosovo Albanian media has affected the overall security for Kosovo Serbs,”
he added.
Following his extradition, war crimes suspect Radovan
Karadzic arrived yesterday in The Hague. He will make his first court
appearance today when charges will be read.
REGION
Turkey's Constitutional Court has decided not to ban the ruling AK Party,
accused of undermining the country's secular system. But the judges
did cut half the AKP's treasury funding for this year, with Court president
Hasim Kilic calling the financial sanctions a "serious warning".
Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev survived
a sixth no-confidence vote yesterday. The action came following the
EU saying the government failed to fight corruption and suspended financial
aid. Some EU payments were suspended in February after its anti-fraud
office found irregularities in distribution of funds.
A Greek trading ship has been brought to the surface
after lying off the Sicily coast for 2,500 years. Archaeologists believe
the ship sank in a storm some 800m off the coast while transporting
goods from the Greek colony in Gela back to Greece in around 500 BC.
INTERNATIONAL
President Bush has signed off a new law that triples America's budget
for fighting AIDS and other diseases in Africa and the Caribbean. The
new legislation increases US funds to combat AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis
to $48bn - up from $15bn.
The U.N. Security Council voted yesterday to disband
its peacekeeping mission to the volatile border between Eritrea and
Ethiopia. The United Nations withdrew its peacekeeping force from the
border in February after Eritrea cut off fuel supplies, forcing out
the troops.
WEATHER
The sun will shine all day with temperatures ranging between 16 and
28 degrees Celsius. Tomorrow will also be sunny, hitting 29 Degrees
Celsius.
And that’s all for today, thank you for listening.