Is Kosovo a country now?
827443
It is still a province. Its final status will be set after the serbian elections currently scheduled for January 21, 2007. It's capital is Pristina (Prishtina).
45937
None, as the Commonwealth of Independent States was simply a name given to the former USSR when then country started to split apart in the early 1990's.
315878
I do not think that is a country.
1050009
Montenegro, they separate from Serbia about 1 month ago.\n\nMaybe you would see another country in Europe forming, after Cataluña getting independence from Spain.
290610
Yes, it is considered a constituent country in Union with England, Wales and Northern Ireland(the United Kingdom).\n\nAn interesting note is that it was the SCOTTISH monarch (James VI) who ascended the English throne and United the two kingdoms of England & Scotland.\n\nFurther showing that Scotland is a country: It has it's own national anthem. It has it's own parliament which governs their own affairs. It has its own court system. It has its own currency (the Scottish pound is on par with the British Pound). And it competes in many sporting events separately (world cup soccer, Rugby, etc.)
125251
Starting from the battle of Kosovo 1389, finally conquered by 1482.\nThe Empire was disintegrated and fell to the Ottoman Turks, after the historic Serbian defeat at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, and the northern Serbian territories (the Serbian Despotate) were conquered by 1459, when Smederevo fell. Bosnia fell a few years after Smederevo, and Herzegovina followed in 1482.\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbia
630823
Where to start?  Let's limit this to the former Yugoslavia since the term 'Balkan' could potentially apply to neighboring areas as well.  Also, there have been numerous Balkan conflicts in history, so I'll assume you mean the most recent series of the Balkan conflicts in the 1990s.  \n\nFirst, note that there is not any current armed conflict in the Balkans today.  The last major outbreak of war was in 1999 when the US and NATO bombed Serbia in an effort to stop violent repression of the Kosovar/Albanian population in Kosovo.  But there are budding autonomy or independence movements elsewhere, including in Montenegro, a part of present day Serbia-Montenegro.\n\nPreviously in the 1990's the State of Yugoslavia broke up into various parts, more or less away from the central authority dominated by Serbia, sometimes with violent wars.  Slovenia broke away without violence.  But Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina saw protracted periods of violent unrest and civil war in the early-mid 1990s.  Macedonia broke away with comparatively little violence.  And now Kosovo, after a bloody, but short uprising and war in '99 is officially still part of Serbia-Montenegro, but is more or less independent and there is talk of a final settlement which would make Kosovo formally independent.
1025661
The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was formed in 1918; its name was changed to Yugoslavia in 1929. Occupation by Nazi Germany in 1941 was resisted by various paramilitary bands that fought each other as well as the invaders. The group headed by Josip TITO took full control of Yugoslavia upon German expulsion in 1945. Although Communist, his new government and its successors (he died in 1980) managed to steer their own path between the Warsaw Pact nations and the West for the next four and a half decades. In the early 1990s, post-TITO Yugoslavia began to unravel along ethnic lines: Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina were recognized as independent states in 1992. The remaining republics of Serbia and Montenegro declared a new "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" (FRY) in April 1992 and, under President Slobodan MILOSEVIC, Serbia led various military intervention efforts to unite ethnic Serbs in neighboring republics into a "Greater Serbia." These actions led to Yugoslavia being ousted from the UN in 1992, but Serbia continued its campaign until signing the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. In 1998-99, massive expulsions by FRY forces and Serb paramilitaries of ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo provoked an international response, including the NATO bombing of Belgrade and the stationing of a NATO-led force (KFOR), in Kosovo. Federal elections in the fall of 2000, brought about the ouster of MILOSEVIC and installed Vojislav KOSTUNICA as president. The arrest of MILOSEVIC in 2001 allowed for his subsequent transfer to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague to be tried for crimes against humanity. In 2001, the country's suspension from the UN was lifted, and it was once more accepted into UN organizations under the name of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Kosovo has been governed by the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) since June 1999, under the authority of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, pending a determination by the international community of its future status. In 2002, the Serbian and Montenegrin components of Yugoslavia began negotiations to forge a looser relationship. In February 2003 lawmakers restructured the country into a loose federation of two republics called Serbia and Montenegro. The Constitutional Charter of Serbia and Montenegro includes a provision that allows either republic to hold a referendum after three years that would allow for their independence from the state union. In 2003 Svetozar MAROVIC was elected president of Serbia and Montenegro. \n\n### LINKS : -\n\nhttp://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/yi.html\n\nhttp://www.answers.com/topic/serbia-and-montenegro\n\nhttp://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108157.html
452059
OK let me answer your questions one by one.\n\n1. I don't think Serbia will be the biggest traiding partner. Why not? After all what happened in that region, we don't trust serbs. (that's the general opinion of kosovar albanians).\n\n2. Minority rights will be protected. It's been quite a while since last incident between albanians and serbs. With time people will forget and go on with their lives.\n\n3. I think no one will prevent serbs from going to their churches.\n\n4. Well...It'll take time until people forget what happened. It was a dirty war. Thousands of inocent people were killed, children, women. I think years will pass and poeple will not forget what happened, but as they say "Time heals everything". \nYou said serbs and albanians had no problems a 100 years ago? well serbs have had no problems with slovens, croats and bosnians a 100 years ago neither but they did have a problem now. Remember, always you will have a problem when you repress people, when you take their rights away.\n\n5. Yes, serbia and croatia have managed to improve their relations. Eventually kosovar albanians and serbs will improve their relations too in about 10 years from now.\n\nTo wrap it up....The future of Kosovo's status will be known soon. I think that's a big help for both nations, serbs and albanians, because we will know where we stand. \nI'm optimistic that the relations will improve and hopefully things will get better in both sides.\n-----------------------------------------------\n\nTo the person who answered below:\n\nif serbia has nothing to import from kosovo, why all the trouble to keep it then? do you really think that serbia government cares for some religious objects? do you know that kosovo has the largest coal deposits in balkans and third in europe? it has coal enough to supply the whole region for at least 13 centuries. do you know that kosovo has the largest lead deposits in europe, not to mention iron, zync, chrome and copper. etc etc
490882
It's: Body with health, mind with silence, Kosovo with freedom (Kosovo is a state near Serbia & Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania).
561935
OK.... \nYou are obviously talking about the referendum scheduled to take place on may 21st. To see weather Montenegro decides to break the union.\n\nAs to your question what is is the difference between Serbia and Montenegro, and why they both want to be separated...can I try to answer both questions together..\n\nI'm sure you know that Montenegrins do not hate Serbians...\n\nI think the reasons they want independence are...\n\nMontenegro was always an independent mountain state and never part of the Serbian empire. First time these countries joined was after the first world war war.. So now that every other country has left Yugoslavia, so does Montenegro..\n\nI think there are of course many similarities (as with all former yug states...But I think they are some difference..\nMontenegrins (most!) speak with the western dialect closer to Croatia, and Serbians use the Eastern. If I am correct Monenegro was never under Ottoman rule. So there are some different cultural differences.\n\nOther reasons are of course more modern... I think that Serbia and Montenegro have been separating for some time. How long has it been since Montenegro stoped using the dinar??\nIt is in Montenegro's advantage to leave..because they can now enter Europe quicker...and won't be penalised for not handing over Mladic and Karadzic like Serbia is.\nAlso Montenegro is a small country and it is eay to be lost in Serbia but independent it can find it's own way.\n\nAnd as for Serbia...personaliy I don't think Serbians care one way or the other..They are concerned with getting over the mess of the Yugoslav wars and starting a fresh.\n\nWELL...These are my opinions as an outsider.....\n\nI understand your concerns and I felt the same way until I visited Motenegro, and now I think separation is for the best...I know that there are many Montenegrins especially in the North you feel closer to Serbia...but I still think that Montenegro and Serbia will still be close even if they are separate countries :-)
466676
The newest country is East Timor, whose independence from Indonesia was finally recognised on 20th May 2002. Independence was first declared on 28 November 1975 which led to a civil war that lasted 27 years.
997882
On this list are 243 entities considered to be countries. This corresponds to:\n\n\n\n\n202 sovereign states: \n\n\n191 member states of the United Nations (UN).\n\n1 state with general international recognition but not UN membership, governed by the Holy See (a UN permanent observer), the Vatican City.\n\n1 newly independent state, recognized by a growing number of UN member states including all permanent members of the Security Council, widely expected to gain UN membership in the near future: Montenegro.\n\n\n9 states lacking general international recognition, none UN members, that customary international law nonetheless defines as states under the Montevideo Convention: \n\n\n1 state, not a UN member since late 1971, recognized by 25 UN member states and currently with de facto international relations with most others, the Republic of China (popularly referred to as Taiwan). \n\n1 state, recognized by 46 UN member states but never admitted to the UN itself, with most of its claimed territory under military occupation, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in Western Sahara. \n\n1 state, recognized by 92 UN member states and the Holy See but never admitted to the UN itself, with only partial de facto control over any of its claimed territory exercised through the Palestinian National Authority (a UN permanent observer), the State of Palestine in the Palestinian territories. \n\n\n6 de facto independent states lacking any significant measure of diplomatic recognition from other states: \n\n\n1 de facto independent state, diplomatically recognized by no UN member states except Turkey, Northern Cyprus. \n\n5 de facto independent states, namely Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Pridnestrovie, Somaliland, and South Ossetia, all recognized by no UN member states. \n\n\n36 inhabited dependent territories: \n\n\n3 external territories of Australia (Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Norfolk Island). \n\n2 overseas countries in the Kingdom of Denmark (Greenland and Faroe Islands). \n\n\n5 (overseas) communities of France:\n\n \n1 sui generis (unique) community (New Caledonia). \n\n4 overseas communities (Mayotte, French Polynesia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon and Wallis and Futuna). \n\n2 overseas countries in the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Aruba and Netherlands Antilles). \n\n\n3 dependent territories of New Zealand: \n\n\n2 states in free association with New Zealand (Cook Islands and Niue). \n\n1 overseas territory (Tokelau). \n\n\n16 dependent territories of the United Kingdom: \n\n\n3 Crown dependencies (Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man). \n\n13 overseas territories (Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena (and its dependencies Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha), Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia). \n\n\n5 unincorporated territories of the United States: \n\n\n2 commonwealths (Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico). \n\n2 organized insular territories (Guam and U.S. Virgin Islands). \n\n1 de facto organized insular territory lacking an Organic Act (American Samoa). \n\n\n5 areas of special sovereignty: \n\n\n4 special entities recognized by international treaty or agreement (Åland in Finland, Svalbard in Norway, as well as the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau in the People's Republic of China). \n\n1 UN protectorate inside the de jure territory of a sovereign state (Kosovo in Serbia under UN interim civilian administration).
886000
Not quite true! Not only Greece but also United Nations and European Union don't recognize a country with the name "Republic of Macedonia".\nLet me explain as the matter is complicated.\n  Macedonia or Macedon is a Greek region (in proper Greek “Mακεδονία”). It is actually one of the biggest regions of Greece and it has played a most significant part in Greek history! \n  (The authentic Macedonia in Greece (or Greek Macedonia) was the birth place of Alexander the Great! Alexander created a gigantic Greek empire and he is responsible for the spreading of Greek culture and language around the world!)\n  Suddenly a few years ago a small state emerged from Yugoslavia. That small state is called Republic of Makedonija (Slavic/Albanian republic of Macedonia). That state decided to use as an international name the Greek name “Macedonia” and of course that caused and still is causing confusion with authentic Macedonia of Greece! \n  United Nations and European Union has forced the state of Makedonijia to negotiate with Greece in order to reach to an acceptable name for international use { For those who don’t know Republika Makedonja (or Slavic/Albania Macedonia) is officially translated  by UN (and officially recognized by UN and European Union) as Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).} \n  Also a lot of people don’t know that the international name of a state is decided by international law, international agreements and treaties under the authority of United Nations! You can not choose what ever name you like for international use! An example is what happened to Austria! After the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and from 1918 it was known as the Republic of German-Austria (Republik Deutsch-Österreich), but the state was forced to change its name to "Republic of Austria" in 1919 peace Treaty of Saint-Germain! After the war every state that wishes to enter the United Nation had to make sure that its international name wasn’t violating the interest of any other country and was not against international law!\n This is the case for Makedonija (Slavic/Albanian - Macedonia). It can use its own name (Makedonija) but for international use it has to follow the UN resolutions!\n I have to say that the state of Slav/Albania-Macedonia is committed to the United Nations resolution and it is negotiating with Greece to reach to an agreement for a name for international use (and not for their constitutional name which remains as it is : “Makedonija”).\n Let me give you some more background about the history of the small state of Slavic/Albanian Macedonia. \nIt was created after the Second World War by TITO (during the communist dictatorship of Yugoslavia) and it was renamed from South Serbia or Vardar Banovina to Socialist republic of Macedonia. \nThe small Yugoslavian state had a mixed population of Slavs (mainly of Bulgarian origin), Albanians, even some Greeks and few other minority nations.\n Tito tried by inventing the non Greek Macedonian ethnicity to achieve 2 purposes.\nFirst he wanted to take away from Bulgarian influence the population of Slavic/Albanian Macedonia and second to start claiming Greek Macedonia from the Greeks.\n There was of course an entire propaganda effort that tried to convince the population that they are actually true Macedonians and not Bulgarians.\nThe Bulgarian dialect of Macedonia was called “Macedonian language” and they claim that it had nothing in common with the Bulgarian language.\nThe ancient (Greek) Macedonians were presented as non Greeks and simply because the Slavic population used the term “Macedonian” they assumed that they were linked. \n(Of course not even one respectful historian ever agreed to such unhistorical claims and no one ever question the Hellenic character of the ancient Greek Macedonians.)\n  Of course FYROM is a product of propaganda and the non Greek Macedonian ethnicity achieved after great oppression. \nPrison camps
606754
Croatia is now a democratic modern , Euopean country..I can see no reasons why it won't be allowed to join...\n\nAbsolutely Croatia will be a full member of the EU in 2009...\n\nThey were some problems over Gotevina...but now he has been arrested and is in the Hague there are no more objections..so they will be no more delays...\n\n\nCheck the official sites for more...
1073298
On July 2, 1990 an unconstitutional Kosovo parliament declared Kosovo an independent country, this was not recognized by the Government or any foreign states.\nAfter the Dayton Agreement in 1995, some Albanians organized into the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), employing guerilla-style tactics against Serbian police forces and civilians.\nOn 16 January 1999, the bodies of 45 Albanian civilians were found in the town of Racak. The victims had most likely been executed by Serb forces [2][3]. The so-called Racak Massacre was instrumental in increasing the pressure on Serbia in the following conference at Rambouillet. After more than a month of negotations Yugoslavia refused to sign the prepared agreement, primarily, it has beeen argued, because of a clause giving NATO forces access rights to not only Kosovo but to all of Yugoslavia (which the Yugoslav side saw as tantamount to military occupation).\nThe United States itself was not involved, but participated as a major element of a NATO force sent into the area.\nThis triggered a 78-day NATO campaign in 1999. At first limited to military targets in Kosovo proper, the bombing campaign was soon extended to cover targets all over Yugoslavia, including bridges, power stations, factories, broadcasting stations, post offices, and various government buildings.
396806
Kosovo and Metohija (Mae-toe-khy-a) is southern Serbian province. It originates such status from 1974 Yugoslav Constitution, when Yugoslav president Tito (president from 1945 to 1980; born 1892, died 1980) - old and not having total power any more, had to make new deals with nationalists from Croatia (Croatia was the only country that was with Germany in II WW but after war was awarded more territories than it had before the war) who wanted their independant state. So, as an answer, some of them were send to prison for a while, but Serbia was divided into two provinces and one unidentified central region left in the middle: like P-C-P model (Province-Central_Area-Province). Why was that? \n\n  Because Croats stated that Serbia has much power in Yugoslavia. Serbia was kingdom before joining in Yugoslav state (state of Yugo (South) Slave(n)s), and outnumbered all the other nations that joined into one country. So, Tito decided to divide Serbia into three parts, and two of them became "little republics into a republic", and third (central part) had no attribute - strange indeed. So, Serbia had three governments then: Kosovo and Metohia, Vojvodina, and (joined) Serbian government. Central part didn't have it's own parliament.\n\n  When war started in Yugoslavia, Kosovo Albanians tried to separate from Serbia. They didn't succeed for years, but finally, with American help (and with help of people who have great influence in some European countries where USA has it's own great influence), they will soon have independance.\n\n  Well, independance in way called secession (like California decides to leave USA), and with 40.000 USA troops.\n\n  I guess any part of world where USA and NATO (USA again) have their interests can gain independance from the country they belong to, just as long as USA can install government and bring it's army, oil companies, rockets, etc.\n\n  Simple as that...\n\n  Read my answer to question: "Secret marriage?" - you'll find it if you click on my profile, and then find it in my answer list.\n\n  Read also: "If there was no USA and UN influence on the Balkans, would Serbia rule the western Balkans? if not, who would?"\n\n  Regards,\nm.