The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which controlled Kosovo before the war, and the Kosovo Albanian rebel group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The conflict ended when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened by beginning air strikes in March 1999 which resulted in Yugoslav forces withdrawing from Kosovo.
Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a partially recognised state in Southeast Europe. It lies at the centre of the Balkans. Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008, and has since gained diplomatic recognition as a sovereign state by 97 member states of the United Nations. It is bordered by Serbia to the north and east, North Macedonia to the southeast, Albania to the southwest, and Montenegro to the west. Most of central Kosovo is dominated by the vast plains and fields of Dukagjini and Kosovo field. The Accursed Mountains and Šar Mountains rise in the southwest and southeast, respectively. Its capital and largest city is Pristina.
Rahovec or Orahovac is a town and municipality located in the District of Prizren in western Kosovo. According to the 2011 census, the town of Rahovec has 15,892 inhabitants, while the municipality has 56,208 inhabitants.
Ibrahim Rugova was a prominent Kosovo Albanian political leader, scholar, and writer, who served as the President of the partially recognised Republic of Kosova, serving from 1992 to 2000 and as President of Kosovo from 2002 until his death in 2006. He oversaw a popular struggle for independence, advocating a peaceful resistance to Yugoslav rule and lobbying for U.S. and European support, especially during the Kosovo War. Owing to his role in Kosovo's history, Rugova has been dubbed "Father of the Nation" and "Gandhi of the Balkans".
The Parliamentary Party of Kosovo is a social-liberal political party in the Republic of Kosovo. It is led by former prime minister Bajram Kosumi. It is one of the oldest parties in Kosovo.
The politics of Kosovo takes place in a framework of a multi-party parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the President (Presidenti) is the head of state and the Prime Minister (Kryeministri) the head of government. Parliamentary elections are held every four years, the most recent in 2021.
Adem Jashari was one of the founders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a Kosovo Albanian separatist militia which fought for the secession of Kosovo from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
Fatmir Sejdiu is a Kosovar politician. He was the leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and was the 1st President of Republic of Kosovo.
Rexhai Surroi was a Yugoslav Albanian journalist, diplomat and writer.
Kosovo during the 20th century history has largely been characterised by wars and major population displacements. The region formed a part of numerous entities, some internationally recognised, others not.
South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) is a regional non-governmental, non-profit network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in Southeast, South, East and Central Europe. The organization aims to create a bridge between international media activities and the media developments in the region. It has headquarters and national committees in several countries. In total 33 member states or territories are included in SEEMO: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan
Fadil Hoxha was a Yugoslavian ethnic Albanian communist revolutionary and politician from Kosovo. He was a member of the Communist party and fought in the Yugoslav Partisans during World War II. After the war, he was the first President of the Executive Council of the Autonomous Region of Kosovo and Metohija (1945-1963) and later member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia (1974-1984).
The 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence, which proclaimed the Republic of Kosovo to be a state independent from Serbia, was adopted at a meeting held on 17 February 2008 by 109 out of the 120 members of the Assembly of Kosovo, including the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaqi, and by the President of Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu. It was the second declaration of independence by Kosovo's Albanian-majority political institutions; the first was proclaimed on 7 September 1990.
Kosovo and Metohija commonly known as Kosovo and abbreviated to Kosmet or KiM, is an autonomous province according to the constitution of Serbia that occupies the southernmost part of Serbia. The territory is the subject of an ongoing political and territorial dispute between Serbia and the partially recognised, self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo, the latter of which has de facto control over the region. Its administrative capital and largest city is Priština.
A series of war crimes were committed during the Kosovo War. The forces of the Slobodan Milošević regime committed rape, killed many Albanian civilians and expelled them during the war, alongside the widespread destruction of civilian, cultural and religious property. According to the Human Rights Watch, the vast majority of the violations from January 1998 to April 1999 were attributable to Serbian police or the Yugoslav army. Violations also included war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army, such as kidnappings and summary executions of civilians. In 2014, the Humanitarian Law Center released a list of people killed or gone missing during the war, including 8,661 Kosovo Albanian civilians, 1,797 ethnic Serbs and 447 civilians of other ethnicities such as Romani people and Bosniaks.
Baton Haxhiu is a Kosovo Albanian columnist and journalist who has worked for media such as Koha Ditore, Gazeta Express, Klan Kosova and ABC News Albania. He now works for Euronews Albania.
Flaka Surroi is a notable Kosovo-Albanian publisher. She comes from the family of Kosovo politician and diplomat Rexhai Surroi, and is a sibling of Veton Surroi, a Kosovan politician. She finished her high school in Mexico, where her father was serving as an ambassador, and graduated at University of Pristina.
Agron Bajrami is the editor of and a writer for Koha Ditore newspaper, the largest daily newspaper in Kosovo. He filled various journalistic and editing positions at the newspaper since its establishment in 1997, and took over as editor in chief in September 2004 after its former editor and publisher, Veton Surroi, departed for politics. Bajrami is also a member of the board of South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), head of the Kosovo Media Institute, and a regular columnist for Montenegrin daily newspaper Vijesti. Agron Bajrami has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Pristina. He speaks several languages, including: Albanian, English, Serbian and German.
The Kosovo Agency of Statistics monitors various demographic features of the population of Kosovo, such as population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. Censuses, normally conducted at ten-year intervals, record the demographic characteristics of the population. According to the first census conducted after the 2008 declaration of independence in 2011, the permanent population of Kosovo had reached 1,810,366.
Kosovo is the birthplace of the Albanian nationalist movement which emerged as a response to the Eastern Crisis of 1878. In the immediate aftermath of the Russo-Ottoman war, the Congress of Berlin proposed partitioning Ottoman Albanian inhabited lands in the Balkans among neighbouring countries. The League of Prizren was formed by Albanians to resist those impositions. For Albanians those events have made Kosovo an important place regarding the emergence of Albanian nationalism. During the remainder of the late Ottoman period various disagreements between Albanian nationalists and the Ottoman Empire over socio-cultural rights culminated in two revolts within Kosovo and adjacent areas. The Balkan Wars (1912–13) ending with Ottoman defeat, Serbian and later Yugoslav sovereignty over the area generated an Albanian nationalism that has become distinct to Kosovo stressing Albanian language, culture, and identity within the context of secession from Serbia. Pan-Albanian sentiments are also present and historically have been achieved only once when part of Kosovo was united by Italian Axis forces to their protectorate of Albania during the Second World War.
