Voters went to the polls Sunday to elect local councilors and town mayors in what was Kosovo's first election as an independent state. Focus takes the opportunity to examine this landmark vote which is a crucial test for Kosovo.
Both main parties have claimed victory in the country’s first election since independence, with surprising numbers of minority Serbs joining in the vote.
Kosovars went to the polls on Sunday for the first time since declaring independence from Serbia last year. The local elections are seen as a test of Kosovo's readiness to organise a democratic vote on its own.
Former US president Bill Clinton was in the Kosovar capital of Pristina on Sunday to attend the unveiling of a 3-metre statue hailing his role in ending a bitter breakaway war with Serbia a decade ago.
European Union EULEX police have intervened in northern Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians and Serbs fought with rocks, grenades, and small arms, leaving seven people wounded. In the capital Pristina, dozens protested against EULEX's presence in Kosovo.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the new NATO chief and former prime minister of Denmark, made a visit to Kosovo on Thursday. He hopes to gradually wind down the presence of NATO's 13,800-strong Kosovo Force.
Former Kosovo prime minister Agim Ceku has been arrested in Bulgaria, officials say. Ceku is wanted for war crimes allegedly committed as military chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army during the 1998-1999 war in then Serbian-ruled Kosovo.
A decade after the air war against Serbia, NATO has endorsed a plan for thousands of peacekeepers to leave Kosovo. But a year after the proclamation of independence, its relative stability is often interrupted by outbreaks of violence.
Under pressure to deploy more personnel in war zones like Afghanistan, NATO defence ministers have agreed to scale back the KFOR peacekeeping operation in Kosovo from about 15,000 to 10,000 by January 2010.
President Barack Obama has named new ambassadors to key US allies France and Britain, as well as to Denmark, Iceland and Kosovo. Charles Rivkin (pictured), CEO of an animation studio, has been named as ambassador to France.
