Jeton Musliu

Data from the Statistics Agency of Kosovo shows that a sharp increase in the number of births occurred in Kosovo from 1948 until 1990. But after that, figures began to fall. In 1948, 27,792 births were recorded while in 1990 the figure had climbed to 55,175. But by 2002, the number of births had fallen back to 36,136, while in 2007 the number of births in Kosovo was 33,111. In 2008, the latest available statistics, there were 34,000 births. According to a survey by the Ministry of Public Administration in 2009, published last year, the proportion of young people is also declining.

Sipas statistikave të Policisë së Kosovës, shihet se Prishtina radhitet e para me 268 raste, pasuar nga Peja me 207, Mitrovica me 187, Prizreni 172, Ferizaj me 130 dhe Gjilani me 104 raste.Gjatë vitit 2011 kanë ndodhur 1068 raste të dhunës në familje në tërë Kosovën. Relacionet familjare janë të ndryshme.

The President of Kosovo, Atifete Jahjaga, is known to be considering a proposal to  award a special “Order of Independence” to all those who negotiated Kosovo’s  final status, as well as those who were MPs at the time of independence. It is unclear whether all 120 MPs at the time would get the medals or just those  who voted for the declaration.

Kompania e parë e regjistruar me këtë fushëveprimtari është evidentuar
në vitin 2000, tani janë 57. Ato janë regjistruar si biznese individuale,
kryesisht me zero kapital të deklaruar, me 1 deri në 10 të punësuar dhe
me shtrirje gjeografike edhe në zonat e banuara nga pakica serbe në veri
të vendit si Leposaviq e Zubin Potok. Prishtina mbetet rajoni me numrin më të madh të kompanive për  funerale, ku janë të regjistruara 14 të tilla, pasuar nga Prizreni me 8,  Gjakova me 4, Mitrovica e Peja me nga 3 etj.

Fancy some Nike trainers or a Lacoste shirt? If you're shopping in Kosovo, the chances are that it isn't the brand-name item you imagined. Some 90 per cent of so-called "brand-name" clothes being sold in Kosovo are likely fakes, Kosovo's customs service warms. Officials confirm what many in Kosovo long suspected, which is that most bargain items purporting to be from Adidas, Lacoste, Nike, Versace, Calvin Klein and Chanel are cheap knock-offs. A customs report covering 2001 to September 2012 found that 20 million kilograms of clothes were imported into Kosovo over this period. More than 90 per cent came from China, followed by Turkey, Kosovo Custom's spokesman Adriatik Stavileci said. Most of these clothes entering the country for clearance by Customs had no commercial label, "so you cannot tell whether it's original or not," Stavileci told Balkan Insight. "We don't know to which brand it belongs, so it's simply cleared as 'textile'." The items only get brand names after clearing Customs, it appears. Customs inspectors have seized thousands of designer labelsmany in rollsthat officials

Dardhishte, near Obilic, has the worst rate of cancer in Kosovobut while no one doubts that emissions from the nearby giant power plant are to blame, no one is doing much about it. Avdullah Selimi-Raci doesn't breathe through his mouth or nose but through a hole in his throat, cut by doctors ten years ago, who saved his life by removing a cancerous tumour in his throat. Selimi-Raci, from the village of Dardhishte, near Obilic, is confident that he will soon experience the same fate of many of his relatives who have died of cancer. Eyes filled with tears and voice shaking, he counts the long list of the sick, dying and dead among his clan.

Tre shtetas të Bosnje dhe Hercegovinës kanë sfiduar përmes rrugëve ligjore disa shtete të dala nga ish-Jugosllavia duke kërkuar të drejtën e tyre për kthimin e parave të kursyera në bankat e federatës tashmë të shkatërruar. Ata kanë paditur Bosnjë dhe Hercegovinën, Serbinë, Slloveninë, Kroacinë dhe Maqedoninë duke kërkuar prej tyre kthimin e kursimeve bankare.

A 30-percent spike in non-performing loans points to a decline in the country's overall economic health. There's a lot of bad news in Kosovo newspapers. But some of the worst is buried far in the back without big, sensational headlines. These stories, written by the banks, are notices for auctions of loan collateral. The items are big and small, from pipes to entire factories. Mufail Hoxha, of Viti, lost a four-acre plot of land that he used as collateral for an 80,000 euro loan from the NLB bank. Hoxha invested the money in his concrete factory. He upgraded the plant's technology with the hopes of boosting production. But Hoxha couldn't keep up with the interest payments. "The loan was for 36 months, but I did not have enough money to circulate and achieve the business plan because I was supposed to pay the interest every month," Hoxha told Prishtina Insight. Stories like Hoxha's are becoming increasingly common as more people and businesses default on their loans.

Changes to school textbooks undertaken at the urging of Turkish officials have toned down the language used to describe the imperial experience. When the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visited Kosovo for the first time in 2010, he visited some of the country's historic Islamic sites. "These mosques symbolize the brotherhood between Kosovo and Turkey," Erdogan said in Prizren. Recent years have seen the two countries develop cozy relations. To date, they have signed 13 agreements in matters including the economy, military and education. Turkey is also one of the few places that Kosovo citizens can visit without needing visas.

Kosovar Albanians are increasingly tolerant of men who divorce local wives in order to temporarily marry foreigners and obtain resident status in the West. Each time she goes to sleep, Valbona, 35, from Peja, western Kosovo, looks at her wedding photograph taken 13 years ago. Beside her, she sees her smiling husband. Today, that moment is just a memory. Two years ago, her husband remarried a German woman. Not only did Valbona, mother of their four children aged four to 11, know of his plan, she approved it. This is because Valbona is not really divorced in the eyes of her family or the wider community. Many Kosovar Albanian men divorce their first wives by mutual consent, departing for western Europe where they find new spouses who enable them to obtain residency papers.

Emigration has long afflicted the countries of the Balkans. But many of those who leave know they will return in death. Once a month, Atdhe Gashi makes the short trip east from his home in the Kosovo capital, Pristina/Prishtine, to the hilltop village of Mramor where he was born 53 years ago. Each time, he visits the grave of his father, who died last year in Vienna aged 74. Gashi's father, Skender, was a professor and, for more than two decades, head of the Albanian language department at the University of Vienna. But despite settling down in Austria, Skender always knew he would be laid to rest in Mramor at the end of a narrow road that snakes into the hills.