Bujar Bukoshi, Kosovo independence leader, dies at 78
Bujar Bukoshi, a former Kosovo independence leader who for years headed a self-proclaimed government-in-exile, died early Tuesday morning after a long illness, his family said. He was 78.
He died in Germany, where he was being treated for cancer and receiving financial support from the Albanian government, according to his family.
Kosovo's President Vjosa Osmani expressed deep regret for the loss of 'a visionary physician and a statesman of unparalleled dedication.'
'Dr. Bukoshi, former Prime Minister in Exile, will forever be remembered for his contributions to strengthening the cause of a free and independent Kosovo in the most difficult times for our people,' she wrote in a letter of condolence to his family.
A respected physician and surgeon, Bukoshi helped to found the Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, in 1989 alongside Ibrahim Rugova, who was later president of Kosovo.
Shortly after receiving his medical degree at Belgrade's Medical School University, Bukoshi went into exile, where he raised funds to run parallel governing institutions to peacefully defy the late Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's repressive rule in Kosovo, a former Serbian province.
Bukoshi served as prime minister of Kosovo's government in exile from 1991 through 1999, the end of the 1998-1999 war that left around 11,400 people dead. A 78-day NATO air campaign stopped the Serb forces' crackdown on ethnic Albanians and pushed Serbian forces and authorities out of Kosovo.
He also led an ethnic Albanian militia that was seen as a rival to the more militant Kosovo Liberation Army.
The shadow government, which was never recognized by Belgrade, was formally dissolved in 2000.
After the war, Bukoshi served as deputy prime minister, healthcare minister and lawmaker.
'His life and activity are a record of patriotic commitment and unshakable political involvement for Kosovo's freedom and independence,' said LDK's current leader Lumir Abdixhiku. 'His contribution at the most difficult moments of our country will be forever valued.'
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Most Western nations recognize its sovereignty, but Serbia and its allies Russia and China don't.
Bukoshi was born in Suhareke, 60 kilometers north of the capital Pristina. He is survived by his spouse Zana, three daughters and two nephews.
___
Semini reported from Tirana, Albania.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
44 minutes ago
- The Independent
Dutch center-left parties unite to challenge the right in a historic merger
Two center-left Dutch political parties agreed Thursday to a formal merger, just months away from a general election where they will seek to turn the political tide in the Netherlands away from right-wing populism. Members of the Labor Party and Green Left both voted overwhelmingly in favor of the move to form a single new party. The parties have been working together in parliament for years. Now they will go to the polls as a single entity known by its Dutch name, Groen Links-PvdA. A new party with a new name will follow next year, the parties said after the vote. 'This is a historic moment. This step shows that we, as parties, believe in the power of cooperation, because we can achieve so much more together than apart,' the chair of the Labor Party, Esther-Mirjam Sent, said in a statement. Green Left chair, Katinka Eikelenboom, added that her party's members 'choose with full conviction for cooperation and renewal. We are building a broad, green and social people's party that is ready for the future.' The Oct. 29 election for all 150 seats in the lower house of the Dutch parliament was triggered when right-wing anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders pulled his ministers out of the four-party ruling coalition in a dispute over the pace of reforms to implement tough new measures to rein in migration. The remaining three parties remain in power in a caretaker capacity under Prime Minister Dick Schoof until a new government is formed. The Labor Party is led in parliament by former European Commission climate chief Frans Timmermans, a former Dutch foreign minister. The two center-left parties currently trail Wilders' Party for Freedom in Dutch polling.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists, Citizen Lab finds
Spyware from a U.S.-backed Israeli company was used to target the phones of at least three prominent journalists in Europe, two of whom are editors at an investigative news site in Italy, according to digital researchers at Citizen Lab, citing new forensic evidence of the attacks. The findings come amid a growing questions about what role the government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni may have played in spying on journalists and civil society activists critical of her leadership, and raised new concerns about the potential for abuse of commercial spyware, even in democratic countries. 'Any attempts to illegally access data of citizens, including journalists and political opponents, is unacceptable, if confirmed,' the European Commission said in a statement Wednesday in response to questions from members of parliament. 'The Commission will use all the tools at its disposal to ensure the effective application of EU law.' Meloni's office declined to comment Thursday, but a prominent member of her Cabinet has said that Italy 'rigorously respected' the law and that the government hadn't illegally spied on journalists. Mercenary spyware industry The company behind the hacks, Paragon Solutions, has sought to position itself as a virtuous player in the mercenary spyware industry and won U.S. government contracts, The Associated Press found. Backed by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Paragon was reportedly acquired by AE Industrial Partners, a private investment firm based in Florida, in a December deal worth at least $500 million, pending regulatory approvals. AE Industrial Partners didn't directly respond to requests for comment on the deal. Paragon's spyware, Graphite, was used to target around 90 WhatsApp users from more than two dozen countries, primarily in Europe, Meta said in January. Since then, there's been a scramble to figure out who was hacked and who was responsible. 'We've seen first-hand how commercial spyware can be weaponized to target journalists and civil society, and these companies must be held accountable,' a spokesperson for WhatsApp told AP in an email. 'WhatsApp will continue to protect peoples' ability to communicate privately.' Meta said the vulnerability has been patched and they have not detected subsequent attacks. Meta also sent a cease-and-desist letter to Paragon. Last month, a California court awarded Meta $168 million in damages from Israel's NSO Group, whose spyware was used to hack 1,400 WhatsApp accounts, including of journalists, activists and government officials. Journalists targeted The Citizen Lab's findings, released today, show that the use of spyware against journalists has continued, despite the backlash against NSO Group, and establish for the first time that Paragon was able to successfully infect Apple devices. Ciro Pellegrino, who heads the Naples newsroom of an investigative news outlet called received a notice on April 29 that his iPhone had been targeted. Last year, Fanpage secretly infiltrated the youth wing of Meloni's Brothers of Italy party and filmed some of them making fascist and racist remarks. Pellegrino's colleague, Fanpage editor-in-chief Francesco Cancellato, also received a notice from Meta that his Android device had been targeted by Paragon spyware, though forensic evidence that his phone was actually infected with Graphite hasn't yet surfaced, according to Citizen Lab. The Citizen Lab's report today also revealed a third case, of a 'prominent European journalist,' who asked to remain anonymous, but is connected to the Italian cluster by forensic evidence unearthed by researchers at the laboratory, which is run out of the Munk School at the University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab, which has analyzed all the devices, said the attack came via iMessage, and that Apple has patched the vulnerability. Apple did not respond immediately to requests for comment. 'Paragon is now mired in exactly the kind of abuse scandal that NSO Group is notorious for,' said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab. 'This shows the industry and its way of doing business is the problem. It's not just a few bad apples.' Stealthy spyware Paragon's spyware is especially stealthy because it can compromise a device without any action from the user. Similar to the NSO Group's notorious Pegasus spyware, which has been blacklisted by the U.S. government, Graphite allows the operator to covertly access applications, including encrypted messengers like Signal and WhatsApp. 'There's no link to click, attachment to download, file to open or mistake to make,' Scott-Railton said. 'One moment the phone is yours, and the next minute its data is streaming to an attacker.' Parliamentary oversight COPASIR, the parliamentary committee overseeing the Italian secret services, took the rare step last week of making public the results of its investigation into the government's use of Paragon. The COPASIR report said that Italian intelligence services hadn't spied on Cancellato, the editor of Fanpage. The report did confirm the surveillance, with tools including Graphite, of civil society activists, but said they had been targeted legally and with government authorization — not as activists but over their work related to irregular immigration and national security. Giovanni Donzelli, vice president of COPASIR and a prominent member of Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, declined further comment Thursday, saying the parliamentary report was 'more relevant than an analysis done by a privately funded Canadian laboratory.' Citizen Lab says it's 'rigorously independent,' and doesn't accept research funding from governments or companies. Italy and Paragon both say they've terminated their relationship, but offer starkly different versions of the breakup. Paragon referred questions to a statement it gave to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in which the company said that it stopped providing spyware to Italy after the government declined its offer to help investigate Cancellato's case. Italian authorities, however, said they had rejected Paragon's offer over national security concerns and ended the relationship following media outcry. U.S. contracts Paragon has been keen to deflect reputational damage that could, in theory, impact its contracts with the U.S. government. A 2023 executive order, which so far hasn't been overturned by U.S. President Donald Trump, prohibits federal government departments and agencies from acquiring commercial spyware that has been misused by foreign governments, including to limit freedom of expression and political dissent. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security awarded Paragon a one-year, $2 million contract last September for operations and support of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, public records show. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has also reportedly used the spyware. In December 2022, Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who at the time chaired the House Intelligence Committee, wrote to the administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration questioning whether the DEA's use of Graphite spyware undermined efforts to deter the 'broad proliferation of powerful surveillance capabilities to autocratic regimes and others who may misuse them.' ___ Byron Tau in Washington, and Lorne Cook in Brussels, contributed to this report.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Look away, Sir Keir! Labour's bible has given its verdict on you
There was a time when the question of who would be editor of the New Statesman really, really mattered in the Labour leader's office. I know, because I was a journalist on the left-wing weekly when Neil Kinnock took a close interest in who would succeed Hugh Stephenson, an ally of the Labour leader, when he left in 1986. With a general election looming, Kinnock was determined that the title should not fall into the hands of the Bennites, as the Corbynites of those days were known. Fortunately, the board of the magazine was chaired by the former Labour MP Phillip Whitehead, and John Lloyd, a Financial Times journalist on the right of the Labour Party, was safely installed. Unfortunately for Kinnock, Lloyd was a principled Labour right-winger: so much so that he wrote a leading article on the eve of the 1987 election condemning Kinnock's policy of one-sided nuclear disarmament. Labour duly lost – but Kinnock seemed to conclude that the New Statesman was not the decisive factor in that defeat and that, actually, Lloyd was right. He took no interest in who would take over when Lloyd's brief but brilliant editorship ended after the election, but he did ditch the defence policy of giving up 'something for nothing'. It wasn't until Tony Blair that the relationship was restored, when Ian Hargreaves, a former editor of The Independent, turned the magazine into a cheerleader for New Labour – although in 1996-97, few outposts of cultural life had not been drawn into the collective ra-ra for the Great Moderniser. Blair lost interest the moment he became prime minister, but Gordon Brown, who hoped to succeed him, remained engaged. Brown had the advantage that the magazine at this stage was owned by Geoffrey Robinson, his friend and, briefly, a fellow minister – but, according to Peter Wilby, editor from 1998 to 2005, Robinson didn't interfere: 'I knew that, on critical appointments such as political editor, Robinson would want to establish 'what Gordon thinks' (fortunately, Gordon was usually too indecisive to settle on any particular name).' Since then, Jason Cowley, who was editor for 16 years until the end of 2024, barely concealed his disdain for Ed Miliband's leadership and was hostile to Jeremy Corbyn. Cowley was positive but distant towards Starmer. But now, Tom McTague, a former political editor at the Independent on Sunday and Cowley's successor, has launched his editorship with a 9,500-word profile of the prime minister, having accompanied Starmer on his recent travels. McTague succeeds, more than any recent interviewer, in giving a sense of Starmer's character. He asks about Nick – Starmer's brother who had learning difficulties and who died of cancer on Boxing Day last year – and produces an unexpectedly emotional and inarticulate response. 'I can't really explain this,' Starmer admits. McTague writes: 'He leans forward, still staring into my eyes, intense and lost, no longer a prime minister but a normal man bereaved, the tears back in his eyes.' Since the 1980s, the roles of New Statesman editor and Labour leader seem to have reversed. Starmer seems puzzled and unsure about McTague's interest in him, while McTague insists that the prime minister ought to have something to say to the British people, including the left-wing segment of them that read the New Statesman. McTague sees the magazine's role as being to explore and give voice to whatever it is that the modern Labour Party – or more specifically, the current Labour government – stands for. Yet he seems to come away from his time spent with Starmer with a sense of frustration and disappointment. He sets off on a weeks-long project asking what connects Labour's missions and milestones: 'How do they form a coherent analysis of what has gone wrong in Britain and, therefore, what the government needs to do to fix it? Over the next few weeks, I will come back to these questions again and again, and wonder whether the nation will ever hear a convincing answer to them.' McTague says of Starmer: 'He seems reluctant to poke at the reasons the country is so tense and angry and poor, to analyse the cause of the country's malaise.' One striking feature of the profile is that Starmer's aides seem to have a clearer idea of the government's purpose than the prime minister himself. One of them is quoted as saying: 'If you don't give people hope, you will get the alternative – the destruction of failing institutions.' McTague comments: 'On one level the prime minister appears intellectually to understand the challenge, even sometimes to agree with the analysis. And yet on another, he does not seem able – or willing – to channel such thoughts in a way that the country understands.' It is a damning verdict because McTague is so obviously sympathetic to Starmer the person. It would seem that the latest episode of the on-off relationship between Labour leader and the country's leading left-wing magazine will not end in a breach over an election-losing policy – as was the case with Kinnock and Lloyd – but in a complaint that Starmer seems unable to communicate what he thinks he won the election to do.
