NewsTracker Answers for week of Dec. 20, 2010

Q: An international inquiry has concluded that the prime minister of Kosovo led a clan of criminals whose activities included selling heroin and organs extracted from executed war prisoners. Where is Kosovo?

Circle the area on this map


Q: Who was accused international courts of "ethnic cleansing" and other war crimes in the 1999 Kosovo war?

A. Albanians

B. Serbs

C. Both


C. Kosovo's population is mostly ethnic Albanian with a minority of ethnic Serbs. Leaders on both sides were charged with crimes against humanity, but Serbian forces were accused of most of the crimes, including large civilian massacres.


Q: The modern nations of Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia were formed when which country broke apart?

A. Albania

B. Serbia

C. Soviet Union

D. Yugoslavia


D. Yugoslavia was created after World War I from some of the remains of the defeated Austria-Hungary. It was a kingdom until World War II and became a communist nation after that war. In 1991, Yugoslavia began disintegrating in the Yugoslav Wars. Over time, the regions declared independence, and Kosovo was the last in 2008.


Q: The Council of Europe report said the organized crime network led by Prime Minister Hashim Thaci flourished in Kosovo and its southwestern neighbor . . .

A. Albania

B. Macedonia

C. Montenegro

D. Serbia


A. Thaci, who has vehemently denied the charges, was a leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the main ethnic Albanian military force in the 1999 war. The KLA had many camps in neighboring Albania.


Q: Ethnic Serbs and Albanians are separated by language and religion. What religion are most ethnic Albanians?

A. Orthodox Christian

B. Sunni Muslim

C. Roman Catholic

D. Shia Muslim


B. Sunni Islam was brought into the region with the Ottoman conquest in the 15th century and is now nominally professed by most ethnic Albanians. The Serbs were fully Christianized by Byzantine Christian missionaries in the 9th century, and most ethnic Serbs are Serbian Orthodox.