Kosovo's Woes Continue

CNN reported that eggs and stones at Kosovo's prime minister in response to the upcoming elections in the former Serbian province. This will be Kosovo's first elections since declaring independence. The bit of unrest, though mild, has been an unfortunate departure from the largely peaceful lead-up to the elections. These ethnic tension's surfacing is not altogether surprising when considering Kosovo's road to independence, which was really nothing short of groundbreaking. The nation essentially created new definitions of sovereignty when it declared independence the day in 2008 after electing a moderate leader, and deciding that they had met all of the "standards before status" conditions set out in the UN's Resolution 1244. Immediately afterward a handful of EU countries and the U.S. recognized them as a sovereign nation, while the rest of the world refused. Though many other nations came on the Kosovo bandwagon slowly but surely, this way of going about declaring statehood truly changed the traditional process. New definitions of what makes a state a state were tested for the first time, as in the early days 44 out of 150 nations. So inevitably this shaky beginning is adding fuel to the resentment fire of ethnic Serb's currently living in the province. Only time will tell whether the testy Balkans which once ignited World War I have really simmered down.