What is "kosovo"

Kosovo (; ; ) is a disputed territory and partially recognised state in Southeast Europe that declared independence from Serbia in February 2008 as the Republic of Kosovo. While Serbia recognises administration of the territory by Kosovo's elected government, it still continues to claim it as its own Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.

Kosovo is landlocked in the central Balkan Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pristina. It is bordered by the Republic of Macedonia and Albania to the south, Montenegro to the west, and the uncontested territory of Serbia to the north and east.

In antiquity, the Dardanian Kingdom, and later the Roman province of Dardania was located in the region. In the Middle Ages it was part of the Byzantine Empire, Bulgarian Empire and Serbia, and many consider the Battle of Kosovo of 1389 to be one of the defining moments in Serbian medieval history. After being part of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th to the early 20th century, in the late 19th century Kosovo became the centre of the Albanian independence movement with the League of Prizren. As a result of the defeat in the First Balkan War (1912–13), the Ottoman Empire ceded the Vilayet of Kosovo to the Balkan League; the Kingdom of Serbia took its larger part, while the Kingdom of Montenegro annexed the western part before both countries joined the Kingdom of Yugoslavia after World War I. After a period of Yugoslav unitarianism in the Kingdom, the post- World War II Yugoslav constitution established the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within the Yugoslav constituent republic of Serbia.

Long-term ethnic tensions between Kosovo's Albanian and Serb populations left the province ethnically divided, resulting in inter-ethnic violence, culminating in the Kosovo War of 1998–99, part of the wider regional Yugoslav Wars. The war ended with a military intervention of NATO, which forced the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to withdraw its troops from Kosovo, which became a UN protectorate under UNSCR 1244. On 17 February 2008 Kosovo's Parliament declared independence. It has since gained diplomatic recognition as a sovereign state by and Taiwan ( Republic of China). Serbia refuses to recognise Kosovo as a state, although with the Brussels Agreement of 2013 it has accepted the legitimacy of Kosovo institutions. The constituent peoples of Kosovo are Kosovo Albanians, who make up majority of the population, and Kosovo Serbs. The country is poor by European standards with high unemployment, still not having fully recovered from the past conflict.

Kosovo is a disputed territory in the Balkans, sometimes referred to as the " Republic of Kosovo", a partially recognised state.

Kosovo may also refer to:

"Kosovo" is a parody of the Beach Boys hit song " Kokomo". It was produced in 1999 by Seattle radio comedian/ radio personality Bob Rivers. It is a direct rip-off of the 1997 version made by Hoezo of the Netherlands, which was never mentioned.

According to Rivers, "...the intent of the song was to mock my own country for its bullying ways around the world. The idea was to point out how casually the U.S. plays World Police. The song takes on the persona of the U.S. government, ridiculing the fact that we push others around without much concern."

In May, 2005, a group of Norwegian peacekeepers in Kosovo (calling themselves the "Shiptare Boys") parodied the music video for "Kokomo," using Rivers' song with their own hand-held video camera footage. In the parody, the soldiers imitate dance moves and scenes from the original music video in desolate war-torn areas around Kosovo. It was widely broadcast in the Balkans, prompting the Norwegian ambassador to formally apologize.

Nicholas Wood of The New York Times wrote,

The trouble started, Mr. Rivers said, when a group of Norwegian soldiers on peacekeeping duty in Kosovo came upon the song in 2002 and decided to make a rock video of it.

The two-and-half-minute video shows four soldiers miming to the music -- dancing on watchtowers and armored trucks, wearing bulletproof vests over their bare chests, performing routines in their military compound and even splashing mineral water on one another.

Over time, the tape (which has a link on Mr. Rivers's Web site, www.bobrivers.com) made its way to the Internet and caught the attention of BK TV, the Serbian television station. When the station broadcast the video, it incited an uproar, and not only because of the dancing and lightly clad soldiers. What was most provocative were the song's lyrics. Verses such as "Protecting human rights, airstrikes and fire-fights / We'll be dropping our bombs wherever Serbian bad guys hide," caused deep offense...

Rivers stated about the music video, "The song has been stolen...and I wish there were a way to stop it."

The group Wartist (named for a Group connecting War and the Arts) made an excellent summary, writing in 2009: "10 Years ago, on 24 March 1999, Operation Allied Force had been started, commonly known as the Kosovo War. The satirical version of a Beach Boys song from the USA was used in 2002 by some Norwegian peacekeepers to make a music video, leading to diplomatic disturbance some years later. The result is still amusing – not the least because of the timeless and transferable text."

The last few seconds of the hand-made video show one of the soldiers being hit by a car, but that has been edited out of many of the video postings. Also, when subtitles were put on the song in Serbia, they mistakenly replaced "Milosevic" with the name of a 14th-century Serb hero. The soldiers, the "Shiptare Boys," also known as the "Shqiptare Boys," had all left the Norwegian Army by the time the investigation took place, so no further action was taken.