Serbia appeared to be heading for renewed international isolation on Tuesday night when new Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica unveiled a nationalist agenda calling for the ethnic division of Kosovo and opposing the transfer of war-crimes suspects to the international tribunal in The Hague.
After two months of haggling over the shape of the new government, Kostunica, a conservative nationalist former president of Yugoslavia, headed a minority government in the newly formed parliament.
It will be shored up by the tacit support of Slobodan Milosevic's Serbian Socialist party.
Three years ago, Kostunica helped overthrow Milosevic, who is on trial in The Hague for war crimes.
The price paid for its support was clear from Kostunica's statement to parliament in Belgrade of his government's policies.
Although the EU, the US and the tribunal are pressing Belgrade to transfer 15 war-crimes suspects for trial, Kostunica said that all accused Serbs should be tried at home, a prospect that inspires little confidence in the West or in former Yugoslavia.
He also called on The Hague to return all convicted Serbs to serve their sentences at home.
The elections at the end of December deepened Serbia's crisis by giving victory to the neo-fascist Radicals, led by the war-crimes indictee Vojislav Seselj, who is held in The Hague awaiting trial.
His party was unable to form a government.
Western diplomats in Belgrade are alarmed at the direction being taken by Kostunica, and the EU has been issuing warnings. Belgrade may also have to forego US$100 million in American aid because of its recalcitrance in handling war crimes.
Kostunica called for a division of the province of Kosovo, currently administered by the UN and most of whose inhabitants are ethnic Albanians, to safeguard the Serbian minority there.
If that were to happen it would would pave the way for the partition of the province.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS