A decade after a three-year war in Bosnia gave way to an ethnically divided government, all signs pointed yesterday to a constitutional overhaul that could erase divisions and set the stage for the Balkan country's entry into the EU.
The clincher was likely to be applied under the supervision of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was presiding over a lavish luncheon to celebrate the 1995 Dayton Accords, that were engineered by president Bill Clinton's administration and negotiated and signed at Dayton, Ohio.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, then the US spokesman and now the chief negotiator, foresaw late Monday an accord that would replace a three-presidents arrangement with a single president and potentially point the way to a strong prime minister and a strong parliament.
Burns said the idea is to have political party leaders work out details before elections next year.
Six months ago, while Burns was in the capital Sarajevo, a major step to reform occurred when a single defense ministry was formed out of two armies, two defense ministers and two chiefs of staff.
With leaders of the Bosnian, Serb and Croatian communities all in Washington for the anniversary celebration of the Dayton Accords, Burns said that having come all the way to Washington, he believed they would come together tomorrow on a statement.
"We're not there yet. We don't have an agreement yet," Burns said. "But I'm confident that they're heading in that direction."
Bosnia currently has a weak government. For example, it has 14 education departments. European leaders have warned that the situation must be revised before Bosnia can enter the EU.
In rare tribute by a Bush administration official to its predecessor, Burns praised the accords reached in Dayton, Ohio, "as a seminal moment in American diplomacy."
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS