The EU is to break off negotiations with Bosnia on eventual membership unless its feuding leaders agree to radical police reforms, the country's international governor warned on Wednesday.
Miroslav Lajcak, a Slovak diplomat who took over the running of Bosnia 10 weeks ago, said that he had given Bosnia's rival political leaders an ultimatum -- agree to the creation of a single national police structure by the end of the month or see the negotiations with Brussels frozen.
"If there is no agreement on the police, the international community will have to react," Lajcak, Bosnia's "high representative", an all-powerful post created in 1995, said. "There will be no business as usual. We won't beat around the bush. We'll name names. We have three weeks."
The country's bitterly hostile Serbian and Bosnian Muslim leaders are at odds over the sensitive police issue in a country divided along ethnic lines into a Serbian half and a Bosnian-Croat federation as a result of the 1992-1995 war.
The police structures reflect the ethnic division of the country, with each of the two "entities" empowered to run their own police forces.
The Bosnian Serb leader, Milorad Dodik, has resisted all attempts to form a national police force over the past two years and to cede authority over the police to the national government.
The Bosnian Muslim leader, Haris Silajdzic, has also rejected the police project because it does not go far enough.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
A South Korean judge who last week more than doubled former South Korean first lady Kim Keon-hee’s prison sentence was found dead yesterday, police said. Shin Jong-o was found unconscious at about 1am at the Seoul High Court building, an investigator at the Seocho District Police Station in Seoul said. Shin was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, he said. “There is no sign of foul play in the death,” the investigator added. Local media reported that Shin had left a suicide note, but the investigator said there was none. On Tuesday last week, Shin presided over 53-year-old Kim’s appeal trial, finding her guilty
RSS