Late last month, U.N.-sponsored negotiations on Kosovo’s final status came to a close — predictably without an agreement. The negotiations have been conducted under the auspices of a “troika” of envoys from the European Union, the United States, and Russia. Dec. 10 is the deadline set for them to complete their work and submit a final report to the U.N. secretary-general. The longstanding demand of the Kosovo Albanian side is well known to the general public: independence. But what has the Serbian government brought to the negotiating table? And what, if any, compromise solutions were proposed by the international mediators? [...]
THE PARTY´S OVER — It was planned as a grand celebration. The occasion: the 25th anniversary of the Spanish Socialist Party´s first election victory following the restoration of democracy in Spain after nearly four decades of Franco Fascism. The evening was all the more festive because the Socialists (PSOE) were back in power under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Even so, the hero of the evening was Felipé Gonzalez, architect of the first election victory in October 1982, but a rather forgotten man among the new generation of Socialists. With new elections scheduled for March, however, the party at the grandly [...]
This past Sunday, Russians went to the polls to vote in national parliamentary elections. The result was hardly in doubt — the United Russia Party of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin swept to victory. Equally predictable was the reaction of most Western media to this largely foreordained result. We are told that Putin is reviving the Soviet Union and that he has been busy building a cult of personality while crushing all political opposition. More importantly, we are told that Putin is reigniting the Cold War rivalry between Russia and the United States. This is the message that we constantly read [...]
