Here’s another little USA extradition headache for an eastern European country, but unlike the Serbian case where it’s a bar fight that turned out very badly, this one is a tiny little slice of the global nature of the current financial crisis.  At issue is the whereabouts of Bulgarian-born Julian Tzolov, whom federal prosecutors would [...]

So, a happy surprise: Turkey’s Supreme Court didn’t outlaw the governing party. But it did rap them sharply across the knuckles, cut their funding and put them on notice.
At first glance, this looks like a good outcome. Maybe a very good outcome. The Court saves its face and dignity, but doesn’t thwart [...]

While researching the recent floods in the Ukraine, I stumbled across this wince-inducingly stupid article. It appeared a few weeks ago in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
The article is by Richard Wagner, a Transylvanian German writer. (Well, former Transylvanian. Like most T-Germans, he emigrated from Romania as soon as he could [...]

If anyone qualifies as candidate material for the position of the new Solar King, then David Miliband certainly does. So perhaps the young contender doesn’t have to say anything, he just has to be heard to speak. For potential admirers, tone is what matters, and as far as that goes he seems to have banged [...]

It’s sometimes hard to get solid news about Transnistria. No international news agencies report regularly from there, and it doesn’t have a good English-language site. News stories about the breakaway state tend to come out of Russia, Moldova or Ukraine, often in the local languages.
So it’s not clear what impact the recent flooding [...]

It’s hard to tell today whether the pessimism regarding the WTO talks which are supposed to conclude in Geneva tomorrow is just standard last minute brinkmanship or a sign of serious trouble.  But there is at least one strange aspect to the US position, which has been critical of China and India in the last few days.

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It’s Playmobil Funpark, just outside of Nuremberg.
– Big: you can stay all day and still not do everything.
– Cheap: just 6.50 per kid. Food prices are also reasonable (okay, by amusement park standards) and you can bring a picnic if you like.
– Varied: whether your kid wants to climb, dig, play, or run around [...]

It seems self-proclaimed guru Dragan Dabic aka Radovan Karadzic may possess some healing powers after all. At least, that is what some Dutch Srebrenica veterans hope (hat tip Eric Gordy):
Former Dutchbat soldier Johan de Jonge is elated about Mr Karadzic’ arrest. He hopes there will be less focus on the former Dutchbat soldiers now that [...]

The story is explained here.  Short version: 21 year old Miladin Kovacevic, recruited by Binghampton University in western New York state is alleged to have beaten a fellow student to a coma, along with 2 accomplices.  His passport was seized when he was bailed but the Serbian consulate in Manhattan issued him an emergency passport [...]

Can’t find any pictures yet, but I’ve seen blogs of people coming up from Prague just to see him. That’s about a five-hour trip each way by train (no ICE connection yet). Expectations on the radio this morning were that the event would be huge.
Wish I could be there, but we’re getting packed up to [...]