I don’t share your doom and gloom scenario for Serbian athletes, and indeed they’ve had quite a bit of success in the last week or so.

The Serbs won the European U20 Basketball tournament, they had tennis success, and they won the junior waterpolo championship as well:

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=49734

Young Serbs clinch Euro crown as Turkey wins silver
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/5208754.stm

Djokovic powers to first tour win

Novak Djokovic beat fourth seed Nicolas Massu in the Priority Telecom Open final to claim his first ATP title.

Both players had their serve broken in the opening set before 19-year-old Serb Djokovic won a tense tie-break.

They again traded breaks early in set two before Djokovic struck again in the fourth game before sealing a 7-6 6-4 victory in Amersfoort, Holland.
Djokovic is the first Serb player to win the clay-court event and achieved the feat without dropping a set.

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http://www.tanjug.co.yu/news.aspx?rbx=15&rbxn=Sports

SCG JUNIORS WIN EUROPEAN WATERPOLO CHAMPIONSHIP

29.7.2006 17:02 BELGRADE, (Tanjug) - The Serbia-Montenegro juniors won Saturday the European waterpolo championship in Romania by beating Hungary with 12-11 (4-3, 5-4, 1-3, 2-1).

Now he is disliked by almost everybody and the internationals love him. 10 percent is a high estimate for his support - very high.
Its my opinion that SPO is undergoing a change in that they are now touting for the support of pro EU moderately patriotic city types. They are leaving their rural electoral base for good.

The populism of Don King without the murdering tendancies that King has Warchild. Vuk’s not evil, well I dont think he is anyway.

I’m not sure Doug that we have seen the last of this government yet. Three main factors what they agree to divvy up behind closed doors, what the internationals want and what the polls say. SPS are very easily bribed with more positions in government run companies.

Good point about privatisation BTW. People should be reminded about this fact since some now see Milosevic as some kind of antiglobalist socialist. If true it was a very late conversion that begun the moment he was ousted from power.

I may not think much of Dan Brown’s writing, but _The Da Vinci Code_ has killed a lot of trees.

Vuk, same-same. I’m afraid that both his novels and his nonfiction have sold and sold. The novels seem to have dropped off the shelves recently; I suspect they haven’t aged well. But still: he has made a very good living with his pen.

I don’t understand Vuk’s appeal, but there are a lot of things in this world I don’t understand. It’s a plain fact that about one Serb in ten really believes that “Vuk — Zna Put!”

My impression is that Vuk’s support isn’t broad, but it is deep… the people who like him aren’t more than 10% or so, but they _really_ like him. And they’re not going to change their minds.

Doug M.

I think you forgot a “/” after dissident. Otherwise you would be acknowledging Vuk’s writing skills.

Whenever I see Vuk speak the box promoter Don King comes to mind. Am I far off?

Obviously you’re not a citizen of the EU.

it seems illogical that Serbia should offer more compassionate concessions

Actually, forcing the Montenegrins to get visas is not logical at all. It’s stupid.

Bright, ambitious Montenegrins have been moving north to Serbia for the last 80 years. This has been a huge benefit to Serbia.

While the rest of Europe is integrating into a single labor market, you want to chop yours even smaller?

to people who voted for outright independence from Serbia.

This is just silly vindictiveness — punishing the Montegrins for making you feel bad. And it’s doubly silly because the Montenegrins resident in Serbia couldn’t even vote in the independence referendum. You want to punish people who had nothing to do with it.

There’s no iron law that says you have to make the Montenegrins get visas. It’s a choice. And if the Kostunica government has any sense, it will choose not to.

Doug M.

Every other country in the world requires foreign citizens to apply for a work visa prior to working in that country-it seems illogical that Serbia should offer more compassionate concessions to people who voted for outright independence from Serbia.

Uh huh. Cite for this?

Note that privatization started in 1995, under Slobo. Although “privatization”, Slobo-style, meant selling monopolies and state assets at fire-sale prices to family members, cronies, and top members of the Socialist Party and JUL.

Foreign students pay for education everywhere in the world. Same goes with health care

I didn’t say anything about either of those. I was referring to (for instance) the suggestion that federal-era pensions would no longer be paid to Montenegrins, or that Montenegrins resident in Serbia would have to buy visas and register with the police.

Doug M.

Nice description…
http://www.lunov.com