Not all who lived through the Cold War drew the same conclusions about the USSR/Russia. Most U.S. leaders have a realistic view of Russia–that it is a powerful country with vast stores of nuclear weapons, etc.; that it has vast natural resources, including oil, etc. in its vast territory; that its people are talented and highly educated; and that its political system has not kept up with development toward the rule or law, etc.

A US prosecutor will investigate claims that Hashim Thaci, the Kosovo prime minister, led a criminal network that sold organs of prisoners during the 1998-99 Kosovo war. Dick Marty, a Council of Europe investigator, has alleged that Thaci and other rebel commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army ran detention centres where civilian captives, including Serbs, were killed and their organs sold on the black market. Thaci has denied the allegation and said he is ready to co-operate with any investigation.

Jadranka Kosor, the Croatian prime minister, has hailed two ex-generals jailed by a UN war crimes court for their role in the offensive that ended the 1991-1995 Croatian war on the operation’s anniversary.

Seems that the crisis in northern Kosovo created by Pristina’s polce invasion – it’s special units sent to seize the two boundary posts is being resolved. The northern Serb community reacted on strength to block the roads and there has been only a few reports of gunfire. It could have been worse. EULEX denied it was involved in the police action by the Albanians and the EU said that unilateral actions were not the way to do things. Pristina says it gave EULEX a chance to take the northern posts to enforce it’s blockage of Serbian goods. As EULEX failed to act, Pristina ordered it’s police into action.

The new Rome has not yet become the new Greece. But between the EU and the US it may now be a case of competitive decadence. America definitely still has the edge, but it was a Republican not a Democrat senator I heard say last year “this country is going to become Greece, except we don’t have the European Union to bail us out”. That Americans have obviously now woken up to the hole they’re in is a sign of hope. Less encouraging is the fact that they cannot agree how to get out of it.

The next elections will determine whether Serbia chooses the ‘European perspective’ or the so-called ‘Kosovo path’; whether it will continue to uphold its territorial integrity or seek to amend its constitution in order to join the EU.

The Greek government finds itself trapped between Scylla and Charybdis. The European Union and the International Monetary Fund are demanding drastic spending cuts and large tax rises in return for their emergency funding. But those austerity measures have brought tens of thousands of protesters on to the streets of Athens. And those protests have turned violent. The pressure from above and below is in danger of crushing George Papandreou’s government to death.

As Belgrade prepares to host a military summit which is to be held under the auspices of NATO, some opposition parties and NGOs are launching an anti-NATO campaign.Anti-NATO NGOs and opposition parties are getting ready to stage protests against the international military summit being held in Belgrade from June 13-15 and which will gather some 180 representatives of defence systems worldwide.

Encouraging the rise of new centers of power is worth doing, but the process must be seen as part of a complete revision of how global decisions are made rather than the rise of one group at the expense of another. All five BRICS countries feel that the West has virtually monopolized global discourse. That is not only at odds with the economic and even political alignment of forces, but prevents new decisions from being made.

Everything depends on the main protagonists, with Serbia continuing to stall and to press for unrealistic concessions from the Kosovars. Ahtisaari believes that any delay would “destabilize Kosovo;” to emphasize the seriousness of his point, he has begun arguing that he will recommend that the Finnish Government withdraw its troops from Kosovo if there is any delay beyond the late January/early February timeframe he has established. As for Serb intransigence, PM Kostunica “is hopeless” and continues to lobby Russia