Jasmin Mujanovic, a self-styled ‘proud Wobby’ young left-anarchist based in Canada but with Bosniak roots, has written at some length on the problems of the Dayton Peace Accords. He offers his suggestions for making progress, seemingly a BH-wide series of open meetings at which Bosnians define for themselves new constitutional principles. […]
Here is my latest Telegraph Blog piece about the striking success of young Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, who has beaten a senior Lithuanian colleague to become chair of the UN General Assembly in 2012/2013: The position had been uncontested since 1991, the different regional groupings deciding for themselves in […]
Ann Althouse reminds us of a fascinating account of what was going on in President Gerald Ford’s mind when back in 1976 he made his ruinous observation (at least probably ruinous for his election chances) that there was "no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe": JIM LEHRER: Let’s go back at the […]
Here for all Balkanphiliacs is an interview with me in the Belgrade publication Svedok. In the unlikely event you don’t speak Serbian and/or Google translator blows up under the pressure, here is the English text I sent them which as far as I can see has been reproduced in Serbian […]
Here is another DIPLOMAT piece, this time on ‘transitions’ from communism in Europe: Back in the mid-1980s I was the Foreign Office speechwriter working for Sir Geoffrey Howe. Exciting times. Mikhail Gorbachev was leading the Soviet Union in what looked like a strongly positive new direction. In Poland the Solidarity […]
Why did Boris Tadic lose and Tomislav Nikolic win? This piece sums it up (as written from the point of view of frustrated Serb liberals): This indeed is the main factor that made Tomislav Nikoli
In a result unexpected by me at least (I am not following Serbia’s goings-on too closely these days, and the polls suggested that Tadic would win again) Tomislav Nikolic as leader of the Serbian Progressive Party has won Serbia’s Presidential Elections today by a clear nose, ousting former President Boris […]
Read this fascinating article about anti-semitism in Germany down the decades, and what factors have influenced it. A banquet of food for thought. But this point about the way Nazis were dealt with after WW2 by the Brits and Americans respectively caught my eye: If Germans could be influenced strongly […]
Back to Vienna today to give a course on Advanced Negotiation to a distinguished international organisation. Away all this week, so blogging may well be light. One of the points I make is that issues are like Shrek – they have layers. So part of any negotiation is working out […]
Here’s a fine example of how high-level foreign language skills come in handy when the interpreter deliberately doesn’t translate what has been said to protect her boss from his own impatience: After Bosnia’s first post-conflict elections in 1996, the Contact Group Ambassadors led by High Representative Carl Bildt had to […]
