Commander of worst crimes in Europe since Nazis is expected to face genocide trial in The Hague after years of impunity Europe’s most wanted war crimes suspect, General Ratko Mladic, was arrested in a north Serbian village 16 years after commanding the worst atrocity on the continent since the Nazi era. The surprise arrest of the genocide suspect, wanted for the mass murder of almost 8,000 men in Srebenica, turned a page in the history of the Balkans, offering Serbia closure on decades as a virtual international pariah and giving the country a chance to take its place as a pivotal regional democracy eventually anchored in the European Union. Mladic faces 15 charges of war crimes. “We have lifted the stain from Serbia and from Serbs wherever they live,” said President Boris Tadic, announcing the arrest of the longtime fugitive who had been living in a cousin’s cottage in a village north-east of Belgrade under the alias Milorad Komadic. “We have ended a difficult period in our history,” Tadic added. The 69-year-old retired general, who commanded the Bosnian Serb military during the 1992-95 war and earned a fearsome reputation as the Butcher of Bosnia, was taken to a special court in Belgrade pending extradition to the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Mladic appeared in court on Thursday night, looking frail and walking slowly. He wore a baseball cap and could be heard on state TV saying “good day” to those present. Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime political leader arrested three years ago, is on trial in The Hague on similar charges to Mladic. To speed the proceedings, there will be attempts to merge the two trials into one, sources in The Hague said. In a message from his cell on the Dutch coast, Karadzic said he was “very sorry” for Mladic’s “loss of freedom”. According to officials in Belgrade and accounts to the Serbian media, Mladic wore no disguise and put up no resistance when detained by the Serbian security service in the village of Lazarevo in a cottage belonging to a cousin, also bearing the name Mladic. The general was said to have aged, to have suffered a stroke, and to be paralysed in one arm. “I am Ratko Mladic,” he reportedly said when arrested. Local people took to the streets to show their support for Mladic, singing Serbian nationalist songs. “To us, Mladic is a hero, a military hero,” said one, who would only give his name as Paul. “He protected us from Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, even Slovenia. He saved our families,” he said. The image of a frail and sickly rural retiree was a far cry from the strutting, imperious commander of the 1990s who was a monstrous figure to the Muslims of Bosnia and whose name is synonymous with the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 when Mladic’s forces overran the Bosnian Muslim “safe haven” hill town, then methodically rounded up the males and murdered almost 8,000. Mladic will be allowed to appeal against extradition, Belgrade prosecutors said, meaning it could be at least a week before he is flown to the Netherlands. The Serbian government is under strong international pressure to get Mladic to The Hague. Tadic said preparations were under way to send Mladic to The Netherlands. “Mladic will face the charges against him in the international tribunal,” said Lady Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief. Serge Brammertz, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, said: “We await arrangements for his transfer to The Hague where he will stand trial.” Barack Obama, in France for the G8 summit, said Mladic must answer to his victims and the world in a court of law. The arrest represents a huge boost to Serbia’s attempts to move on from a violent past and to try to catch up with other parts of the Balkans in the race towards integration in the EU and possibly Nato. European leaders united in praising Serbia’s sudden move, talking up the prospects of opening negotiations with Belgrade later this year on joining the EU. The arrest came as a coda to the experiment in international justice that has been the Hague tribunal for almost 20 years. Only one of 161 people charged with war crimes remains at large – Goran Hadzic, a wartime leader of the Croatian Serbs. The continued liberty of Mladic, the most notorious of the Balkan warlords of the 90s, has been the biggest block on Serbia’s international ambitions for years. Following the arrest and extradition in 2008 of Karadzic, as well as the transfer of the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague in 2001, Belgrade is confident it is now washing away the stigma of war crimes. The Srebrenica massacre was the worst atrocity in Europe for decades and the only event in Bosnia that the tribunal has judged to have been an act of genocide in a war that left 100,000 dead, two thirds of them Bosnian Muslims. Mladic also faces charges of orchestrating a campaign of terror against the civilian population of Sarajevo, the city his forces kept under siege for more than three years during which 10,000 were killed, of taking UN peacekeepers hostage, and of “the murders, persecution, forcible transfer, detention and mistreatment of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the campaign to permanently remove such persons from the territory under the control of [his] forces”. Munira Subasic, who heads the association of Bosnian women who lost sons, fathers and husbands at Srebrenica, said: “I’m sorry for all the victims who are dead and cannot see this day.” When Mladic was indicted by the tribunal in 1995, the judge described the alleged crimes as “truly scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history”. The evidence collected by the prosecution, said Judge Fouad Riad, pointed to deeds of “unimaginable savagery – thousands of men executed and buried in mass graves, hundreds of men buried alive, men and women mutilated and slaughtered, children killed before their mothers’ eyes, a grandfather forced to eat the liver of his own grandson”. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato secretary general, said: “Mladic played a key role in some of the darkest episodes of Balkan and European history.” Additional reporting by Kevin Burden in Lazarevo. Ratko Mladic Radovan Karadzic Serbia Europe Bosnia and Herzegovina War crimes European Union Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Commander of worst crimes in Europe since Nazis is expected to face genocide trial in The Hague after years of impunity Europe’s most wanted war crimes suspect, General Ratko Mladic, was arrested in a north Serbian village 16 years after commanding the worst atrocity on the continent since the Nazi era. The surprise arrest of the genocide suspect, wanted for the mass murder of almost 8,000 men in Srebenica, turned a page in the history of the Balkans, offering Serbia closure on decades as a virtual international pariah and giving the country a chance to take its place as a pivotal regional democracy eventually anchored in the European Union. Mladic faces 15 charges of war crimes. “We have lifted the stain from Serbia and from Serbs wherever they live,” said President Boris Tadic, announcing the arrest of the longtime fugitive who had been living in a cousin’s cottage in a village north-east of Belgrade under the alias Milorad Komadic. “We have ended a difficult period in our history,” Tadic added. The 69-year-old retired general, who commanded the Bosnian Serb military during the 1992-95 war and earned a fearsome reputation as the Butcher of Bosnia, was taken to a special court in Belgrade pending extradition to the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Mladic appeared in court on Thursday night, looking frail and walking slowly. He wore a baseball cap and could be heard on state TV saying “good day” to those present. Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime political leader arrested three years ago, is on trial in The Hague on similar charges to Mladic. To speed the proceedings, there will be attempts to merge the two trials into one, sources in The Hague said. In a message from his cell on the Dutch coast, Karadzic said he was “very sorry” for Mladic’s “loss of freedom”. According to officials in Belgrade and accounts to the Serbian media, Mladic wore no disguise and put up no resistance when detained by the Serbian security service in the village of Lazarevo in a cottage belonging to a cousin, also bearing the name Mladic. The general was said to have aged, to have suffered a stroke, and to be paralysed in one arm. “I am Ratko Mladic,” he reportedly said when arrested. Local people took to the streets to show their support for Mladic, singing Serbian nationalist songs. “To us, Mladic is a hero, a military hero,” said one, who would only give his name as Paul. “He protected us from Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, even Slovenia. He saved our families,” he said. The image of a frail and sickly rural retiree was a far cry from the strutting, imperious commander of the 1990s who was a monstrous figure to the Muslims of Bosnia and whose name is synonymous with the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 when Mladic’s forces overran the Bosnian Muslim “safe haven” hill town, then methodically rounded up the males and murdered almost 8,000. Mladic will be allowed to appeal against extradition, Belgrade prosecutors said, meaning it could be at least a week before he is flown to the Netherlands. The Serbian government is under strong international pressure to get Mladic to The Hague. Tadic said preparations were under way to send Mladic to The Netherlands. “Mladic will face the charges against him in the international tribunal,” said Lady Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief. Serge Brammertz, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, said: “We await arrangements for his transfer to The Hague where he will stand trial.” Barack Obama, in France for the G8 summit, said Mladic must answer to his victims and the world in a court of law. The arrest represents a huge boost to Serbia’s attempts to move on from a violent past and to try to catch up with other parts of the Balkans in the race towards integration in the EU and possibly Nato. European leaders united in praising Serbia’s sudden move, talking up the prospects of opening negotiations with Belgrade later this year on joining the EU. The arrest came as a coda to the experiment in international justice that has been the Hague tribunal for almost 20 years. Only one of 161 people charged with war crimes remains at large – Goran Hadzic, a wartime leader of the Croatian Serbs. The continued liberty of Mladic, the most notorious of the Balkan warlords of the 90s, has been the biggest block on Serbia’s international ambitions for years. Following the arrest and extradition in 2008 of Karadzic, as well as the transfer of the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague in 2001, Belgrade is confident it is now washing away the stigma of war crimes. The Srebrenica massacre was the worst atrocity in Europe for decades and the only event in Bosnia that the tribunal has judged to have been an act of genocide in a war that left 100,000 dead, two thirds of them Bosnian Muslims. Mladic also faces charges of orchestrating a campaign of terror against the civilian population of Sarajevo, the city his forces kept under siege for more than three years during which 10,000 were killed, of taking UN peacekeepers hostage, and of “the murders, persecution, forcible transfer, detention and mistreatment of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the campaign to permanently remove such persons from the territory under the control of [his] forces”. Munira Subasic, who heads the association of Bosnian women who lost sons, fathers and husbands at Srebrenica, said: “I’m sorry for all the victims who are dead and cannot see this day.” When Mladic was indicted by the tribunal in 1995, the judge described the alleged crimes as “truly scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history”. The evidence collected by the prosecution, said Judge Fouad Riad, pointed to deeds of “unimaginable savagery – thousands of men executed and buried in mass graves, hundreds of men buried alive, men and women mutilated and slaughtered, children killed before their mothers’ eyes, a grandfather forced to eat the liver of his own grandson”. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato secretary general, said: “Mladic played a key role in some of the darkest episodes of Balkan and European history.” Additional reporting by Kevin Burden in Lazarevo. Ratko Mladic Radovan Karadzic Serbia Europe Bosnia and Herzegovina War crimes European Union Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Commander of worst crimes in Europe since Nazis is expected to face genocide trial in The Hague after years of impunity Europe’s most wanted war crimes suspect, General Ratko Mladic, was arrested in a north Serbian village 16 years after commanding the worst atrocity on the continent since the Nazi era. The surprise arrest of the genocide suspect, wanted for the mass murder of almost 8,000 men in Srebenica, turned a page in the history of the Balkans, offering Serbia closure on decades as a virtual international pariah and giving the country a chance to take its place as a pivotal regional democracy eventually anchored in the European Union. Mladic faces 15 charges of war crimes. “We have lifted the stain from Serbia and from Serbs wherever they live,” said President Boris Tadic, announcing the arrest of the longtime fugitive who had been living in a cousin’s cottage in a village north-east of Belgrade under the alias Milorad Komadic. “We have ended a difficult period in our history,” Tadic added. The 69-year-old retired general, who commanded the Bosnian Serb military during the 1992-95 war and earned a fearsome reputation as the Butcher of Bosnia, was taken to a special court in Belgrade pending extradition to the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Mladic appeared in court on Thursday night, looking frail and walking slowly. He wore a baseball cap and could be heard on state TV saying “good day” to those present. Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime political leader arrested three years ago, is on trial in The Hague on similar charges to Mladic. To speed the proceedings, there will be attempts to merge the two trials into one, sources in The Hague said. In a message from his cell on the Dutch coast, Karadzic said he was “very sorry” for Mladic’s “loss of freedom”. According to officials in Belgrade and accounts to the Serbian media, Mladic wore no disguise and put up no resistance when detained by the Serbian security service in the village of Lazarevo in a cottage belonging to a cousin, also bearing the name Mladic. The general was said to have aged, to have suffered a stroke, and to be paralysed in one arm. “I am Ratko Mladic,” he reportedly said when arrested. Local people took to the streets to show their support for Mladic, singing Serbian nationalist songs. “To us, Mladic is a hero, a military hero,” said one, who would only give his name as Paul. “He protected us from Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, even Slovenia. He saved our families,” he said. The image of a frail and sickly rural retiree was a far cry from the strutting, imperious commander of the 1990s who was a monstrous figure to the Muslims of Bosnia and whose name is synonymous with the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 when Mladic’s forces overran the Bosnian Muslim “safe haven” hill town, then methodically rounded up the males and murdered almost 8,000. Mladic will be allowed to appeal against extradition, Belgrade prosecutors said, meaning it could be at least a week before he is flown to the Netherlands. The Serbian government is under strong international pressure to get Mladic to The Hague. Tadic said preparations were under way to send Mladic to The Netherlands. “Mladic will face the charges against him in the international tribunal,” said Lady Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief. Serge Brammertz, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, said: “We await arrangements for his transfer to The Hague where he will stand trial.” Barack Obama, in France for the G8 summit, said Mladic must answer to his victims and the world in a court of law. The arrest represents a huge boost to Serbia’s attempts to move on from a violent past and to try to catch up with other parts of the Balkans in the race towards integration in the EU and possibly Nato. European leaders united in praising Serbia’s sudden move, talking up the prospects of opening negotiations with Belgrade later this year on joining the EU. The arrest came as a coda to the experiment in international justice that has been the Hague tribunal for almost 20 years. Only one of 161 people charged with war crimes remains at large – Goran Hadzic, a wartime leader of the Croatian Serbs. The continued liberty of Mladic, the most notorious of the Balkan warlords of the 90s, has been the biggest block on Serbia’s international ambitions for years. Following the arrest and extradition in 2008 of Karadzic, as well as the transfer of the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague in 2001, Belgrade is confident it is now washing away the stigma of war crimes. The Srebrenica massacre was the worst atrocity in Europe for decades and the only event in Bosnia that the tribunal has judged to have been an act of genocide in a war that left 100,000 dead, two thirds of them Bosnian Muslims. Mladic also faces charges of orchestrating a campaign of terror against the civilian population of Sarajevo, the city his forces kept under siege for more than three years during which 10,000 were killed, of taking UN peacekeepers hostage, and of “the murders, persecution, forcible transfer, detention and mistreatment of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the campaign to permanently remove such persons from the territory under the control of [his] forces”. Munira Subasic, who heads the association of Bosnian women who lost sons, fathers and husbands at Srebrenica, said: “I’m sorry for all the victims who are dead and cannot see this day.” When Mladic was indicted by the tribunal in 1995, the judge described the alleged crimes as “truly scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history”. The evidence collected by the prosecution, said Judge Fouad Riad, pointed to deeds of “unimaginable savagery – thousands of men executed and buried in mass graves, hundreds of men buried alive, men and women mutilated and slaughtered, children killed before their mothers’ eyes, a grandfather forced to eat the liver of his own grandson”. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato secretary general, said: “Mladic played a key role in some of the darkest episodes of Balkan and European history.” Additional reporting by Kevin Burden in Lazarevo. Ratko Mladic Radovan Karadzic Serbia Europe Bosnia and Herzegovina War crimes European Union Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Why hasn’t Roger Ailes been called out by the media for recruiting Chris Christie to run for president?
May 26, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media I meant to write about this sooner after reading the NY Mag article, but time flies. We all know that Roger Ailes fashions himself a GOP kingmaker, but can you imagine the the outcry by the RWNM and all media critics if the head of a cable news network called a Democratic Governor or an active military man and begged him to run for President? NY Mag: A few months ago, Ailes called Chris Christie and encouraged him to jump into the race. Last summer, he’d invited Christie to dinner at his upstate compound along with Rush Limbaugh, and like much of the GOP Establishment, he fell hard for Christie, who nevertheless politely turned down Ailes’s calls to run. Ailes had also hoped that David Petraeus would run for president, but Petraeus too has decided to sit this election out, choosing to stay on the counterterrorism front lines as the head of Barack Obama’s CIA. If the head of any other news network tried to shape a single political party’s presidential primaries, they would rightly be decried for the unequivocal bias it revealed — not to mention the breathtaking absence of ethics, But when Ailes does it, it’s “nothing to see here, move right along.” Back in February of 2010, Roger Ailes told ABC that all he was interested was in ratings and not politics. WALTERS: But you hired her to be a commentator. Do you think — so you must think she has some qualifications? She seems to be very popular with certain groups. Do you think she has the qualifications to be president? AILES: Fox News is fair and balanced. We had Geraldine Ferraro on for 10 years as the only woman the Democrats ever nominated. Now we have the only woman that the Republicans nominated. I’m not in politics, I’m in ratings. We’re willing. HUFFINGTON: Roger, you clearly are in ratings, but if you are in ratings, can you explain to me why Fox went away from the meeting the president was having in — why did you go away, 20 minutes before the end? AILES: Because we’re the most trusted name in news. That’s another baldfaced lie, right Roger? IOKIYAR
Continue reading …Polaroid GL10 instant mobile printer now available for pre-order, Lady Gaga-approved
May 26, 2011 No Comment
So you still can’t stun ‘em in a pair of Haus of Gaga-designed camera glasses , but the Polaroid GL10 instant mobile printer is now officially available for pre-order — and rumored to be making an early debut in the men’s accessories section at Bloomingdale’s in NYC. The first of the pop star’s Grey Label devices to make it to market, the GL10 connects wirelessly via Bluetooth to smartphones (including Android, Blackberry, and Windows phones) and via USB to computers and digital cameras. The little thing weighs 15 ounces, prints 3 x 4-inch classic Polaroid-style or full bleed prints, and boasts a Li-ion battery apparently capable of spitting out 35 photos per charge. Now you can make a real gallery of all those “this is my lunch” pictures you’ve been forcing on your Facebook friends for the past few years — that is, if you’re willing to drop $170 for a surprisingly understated celebrity-backed photo printer. Polaroid GL10 instant mobile printer now available for pre-order, Lady Gaga-approved originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 May 2011 14:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …If it weren’t for that pesky electronic bracelet, Dominique Strauss-Kahn would be living the good life: The Tribeca townhouse he just moved into has its own theater, gym, and spa, sources tell the Guardian . The former IMF boss landed at the 6,800-square-foot red brick house yesterday after a stint…
Continue reading …Despite the five Senate Republicans who voted against Paul Ryan’s Medicare overhaul yesterday, the GOP remains wedded to the divisive, and increasingly unpopular , plan. Rather than back off, Republicans are responding by increasing attacks on the Democrats’ position, the Wall Street Journal reports. “We need to make it a choice…
Continue reading …
Judges back law that penalises firms hiring illegal immigrants despite civil rights challenge and condemnation by Obama The US supreme court has upheld an Arizona law allowing the state to shut down businesses that hire illegal immigrants, a ruling arising from the fierce national debate on immigration policy. The court’s majority opinion, written by its chief justice, John Roberts, rejected arguments by business and civil rights groups and the Obama administration that the Arizona law conflicted with federal immigration law and must be struck down. The supreme court’s decision could spur other states and cities to adopt their own tough anti-immigration measures. The 2007 law backed by the court is different from the strict Arizona law adopted last year and criticised by Barack Obama. It required the police to check the immigration status of anyone in the state suspected of being in the US illegally . A federal judge and a US appeals court put the newer law’s most controversial provisions on hold . Arizona has said it will appeal that ruling to the supreme court. About 11 million illegal immigrants are believed to be in the US. Immigration has become a huge issue in states such as Arizona on the border with Mexico. The Arizona law suspends or revokes licences to do business in the state as a penalty against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. It requires employers to use an electronic verification system to check the work authorisation status of employees through federal records. The Legal Arizona Workers Act was adopted after a federal immigration overhaul law ran aground in Congress in 2007. The Obama administration and Congress have been unable to agree on comprehensive immigration measures. A US appeals court upheld the Arizona business law, and by a 5-3 vote the supreme court affirmed that ruling. “Arizona has taken the route least likely to cause tension with federal law,” Roberts concluded in the 27-page opinion. Liberal justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented and said they would hold that the Arizona law was pre-empted by federal law. US immigration United States Arizona Obama administration US politics guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Officials in Missouri have released a list of 232 names of people unaccounted for after a tornado hit Joplin. Officials know some of them are dead, but wouldn’t say how many. (May 26)
Continue reading …
Borrowing the phraseology of left-wing bloggers, NBC Justice correspondent Pete Williams has (so far) thrice invoked Nazi terminology to describe SB-1070, the Arizona immigration law that continues to be the object of liberal scorn. The first reference occurred today during the 10 a.m. EDT hour of “Jansing & Co.,” when Williams called the state measure the “show us your papers law.” Moments later, Williams led the top of 11 a.m. EDT hour of “MSNBC Live” by repeating the “show us your papers” line. The NBC correspondent took a break for about an hour before rephrasing the legislation during the 12 p.m. EDT hour as the “round up the usual suspects law.” In using police-state nomenclature, Williams joins an exclusive club of liberal bloggers whose cognitive abilities are limited to comparing the Republican Party to the Third Reich: On the Huffington Post , one creative headline reads: “Arizona's SB1070 Gestapo Law Reveals Right Wing Version of 'Liberty.'” On the ACLU of Nevada's site, the liberal attorneys employ esoteric legalese that would send Justice Scalia scrambling for the nearest thesaurus: “Arizona's 'show me your papers' law dealt a stunning blow.” Over at Firedoglake , one blogger triumphantly trumpets: “Obama DOJ files suit against Arizona’s 'show me your papers' law today.” With the rest of the day ahead of him, Williams has plenty of time to think of fun, new ways to repackage his Nazi propaganda. –Alex Fitzsimmons is a News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
Continue reading …