CNN’s Randi Kaye on Ed Schultz’s Rant: ‘There Are Mixed Interpretations’ of the Term ‘Slut’
May 26, 2011 No CommentAttempting to offer a defense of Ed Schultz, CNN's Randi Kaye told guest Howard Kurtz Thursday that “there are mixed interpretations” of the term “slut,” which Schultz called conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham Thursday. Kaye also referred to Laura Ingraham's response to Schultz as “biting,” proving that she possibly was harder on Ingraham than on tyrant Sadaam Hussein back in 2006 . “Yeah, but you know when you hear the word 'slut' – I mean I hate to even say it on our air, to be honest with you – but there are mixed interpretations about the word,” Kaye told Kurtz. The media critic didn't buy it for a second. [Click here for audio. Video below the break.]
Continue reading …Elizabeth Smart tells rapist after nine years: ‘I have a wonderful life now’
May 26, 2011 No Comment
Two life sentences for Brian Mitchell, man who put the 14-year-old girl through ‘nine months of psychological hell’ For nine months, Elizabeth Smart was the victim. There was little she could do but succumb after she was snatched from her bed at knifepoint as a 14-year-old in 2002, kept tied to a tree like an animal and raped repeatedly by a religious fanatic after what he claimed was a wedding ceremony. But a very different Smart was finally able to confront her kidnapper, Brian Mitchell, in court as he was sentenced to two life sentences for the abduction and rapes that stunned a country not unused to violent crime. “I don’t have very much to say to you. I
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Doctors stunned by results of trial carried out in Africa, which showed excess deaths in children who had been treated by Feast A trial in Africa has raised major questions about the safety of the routine treatment given to children suffering from shock in the UK and other developed countries. It is normal in the UK to inject large amounts of fluid very rapidly into children suffering from shock as a result of, for example, septicaemia (blood poisoning) linked to meningitis. But doctors testing the feasibility of this fast rehydration in Africa have found that more children treated this way died than among those who were not. The outcome of the Fluid Expansion As Supportive Therapy (Feast) trial , funded by the UK’s Medical Research Council , took doctors by surprise and will lead to a rethink of the practice around the world. Fluid resuscitation for shock was introduced in Europe and the US several decades ago without a trial, on the basis that it worked for children in shock who were seriously dehydrated from conditions such as gastroenteritis. Now it appears that the practice may be harmful. The Feast trial was stopped early when the excessive number of deaths became apparent. Scientists are now urging the World Health Organisation, which recommends it, to revisit its guidelines. While it is possible children are more vulnerable in Africa because of malnutrition and the severity of diseases such as malaria, doctors say there is no clear reason why an injection of a large amount of fluid through a 15-minute drip – known as a bolus – would be more dangerous in Africa than in Europe. Children in the trial were getting a high standard of care. It is possible that the potential harm has been masked in rich countries by the availability of ventilators to keep children alive. The trial is the result of 10 years’ work led by Kathryn Maitland, a renowned expert on the use of rehydrating fluids who had hoped to save many children’s lives in Africa by introducing what she had thought was a safe treatment widely used elsewhere. “Emergencies come into hospital all the time,” she said. “Children die within hours of coming into hospital. Doctors feel powerless. To have an intervention that might make a difference would have been very important to them.” The only question in her mind was whether the use of boluses would be safe in an African setting. Some experts argued that it would be unethical to give a bolus to some children but not others in a trial because the treatment was so clearly life-saving. Maitland and everybody involved in the research – as well as those in the critical care community around the world who know the result – were stunned by what they found. Because staff in the six participating hospitals – in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania – had been trained in caring for very sick children and had been ensured a constant supply of oxygen and drugs, the death rates among the children generally had gone down. Doctors assumed it was because of the boluses. But when the external data monitoring committee looked at the interim results, they told Maitland the trial was being stopped. “It was a very big shock and it took a while to digest,” she said. “I thought it was because we’d done a bad trial, but it wasn’t that. They were very clear that it was a very well-run trial and we had come up with a very important answer.” Feast monitored the care of 3,170 critically ill children in the six hospitals, all of whom had infections such as malaria and septicaemia which lead to fever. These are leading killers of children, causing about two million deaths a year. There was no shortage of cases – the Ugandan hospitals involved admitted 50,000 to 60,000 children a year and so many arrived with shock that doctors were told not to include more than four a day in the trial. Those enrolled, with their parents’ consent, were divided into three groups. Two groups were given emergency boluses of 20 to 40 millilitres of fluid per kilogram of bodyweight – half of them saline and half albumin (derived from blood products) to see whether there was any difference. All the children received the normal treatment in Africa, which is the slow administration of fluids through a drip. The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine , show survival rates were better than usual. Among those not given a bolus, 92.7% survived. But among the bolus groups, that dropped to 89.4%. That means boluses caused more than three children to die in every hundred treated. Experts believe a trial is now needed in a developed-world setting. “Extrapolating directly from Africa has to be done very carefully,” said Professor Diana Gibb from the MRC clinical trials unit. “Here there is a package of care where kids get fluid and if they really don’t get better, they will go into intensive care and other things will happen including ventilation. “But it is also true that a lot of kids in A&E get boluses of fluid if they look particularly unwell and there might be a diagnosis of sepsis. I suspect because the kids are healthier, it is probably not doing harm but we really don’t know the answer to that.” Dr Jennifer Evans, consultant paediatrician at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, agreed. “At present large numbers of sick children in wealthy countries are routinely given fluid boluses in emergency units and even ambulances before arriving in hospital,” she said. “In the light of the results from Feast it is imperative that we review our current practice and as clinical researchers decide how to evaluate its safety and ask whether it is indeed the best thing to do for our sick children.” Health Africa Medical research Sarah Boseley guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Peter Fonda Says He’s Training His Grandkids to Shoot President Obama? Really?
May 26, 2011 No Comment
enlarge Peter Fonda is upset with the President’s response to the oil spill in the Gulf. This isn’t news; lots of people are and with reason. But Peter Fonda should know better than to say the things he’s saying. I overlooked it the first time, but this time he’s gone too far. In an interview with the Telegraph , he said this: Peter Fonda, the star of Easy Rider, suggested to Mandrake that he was encouraging his grandchildren to shoot President Barack Obama. “ I’m training my grandchildren to use long-range rifles,” said the actor, 71. “For what purpose? Well, I’m not going to say the words ‘Barack Obama’, but …” He added, enigmatically: “It’s more of a thought process than an actuality, but we are heading for a major conflict between the haves and the have nots. I came here many years ago with a biker movie and we stopped a war. Now, it’s about starting the world. “I prefer to not to use the words, ‘let’s stop something’. I prefer to say, ‘let’s start something, let’s start the world’. This follows his braggadocio over sending emails with profanity to the White House. “I sent an email to President Obama saying, ‘You are a f—— traitor,’ using those words… ‘You’re a traitor, you allowed foreign boots on our soil telling our military – in this case the coastguard – what they can and could not do, and telling us, the citizens of the United States, what we could or could not do’.” Here’s my take. Criticize as you will. It’s fine to be critical of the White House response. That’s anyone’s right, even public figures. But it is not fine to suggest that long range rifles should be aimed at the President of the United States, regardless of what you don’t like about this country, and regardless of whether it comes from the right or the left. That goes far beyond the limits of free speech. On this blog, we routinely criticize the right wing for making statements like this. We’re outraged by it. Now we have it coming from one guy on the left, and in my estimation, that makes him just as much of a wingnut as the ones on the right. Forget patriotism. What Fonda just said was a threat and it should be treated like one. Anyone old enough to remember how Jane Fonda was treated by this country when she went to North Viet Nam and criticized the war? She was ostracized as anti-American and unpatriotic. What Peter Fonda said went far beyond that. Far beyond.
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Revelation that CIA forensics team to search for al-Qaida materials comes as Clinton prepares to visit Islamabad Pakistan has agreed to allow a CIA forensics team into Osama bin Laden’s compound to search for al-Qaida materials that may be hidden in the walls or underground. The revelation, reported by the Washington Post , comes on the eve of a visit to Islamabad by the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, in the most senior interaction between the US and Pakistan since the special forces raid on 2 May. The fate of Bin Laden’s house in Abbottabad, 35 miles north of Islamabad, had been one of many sensitive points in tense relations between the two countries. Some Pakistani officials favoured demolishing the three-storey house, which they believed had become a symbol of humiliation. But the US has quietly pressed Pakistan to leave it standing, as they believe it may contain valuable intelligence missed by the navy Seals who stormed it, killing the al Qaida leader. Now CIA agents could enter the house in the coming days – a sign of a slow thaw in relations that Clinton will seek to build upon during meetings with military and civilian leaders in Islamabad. US navy Seals have already seized hundreds of computer disks that are being combed by CIA officials in Virginia. They say it is their largest cache of al-Qaida intelligence ever. Now US intelligence will use infrared cameras and other devices to check for documents or other materials possibly hidden inside walls, safes or underground. Previously the CIA has only viewed the house from satellite images or from a safe house that it operated in Abbotttabad for months without Pakistani knowledge. Two weeks ago Pakistani parliamentarians closed ranks against the US incursion, condemning it as a gross breach of sovereignty. But behind the scenes, senior officials on both sides have worked quietly to put the relationship back on track. The CIA deputy director Michael Morell negotiated access to the Abbottabad during meetings in Islambad with the ISI chief, General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the Washington Post reported. The ISI also agreed to show the CIA materials it recovered from Bin Laden’s house, while the CIA is seeking ISI assistance in analysing some records seized in the raid. A senior ISI official told the Guardian he had no information about the latest development. Osama bin Laden CIA United States Pakistan al-Qaida Global terrorism Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Revelation that CIA forensics team to search for al-Qaida materials comes as Clinton prepares to visit Islamabad Pakistan has agreed to allow a CIA forensics team into Osama bin Laden’s compound to search for al-Qaida materials that may be hidden in the walls or underground. The revelation, reported by the Washington Post , comes on the eve of a visit to Islamabad by the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, in the most senior interaction between the US and Pakistan since the special forces raid on 2 May. The fate of Bin Laden’s house in Abbottabad, 35 miles north of Islamabad, had been one of many sensitive points in tense relations between the two countries. Some Pakistani officials favoured demolishing the three-storey house, which they believed had become a symbol of humiliation. But the US has quietly pressed Pakistan to leave it standing, as they believe it may contain valuable intelligence missed by the navy Seals who stormed it, killing the al Qaida leader. Now CIA agents could enter the house in the coming days – a sign of a slow thaw in relations that Clinton will seek to build upon during meetings with military and civilian leaders in Islamabad. US navy Seals have already seized hundreds of computer disks that are being combed by CIA officials in Virginia. They say it is their largest cache of al-Qaida intelligence ever. Now US intelligence will use infrared cameras and other devices to check for documents or other materials possibly hidden inside walls, safes or underground. Previously the CIA has only viewed the house from satellite images or from a safe house that it operated in Abbotttabad for months without Pakistani knowledge. Two weeks ago Pakistani parliamentarians closed ranks against the US incursion, condemning it as a gross breach of sovereignty. But behind the scenes, senior officials on both sides have worked quietly to put the relationship back on track. The CIA deputy director Michael Morell negotiated access to the Abbottabad during meetings in Islambad with the ISI chief, General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the Washington Post reported. The ISI also agreed to show the CIA materials it recovered from Bin Laden’s house, while the CIA is seeking ISI assistance in analysing some records seized in the raid. A senior ISI official told the Guardian he had no information about the latest development. Osama bin Laden CIA United States Pakistan al-Qaida Global terrorism Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Revelation that CIA forensics team to search for al-Qaida materials comes as Clinton prepares to visit Islamabad Pakistan has agreed to allow a CIA forensics team into Osama bin Laden’s compound to search for al-Qaida materials that may be hidden in the walls or underground. The revelation, reported by the Washington Post , comes on the eve of a visit to Islamabad by the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, in the most senior interaction between the US and Pakistan since the special forces raid on 2 May. The fate of Bin Laden’s house in Abbottabad, 35 miles north of Islamabad, had been one of many sensitive points in tense relations between the two countries. Some Pakistani officials favoured demolishing the three-storey house, which they believed had become a symbol of humiliation. But the US has quietly pressed Pakistan to leave it standing, as they believe it may contain valuable intelligence missed by the navy Seals who stormed it, killing the al Qaida leader. Now CIA agents could enter the house in the coming days – a sign of a slow thaw in relations that Clinton will seek to build upon during meetings with military and civilian leaders in Islamabad. US navy Seals have already seized hundreds of computer disks that are being combed by CIA officials in Virginia. They say it is their largest cache of al-Qaida intelligence ever. Now US intelligence will use infrared cameras and other devices to check for documents or other materials possibly hidden inside walls, safes or underground. Previously the CIA has only viewed the house from satellite images or from a safe house that it operated in Abbotttabad for months without Pakistani knowledge. Two weeks ago Pakistani parliamentarians closed ranks against the US incursion, condemning it as a gross breach of sovereignty. But behind the scenes, senior officials on both sides have worked quietly to put the relationship back on track. The CIA deputy director Michael Morell negotiated access to the Abbottabad during meetings in Islambad with the ISI chief, General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the Washington Post reported. The ISI also agreed to show the CIA materials it recovered from Bin Laden’s house, while the CIA is seeking ISI assistance in analysing some records seized in the raid. A senior ISI official told the Guardian he had no information about the latest development. Osama bin Laden CIA United States Pakistan al-Qaida Global terrorism Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
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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
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