Tracy Morgan is facing serious heat for a violently homophobic diatribe he allegedly made at a stand-up show last Friday. According to an audience member’s account of the rant, the comedian said that if his son was gay, he’d stab him to death. For years, Morgan has said sexuality is…
Continue reading …The massive data breach at Citigroup has alarmed customers, angered lawmakers, and sparked debate on whether big banks are spending enough money on protecting their customers’ information, the New York Times finds. Credit card companies have devoted their resources to preventing fraud from occurring when data is stolen and not…
Continue reading …Got your guitar out? No, not your Stratocaster, but your Google guitar? Stretch your finger, because the Christian Science Monitor and several other sites are posting directions for and YouTube demos of some of the top songs tech-strummers are playing on the Google Doodle posted yesterday to honor guitar innovator’s…
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Anti-Gaddafi forces say they desperately need helicopters to be sent in to help repel attacks from government forces Commanders in the besieged Libyan rebel enclave of Misrata have complained that Nato has ignored requests for air support during a week of heavy attacks by pro-Gaddafi forces. Government troops launched infantry and artillery attacks on Friday on the western end of the Misrata pocket, inflicting heavy rebel casualties. A Reuters journalist counted 10 bodies in a hospital after three rebel ambulances were destroyed on the road to the front. At Misrata’s Hikma hospital, a steady stream of ambulances brought wounded fighters in from the front. Radio Misrata reported that three Gaddafi tanks had joined infantry on an attack on the front line, but that the rebel positions had not been penetrated. After days of infantry assaults and bombardments in which dozens of rebel fighters have been killed and at least 45 wounded, the Misrata military council says pleas for Nato air support have gone unanswered. “We asked through the operations room in Benghazi for the Apaches [helicopters] to take part in the fight with Gaddafi troops but up to now we did not get any promise,” said Fathi Bashaga, who is responsible for Nato liaison. “What we expect from Nato is the introduction of their Apaches.” Four British Apaches went into action near Brega last weekend , 400 miles east of Misrata, along with French Gazelle attack helicopters. Late on Thursday, Apaches attacked a communications installation and a multiple rocket launcher near Misrata, a Nato spokesman said. French press said the Apaches hit 14 targets. Rebel commanders appeared unaware of the strikes, but officials involved in the Nato campaign say the frustration on the ground reflects tension between what the insurgents want to do and the mandate laid out by the UN. “Nato nations are in Libya to protect civilians. The rebels have proved themselves to be very courageous but we are not there to act as their air force,” said one. Officials say they are concerned about creating a situation where civilians are caught up in chaotic fighting between rebels and Gaddafi’s forces. This has been heightened by fears of a lack of co-ordination between rebels on the front line and Nato commanders, who are responsible for approving air strikes. “It’s getting better, but it’s not perfect,” said the source. Rebel calls for Nato air support have grown stronger as Misrata has come under the heaviest attacks since mid-April, when rebels secured the city from pro-Gaddafi forces. There have been heavy daily bombardments with mortars and Grad rockets, along with two major infantry attacks. Volleys of grad rockets were landing to the west of the city on Friday. “Gaddafi troops tried again to enter Misrata from three sides, the south, the west, the east,” said Misrata army spokesman Ibrahim Betalmal. “We ask Allah to be merciful to the martyrs who fell to the Gaddafi troops.” Privately, rebel commanders say they are baffled with the non-appearance of the Apaches, saying conditions are ideal for their use against Gaddafi’s infantry as troops attack in the open. Witnesses to a dawn attack on the eastern edge of the pocket told the Guardian that Gaddafi troops came across two miles of flat open grassland between the front lines in pickup trucks with their lights on, a seemingly obvious target for air power. That attack was beaten off by rebel units, as was an infantry assault on the western end of the pocket around Dafniya, but Betalmal said rebel forces were bracing for a third offensive. “We have information that several thousand Gaddafi troops are gathered, probably they will attack from seven sides,” he said, possibly referring to highways leading into the pocket. Rebel troops have begun building fortifications along their front line, constructing networks of trenches, bunkers and shipping containers filled with sand. Aggressive rebel patrolling has brought back a steady haul of prisoners, including three female soldiers, who Betalmal said were captured on the western front line. “As our fighters are good-natured, we released them,” he said. While the daily bombardments on the city are taking a steady toll, rebel fighters are outwardly confident they can hold their lines, saying Gaddafi’s infantry appear demoralised and unwilling to press home attacks. “Our fighters managed to inflict so many casualties among the Gaddafi soldiers,” said Betalmal. “We gained so many weapons and ammunition from them after they fled the battlefield.” A Nato spokesman said it was not clear whether Gaddafi’s forces west of Misrata were capable of mounting a major offensive against the city. The front lines west of the city, said Wing Commander Mike Bracken, spokesman in Naples for the Nato Libya mission, were “volatile and unstable,” but it was “unconfirmed” whether the regime troops could muster “the capability to launch a largescale attack”. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Muammar Gaddafi Middle East Africa Nato guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Anti-Gaddafi forces say they desperately need helicopters to be sent in to help repel attacks from government forces Commanders in the besieged Libyan rebel enclave of Misrata have complained that Nato has ignored requests for air support during a week of heavy attacks by pro-Gaddafi forces. Government troops launched infantry and artillery attacks on Friday on the western end of the Misrata pocket, inflicting heavy rebel casualties. A Reuters journalist counted 10 bodies in a hospital after three rebel ambulances were destroyed on the road to the front. At Misrata’s Hikma hospital, a steady stream of ambulances brought wounded fighters in from the front. Radio Misrata reported that three Gaddafi tanks had joined infantry on an attack on the front line, but that the rebel positions had not been penetrated. After days of infantry assaults and bombardments in which dozens of rebel fighters have been killed and at least 45 wounded, the Misrata military council says pleas for Nato air support have gone unanswered. “We asked through the operations room in Benghazi for the Apaches [helicopters] to take part in the fight with Gaddafi troops but up to now we did not get any promise,” said Fathi Bashaga, who is responsible for Nato liaison. “What we expect from Nato is the introduction of their Apaches.” Four British Apaches went into action near Brega last weekend , 400 miles east of Misrata, along with French Gazelle attack helicopters. Late on Thursday, Apaches attacked a communications installation and a multiple rocket launcher near Misrata, a Nato spokesman said. French press said the Apaches hit 14 targets. Rebel commanders appeared unaware of the strikes, but officials involved in the Nato campaign say the frustration on the ground reflects tension between what the insurgents want to do and the mandate laid out by the UN. “Nato nations are in Libya to protect civilians. The rebels have proved themselves to be very courageous but we are not there to act as their air force,” said one. Officials say they are concerned about creating a situation where civilians are caught up in chaotic fighting between rebels and Gaddafi’s forces. This has been heightened by fears of a lack of co-ordination between rebels on the front line and Nato commanders, who are responsible for approving air strikes. “It’s getting better, but it’s not perfect,” said the source. Rebel calls for Nato air support have grown stronger as Misrata has come under the heaviest attacks since mid-April, when rebels secured the city from pro-Gaddafi forces. There have been heavy daily bombardments with mortars and Grad rockets, along with two major infantry attacks. Volleys of grad rockets were landing to the west of the city on Friday. “Gaddafi troops tried again to enter Misrata from three sides, the south, the west, the east,” said Misrata army spokesman Ibrahim Betalmal. “We ask Allah to be merciful to the martyrs who fell to the Gaddafi troops.” Privately, rebel commanders say they are baffled with the non-appearance of the Apaches, saying conditions are ideal for their use against Gaddafi’s infantry as troops attack in the open. Witnesses to a dawn attack on the eastern edge of the pocket told the Guardian that Gaddafi troops came across two miles of flat open grassland between the front lines in pickup trucks with their lights on, a seemingly obvious target for air power. That attack was beaten off by rebel units, as was an infantry assault on the western end of the pocket around Dafniya, but Betalmal said rebel forces were bracing for a third offensive. “We have information that several thousand Gaddafi troops are gathered, probably they will attack from seven sides,” he said, possibly referring to highways leading into the pocket. Rebel troops have begun building fortifications along their front line, constructing networks of trenches, bunkers and shipping containers filled with sand. Aggressive rebel patrolling has brought back a steady haul of prisoners, including three female soldiers, who Betalmal said were captured on the western front line. “As our fighters are good-natured, we released them,” he said. While the daily bombardments on the city are taking a steady toll, rebel fighters are outwardly confident they can hold their lines, saying Gaddafi’s infantry appear demoralised and unwilling to press home attacks. “Our fighters managed to inflict so many casualties among the Gaddafi soldiers,” said Betalmal. “We gained so many weapons and ammunition from them after they fled the battlefield.” A Nato spokesman said it was not clear whether Gaddafi’s forces west of Misrata were capable of mounting a major offensive against the city. The front lines west of the city, said Wing Commander Mike Bracken, spokesman in Naples for the Nato Libya mission, were “volatile and unstable,” but it was “unconfirmed” whether the regime troops could muster “the capability to launch a largescale attack”. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Muammar Gaddafi Middle East Africa Nato guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Anti-Gaddafi forces say they desperately need helicopters to be sent in to help repel attacks from government forces Commanders in the besieged Libyan rebel enclave of Misrata have complained that Nato has ignored requests for air support during a week of heavy attacks by pro-Gaddafi forces. Government troops launched infantry and artillery attacks on Friday on the western end of the Misrata pocket, inflicting heavy rebel casualties. A Reuters journalist counted 10 bodies in a hospital after three rebel ambulances were destroyed on the road to the front. At Misrata’s Hikma hospital, a steady stream of ambulances brought wounded fighters in from the front. Radio Misrata reported that three Gaddafi tanks had joined infantry on an attack on the front line, but that the rebel positions had not been penetrated. After days of infantry assaults and bombardments in which dozens of rebel fighters have been killed and at least 45 wounded, the Misrata military council says pleas for Nato air support have gone unanswered. “We asked through the operations room in Benghazi for the Apaches [helicopters] to take part in the fight with Gaddafi troops but up to now we did not get any promise,” said Fathi Bashaga, who is responsible for Nato liaison. “What we expect from Nato is the introduction of their Apaches.” Four British Apaches went into action near Brega last weekend , 400 miles east of Misrata, along with French Gazelle attack helicopters. Late on Thursday, Apaches attacked a communications installation and a multiple rocket launcher near Misrata, a Nato spokesman said. French press said the Apaches hit 14 targets. Rebel commanders appeared unaware of the strikes, but officials involved in the Nato campaign say the frustration on the ground reflects tension between what the insurgents want to do and the mandate laid out by the UN. “Nato nations are in Libya to protect civilians. The rebels have proved themselves to be very courageous but we are not there to act as their air force,” said one. Officials say they are concerned about creating a situation where civilians are caught up in chaotic fighting between rebels and Gaddafi’s forces. This has been heightened by fears of a lack of co-ordination between rebels on the front line and Nato commanders, who are responsible for approving air strikes. “It’s getting better, but it’s not perfect,” said the source. Rebel calls for Nato air support have grown stronger as Misrata has come under the heaviest attacks since mid-April, when rebels secured the city from pro-Gaddafi forces. There have been heavy daily bombardments with mortars and Grad rockets, along with two major infantry attacks. Volleys of grad rockets were landing to the west of the city on Friday. “Gaddafi troops tried again to enter Misrata from three sides, the south, the west, the east,” said Misrata army spokesman Ibrahim Betalmal. “We ask Allah to be merciful to the martyrs who fell to the Gaddafi troops.” Privately, rebel commanders say they are baffled with the non-appearance of the Apaches, saying conditions are ideal for their use against Gaddafi’s infantry as troops attack in the open. Witnesses to a dawn attack on the eastern edge of the pocket told the Guardian that Gaddafi troops came across two miles of flat open grassland between the front lines in pickup trucks with their lights on, a seemingly obvious target for air power. That attack was beaten off by rebel units, as was an infantry assault on the western end of the pocket around Dafniya, but Betalmal said rebel forces were bracing for a third offensive. “We have information that several thousand Gaddafi troops are gathered, probably they will attack from seven sides,” he said, possibly referring to highways leading into the pocket. Rebel troops have begun building fortifications along their front line, constructing networks of trenches, bunkers and shipping containers filled with sand. Aggressive rebel patrolling has brought back a steady haul of prisoners, including three female soldiers, who Betalmal said were captured on the western front line. “As our fighters are good-natured, we released them,” he said. While the daily bombardments on the city are taking a steady toll, rebel fighters are outwardly confident they can hold their lines, saying Gaddafi’s infantry appear demoralised and unwilling to press home attacks. “Our fighters managed to inflict so many casualties among the Gaddafi soldiers,” said Betalmal. “We gained so many weapons and ammunition from them after they fled the battlefield.” A Nato spokesman said it was not clear whether Gaddafi’s forces west of Misrata were capable of mounting a major offensive against the city. The front lines west of the city, said Wing Commander Mike Bracken, spokesman in Naples for the Nato Libya mission, were “volatile and unstable,” but it was “unconfirmed” whether the regime troops could muster “the capability to launch a largescale attack”. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Muammar Gaddafi Middle East Africa Nato guardian.co.uk
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Follow our live blog as the Guardian attempts to identify and collate the most interesting Sarah Palin emails with your help 12.40pm ET / 5.40pm BST: Rachel Weiner, a reporter for the Washington Post, has tweeted a photograph of a stack of boxes in Juneau. Inside these boxes may be Sarah Palin’s email trail. 12.30pm ET / 5.30pm BST: Mother Jones’s David Corn has an excellent piece in today’s Guardian explaining his role in the legal background to the release of Sarah Palin’s emails: As journalists scurried to Alaska and searched for any titbit, I headed to the website for the Alaska state government and discovered the state had a decent open records law. A week after Palin hit the headlines, I sent a request to the governor’s office on behalf of Mother Jones, my magazine, asking for all “emails written by her, emails sent to her, and emails cc-ed to her”. The state had previously released emails from her office in response to narrow requests – though it had withheld a lot of material under questionable justifications. Still, I was not sure that this request, which covered a lot of records, could be processed before the November election. Other media outfits in subsequent weeks submitted related requests for particular emails, such as all of Palin’s emails to and from her husband. But I had been the one to ask for the whole pile. 12.20pm ET / 5.20pm BST: The Guardian is only one of the many media organisations in Juneau today. The Associated Press, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, Mother Jones and others are in town waiting to get the Palin email dump – and they all have plans to release them to the public in one form or another. 12 noon ET / 5pm BST: So what are we expecting to find in the Sarah Palin email dump? What’s being published are emails from Palin’s term as governor of Alaska: starting in January 2007 through to her resignation in July 2009. Expect lots of detail about internal Alaska state politics, not to mention Palin’s unhappy “Troopergate” affair . There’s also the negotiations over the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which Palin often mentions as her biggest success as governor. But most interest will initially focus on the period when John McCain nominated her to be his presidential running mate in 2008. But who knows what else is in there? It’s the Alaska gold rush of 2011 : after a tortuous process, thousands of emails from Sarah Palin’s time as Alaskan governor are released publically today – and the hard work of trawling through the 24,000 pages of emails begins. Follow our live blog of the key developments as the Guardian attempts to identify and collate the most interesting emails with your help. Guardian journalists in Juneau, Alaska, will be combing through thousands of Palin emails as fast as they can read. And Ian Katz explains how the Guardian plans to post the entire cache of emails , allowing readers to take part by reading through them: Given the size of the cache, we reckon the collective eyes of thousands of you will find the juicy bits more quickly, so we’ll be publishing the raw mails on our website as quickly as we can and asking you to tell us which ones are interesting and why. They’ll be pretty rough and ready – no headlines or details of what they’re about – but we hope you’ll help us by using our simple system to tag them according to what subjects they cover, and how interesting they are. We’d love it if you’d alert our editors, via a button on each email, or Tweet us at @gdnpalin , about any emails that you think our reporters should be examining. Remember that each numbered document represents a single page, so you have to click to previous and subsequent pages to see a full email. Now, as Ms Palin once exhorted: “Drill, baby, drill!” Stay tuned with our full Palin email coverage on the site – and on Twitter follow the latest developments at our special feed @gdnpalin . And of course we’ll be following all the latest developments from the US media and around the web right here. As always, you can take part by leaving your comments below. I’ll be tweeting at @RichardA . Sarah Palin emails Sarah Palin Alaska US politics United States Republicans Richard Adams guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Follow our live blog as the Guardian attempts to identify and collate the most interesting Sarah Palin emails with your help 12.40pm ET / 5.40pm BST: Rachel Weiner, a reporter for the Washington Post, has tweeted a photograph of a stack of boxes in Juneau. Inside these boxes may be Sarah Palin’s email trail. 12.30pm ET / 5.30pm BST: Mother Jones’s David Corn has an excellent piece in today’s Guardian explaining his role in the legal background to the release of Sarah Palin’s emails: As journalists scurried to Alaska and searched for any titbit, I headed to the website for the Alaska state government and discovered the state had a decent open records law. A week after Palin hit the headlines, I sent a request to the governor’s office on behalf of Mother Jones, my magazine, asking for all “emails written by her, emails sent to her, and emails cc-ed to her”. The state had previously released emails from her office in response to narrow requests – though it had withheld a lot of material under questionable justifications. Still, I was not sure that this request, which covered a lot of records, could be processed before the November election. Other media outfits in subsequent weeks submitted related requests for particular emails, such as all of Palin’s emails to and from her husband. But I had been the one to ask for the whole pile. 12.20pm ET / 5.20pm BST: The Guardian is only one of the many media organisations in Juneau today. The Associated Press, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, Mother Jones and others are in town waiting to get the Palin email dump – and they all have plans to release them to the public in one form or another. 12 noon ET / 5pm BST: So what are we expecting to find in the Sarah Palin email dump? What’s being published are emails from Palin’s term as governor of Alaska: starting in January 2007 through to her resignation in July 2009. Expect lots of detail about internal Alaska state politics, not to mention Palin’s unhappy “Troopergate” affair . There’s also the negotiations over the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which Palin often mentions as her biggest success as governor. But most interest will initially focus on the period when John McCain nominated her to be his presidential running mate in 2008. But who knows what else is in there? It’s the Alaska gold rush of 2011 : after a tortuous process, thousands of emails from Sarah Palin’s time as Alaskan governor are released publically today – and the hard work of trawling through the 24,000 pages of emails begins. Follow our live blog of the key developments as the Guardian attempts to identify and collate the most interesting emails with your help. Guardian journalists in Juneau, Alaska, will be combing through thousands of Palin emails as fast as they can read. And Ian Katz explains how the Guardian plans to post the entire cache of emails , allowing readers to take part by reading through them: Given the size of the cache, we reckon the collective eyes of thousands of you will find the juicy bits more quickly, so we’ll be publishing the raw mails on our website as quickly as we can and asking you to tell us which ones are interesting and why. They’ll be pretty rough and ready – no headlines or details of what they’re about – but we hope you’ll help us by using our simple system to tag them according to what subjects they cover, and how interesting they are. We’d love it if you’d alert our editors, via a button on each email, or Tweet us at @gdnpalin , about any emails that you think our reporters should be examining. Remember that each numbered document represents a single page, so you have to click to previous and subsequent pages to see a full email. Now, as Ms Palin once exhorted: “Drill, baby, drill!” Stay tuned with our full Palin email coverage on the site – and on Twitter follow the latest developments at our special feed @gdnpalin . And of course we’ll be following all the latest developments from the US media and around the web right here. As always, you can take part by leaving your comments below. I’ll be tweeting at @RichardA . Sarah Palin emails Sarah Palin Alaska US politics United States Republicans Richard Adams guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Follow our live blog as the Guardian attempts to identify and collate the most interesting Sarah Palin emails with your help 12.40pm ET / 5.40pm BST: Rachel Weiner, a reporter for the Washington Post, has tweeted a photograph of a stack of boxes in Juneau. Inside these boxes may be Sarah Palin’s email trail. 12.30pm ET / 5.30pm BST: Mother Jones’s David Corn has an excellent piece in today’s Guardian explaining his role in the legal background to the release of Sarah Palin’s emails: As journalists scurried to Alaska and searched for any titbit, I headed to the website for the Alaska state government and discovered the state had a decent open records law. A week after Palin hit the headlines, I sent a request to the governor’s office on behalf of Mother Jones, my magazine, asking for all “emails written by her, emails sent to her, and emails cc-ed to her”. The state had previously released emails from her office in response to narrow requests – though it had withheld a lot of material under questionable justifications. Still, I was not sure that this request, which covered a lot of records, could be processed before the November election. Other media outfits in subsequent weeks submitted related requests for particular emails, such as all of Palin’s emails to and from her husband. But I had been the one to ask for the whole pile. 12.20pm ET / 5.20pm BST: The Guardian is only one of the many media organisations in Juneau today. The Associated Press, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, Mother Jones and others are in town waiting to get the Palin email dump – and they all have plans to release them to the public in one form or another. 12 noon ET / 5pm BST: So what are we expecting to find in the Sarah Palin email dump? What’s being published are emails from Palin’s term as governor of Alaska: starting in January 2007 through to her resignation in July 2009. Expect lots of detail about internal Alaska state politics, not to mention Palin’s unhappy “Troopergate” affair . There’s also the negotiations over the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, which Palin often mentions as her biggest success as governor. But most interest will initially focus on the period when John McCain nominated her to be his presidential running mate in 2008. But who knows what else is in there? It’s the Alaska gold rush of 2011 : after a tortuous process, thousands of emails from Sarah Palin’s time as Alaskan governor are released publically today – and the hard work of trawling through the 24,000 pages of emails begins. Follow our live blog of the key developments as the Guardian attempts to identify and collate the most interesting emails with your help. Guardian journalists in Juneau, Alaska, will be combing through thousands of Palin emails as fast as they can read. And Ian Katz explains how the Guardian plans to post the entire cache of emails , allowing readers to take part by reading through them: Given the size of the cache, we reckon the collective eyes of thousands of you will find the juicy bits more quickly, so we’ll be publishing the raw mails on our website as quickly as we can and asking you to tell us which ones are interesting and why. They’ll be pretty rough and ready – no headlines or details of what they’re about – but we hope you’ll help us by using our simple system to tag them according to what subjects they cover, and how interesting they are. We’d love it if you’d alert our editors, via a button on each email, or Tweet us at @gdnpalin , about any emails that you think our reporters should be examining. Remember that each numbered document represents a single page, so you have to click to previous and subsequent pages to see a full email. Now, as Ms Palin once exhorted: “Drill, baby, drill!” Stay tuned with our full Palin email coverage on the site – and on Twitter follow the latest developments at our special feed @gdnpalin . And of course we’ll be following all the latest developments from the US media and around the web right here. As always, you can take part by leaving your comments below. I’ll be tweeting at @RichardA . Sarah Palin emails Sarah Palin Alaska US politics United States Republicans Richard Adams guardian.co.uk
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European commission president José Manuel Barroso says country should join in 2013 after six years of negotiations Croatia took its biggest step towards joining the EU as its 28th member state on Friday when the European commission said it was ready to close six years of negotiations. In a statement awaited with both hope and fear in Zagreb, José Manuel Barroso, the commission’s president, said Croatia should join the EU in July 2013. Stefan Fuele, the commissioner for enlargement in charge of the negotiations with Zagreb, said he was confident that all EU governments would support the recommendations. Britain, along with the Netherlands, has been the most reluctant EU country to give the green light to Croatia. Jadranka Kosor, the Croatian prime minister, made her first visit to Downing Street on Friday, reflecting her anxiety about UK opposition, but emerged from a meeting with David Cameron confident that the UK government would not veto entry. Membership negotiations for the small country of 4.5 million people have been troubled, lasting six years and taking longer than those for all of the eight former communist central European countries that joineden masse in 2004. The lengthy process reflected deep weariness across Europe over EU expansion, suggesting that the other five countries of the former Yugoslavia, as well as Albania, face a long slog to get in, despite promises to the Balkans from Brussels. For years, Croatia was also handicapped by its refusal to locate and hand over war crimes suspects for trial at the special tribunal in The Hague and a territorial waters dispute in the Adriatic with its neighbour Slovenia, which blocked negotiations for a year. The 27 governments of the EU still have to endorse Friday’s commission proposal, meaning that the British or the Dutch could yet delay agreement. An accession treaty then has to be agreed and signed by the end of the year, subjected to a referendum in Croatia and ratified by 27 parliaments. Battling widespread corruption, especially among the judiciary, courts, police and political elite in Zagreb, has been the biggest challenge for the Kosor government, with the EU setting tougher standards for entry because of blunders made on Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU in 2007. The EU shifted the goalposts at the last minute – at the insistence of the British, the French, and the Dutch – to demand a new process of monitoring Croatia’s compliance with its EU commitments over the next two years. If things go smoothly, Croatia’s entry will be hailed as a breakthrough, paving the way for the rest of the former Yugoslavia to join the EU less than two decades after the wars of the 1990s. But growing euroscepticism, populism, and nationalism across much of Europe could jeopardise such hopes. Croatia European Union Europe Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
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