Analysis


Serbian break with past
The arrest of Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic will propel Serbia closer to the rest of Europe and signals a definitive break with the nationalism of the past. His arrest on Serbian soil after 11 years on the run showed Serbia’s two-week old government putting pragmatism before pride with the aim of pushing Serbs towards European Union membership,...

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Kremlin youth seeks new role
By Olga Nedbayeva
Military training, satirical shows and US-style business seminars were among the strange mix of activities on offer at this year’s summer camp for Nashi — the Kremlin’s youth movement. With political power in Russia now firmly in the hands of President Dmitry Medvedev and his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin,...

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Iraq: Body-blow to McCain
By Jim Lobe
This week’s surprise endorsement by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Senator Barack Obama’s call for US combat forces to leave Iraq by mid-2010 marks a serious setback to Senator John McCain, who has tried hard to depict his Democratic rival as “naïve” on foreign policy, especially with respect to Iraq.

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Offer to free Suu Kyi a ploy?
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Reacting to growing international pressure Burma’s military regime has said it will consider releasing the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest in six months. That verbal assurance by Burmese foreign minister Nyan Win was made on Sunday, at the opening of the foreign ministers’...

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Asean credibility
By Ruth Youngblood
Praise heaped on the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) for persuading Myanmar’s reluctant junta to open its doors to foreign aid has not halted nagging questions about the organisation’s future. While the group’s credibility received a boost for brokering the arrangement enabling access for foreign aid and rescue workers following the devastating ....

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Turkey-Russia thaw
By Ercan Ersoy, Orhan Coskun
Turkey wants to boost co-operation with its top gas supplier Russia, ending a frosty period marked by differences over the Nabucco pipeline to Europe, an official and analysts said. Turkey gets most of its gas — 68 per cent of 2008 demand of 38 billion cubic metres (bcm) — from Russia’s Gazprom under three long-term deals.

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