Hello Baby!!Moja prijateljica M.F. je nedavno dobila bratanca. Radosni dogadji u jednom beogradskom porodilistu je bio prilicno traumaticno za celu porodicu. U mesto da ja to komentarisem, zamolio sam nju da nesto pise o tome. Sledi njen integralni tekst. A pitaju ljudi zasto izmedju ostalog pada natalitet.....

Belgrade’s Kosovo status endgame is increasingly clear. Plan “A” seems to consist of trying to delay an independence decision as long as possible. There are two reasons for this. One is an outside hope that somehow Belgrade may be able to actually win a reprieve from “losing” Kosovo. The other far more important reason is that Belgrade hopes delay will cause the Albanians to take unilateral action without Security Council approval thereby permitting Belgrade to achieve its real goal: partition.

Serbian MUP About To Kill Srebrenica CiviliansSince the ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague many in Serbia have rejoiced that the Serbian state was not found guilty of genocide. The failed, however, to note that the ICJ found Serbia guilty of violating the Convention on Genocide. Many have also failed to actually ask the question as to whether -- the ICJ verdict aside -- Serbia did in fact commit genocide.

Bogoljub KaricI never thought I would say this, but as I examine Telenor, I now wonder if Bogoljub Karić was really all that bad. Since the Norwegian company Telenor bought the 062/063 provider Mobtel from its previous owner Bogoljub Karić -- a Milošević-era tycoon -- I feel as though service seems to have gotten progressively worse for me, the customer. And many of my friends have told me they feel the same way.

The New Tito!!The other evening I was at one of Belgrade’s new, hip night spots with a friend. The place is located down near the Sava River in a refurbished warehouse, and the interior was worthy of any western capital. The music was loud to the point of causing pain, but we withstood it, due to the fact that this place is “IN”, and after all, we were there not to talk, but to engage in Belgrade’s favourite sport: posing. As we shoved our way through the crowd towards the VIP section, we noticed a prominent politician from a prominent political party who has been mentioned as a prominent candidate for a prominent post in the new government, accompanied by an attractive woman with prominent… uh.... contours. We greeted the prominent candidate prominently, engaged in brief chit-chat, and then moved on to our table and began talking about the latest candidates for government posts.... All the while posing. It is an art form, trust me. The conversation went something like this:

Martti came and went today, his motorcade causing the usually congested Belgrade traffic to become even worse. He met Tadić and his serious-looking group of advisors, presented his proposal, and then flew off to Priština, where he repeated the process with the Albanians. So what did it all mean? I have a copy of the entire proposal and all 12 annexes. I will not discuss it in detail here, as I am still reading it and trying to digest its 59 pages. Rather, let me share a few first impressions.

Can Of Worms

I expect that this blog will open a can of worms. I expect you all to write nasty responses and tell me what a bad person I am and how wrong I am and that I should leave Serbia immediately. But really, who cares? Chill out. :-)

Serbia just had an election. Has anything changed? Here are a few thoughts that I jotted down as I visited the different party campaign headquarters Sunday night.

LiposuctionI have a friend from Bosnia who is very good at predicting the future. She uses beans, coffee cups and tarot cards to look into people's future and see what will happen. She has always been very accurate and almost everything she has predicted has come true. Because of her gift as a seer I have often used her skills professionally, particularly when it comes time to write reports. I decided that we should give the people of Serbia the benefit of our great wisdom and insight and that we should compare our predictions for 2007 and see whose are the most accurate. First are Fata’s predictions, followed by mine. Read below to see what will happen in Serbia in 2007.

Yuletide SpiritsChristmas has come early to Serbia this year as Santa Claus packed Belgrade’s stocking with all sorts of things. But did the Jolly Olde Elf fill the stocking with candy and gifts? Or did he decide that Koštunica had been a naughty boy and bring coal and sticks instead? Hmmm, let’s take a look in the stocking and see what we can pull out…..

-Membership in Partnership for Peace? A large gift.

Sarajevo CentreI am writing this from Sarajevo. I haven’t been in Sarajevo from some time, and every time I return, the changes always surprise me. This isn’t the same Sarajevo I first saw in the spring of 1980, when the main pedestrian street (today’s Ferhadija) and the entire Baščaršija were dug up as the city feverishly prepared for the 1984 Olympic games. It certainly isn’t the same Sarajevo whose war-ravaged streets I walked in early 1996, watching the smoke rise over Hrasno, Ilidža and Stup as withdrawing Serbian forces burned the neighbourhoods the Dayton Peace Accords required them to abandon. It isn’t the same Sarajevo I left behind in October 2000, a city then still overrun with international organisations and armies and diplomats and aid workers.

The number of foreigners has diminished sharply. No longer does one see foreign military vehicles everywhere, nor the ubiquitous jeeps driven by the international organisations parked haphazardly all over the sidewalks. Things appear orderly, cleaner than in Belgrade, and certainly far more relaxed.

It’s a rainy night here in Belgrade. Having nothing better to do, I thought I’d write another blog entry that will anger some people, please others, and probably bore almost everyone. Gee, what has happened lately…hmmm…let’s see….the Democratic Party won control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections…Donald Rumsfeld resigned…and President George W. Bush uttered immortal words designed to send a message of strong leadership that would inspire U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and encourage Americans of all political factions to unite behind him.

Has anyone actually bothered to read through the Constitution and analyse it Article by Article? I have. Below you will find a point-by-point analysis of the Constitution, with reference to its good points and bad points. I would like to hear your thoughts on this. Did I exaggerate? Did I leave something out? Did I misinterpret? What do you think? Is it just me, or does the Serbian text contain grammatical errors?

Serbian Referendum Monitor

With one week to go before Serbia's constitutional referendum, it is now absolutely clear that the referendum procedures are deeply flawed and that the Serbian government is doing everything in its power to compromise the process and steal the vote. At this point there is absolutely no way that anyone will be able to credibly claim that the referendum was either free or fair. To call it scandalous is an understatement.

From left to right: Tomislav Nikolić, Predrag Marković, Vojislav Koštunica, Boris Tadić, Ivica Dačić. 30 September 2006.Comrades! The passage of a new constitution by the Serbian Parliament on Saturday night was a Great Leap Forward for the Serbian People and Serbian Democracy. It demonstrated how far Serbia has come since Slobodan Milošević fell from power and how enlightened Serbia's current leadership is. Saturday night we saw that Serbia is a mature, true democracy that no longer has any elements whatsoever of nationalism or communism. As we all know, under communism/socialism, the leaders would simply present a law or constitution to the parliament in secrecy. The leaders would then tell the deputies why the constitution was good for the country and then the parliament would unanimously vote in favour, without any public debate, and usually without any of the parliamentary deputies knowing what was in the law or constitution. Serbia, however, showed on Saturday that it has clearly moved forward, as it followed the wonderful democratic example shown by the US Congress when it passed the Patriot Act.

First, let me tell you what today's blog isn't about. It's not about Dinkić and G17+ pretending they will resign on October 1st while staying in government and keeping control over the key economic ministries and privatization. It's not about Tadić imitating Koštunica. It's not about Koštunica imitating Milošević. It's not about the Radicals imitating people with low IQ's. It's not about Velja Ilić's eloquent vocabulary and imitation of…..himself. It's not about the amazing physical resemblance between Ivica Dačić and Milošević.