Law Professor: ICTY Should 'Tighten Leash On Karadzic'

Of course, by "tighten leash", he means that the tribunal should restrict Dr. Karadzic's rights even further. Yes, everyone deserves a fair trial--but not the likes of Dr. Karadzic because he, horror of horrors, committed genocide against Muslims. So says the good professor.*

This poor excuse for an editorial written by someone who really should know better can be found here. Below are some of my favorite excerpts.

It seems like a long time since Radovan Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade in 2008 with long hair and beard and disguised as a holistic healer, after being in hiding for 13 years.

His trial at the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague was suspended last November after the prosecution's opening speech because Karadzic refused to attend. It resumed last Monday, with the former president of the Bosnian Serbs facing charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Karadzic opened his case last week with rhetoric reminiscent of other former leaders tried recently for crimes of mass atrocity. The man sometimes referred to as his erstwhile mentor, Slobodan Milosevic, ran a similar opening defence, railing against the court trying him, against NATO and its member states, even against the Vatican.

Saddam Hussein opened his trial caustically denouncing the US, the new Iraqi regime that was trying him and insisted on being referred to as ''president''.

To compare Dr. Karadzic to Saddam Hussein is truly insulting. And comparing him to Milosevic is a bit fallacious as well.

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A Note To Airlines In The United States

Or, a venting of my frustrations with flying.

The whole zone system for boarding aircraft is ridiculous, stupid, inefficient, and does not work. In Russia and Ukraine, they do not have these stupid zones and everyone is able to board the plane a lot quicker than here.

Also, if I am boarding a plane carrying a small purse, a laptop bag, and a medium-sized soft suitcase, it is entirely pointless and a waste of time to force me to "consolidate" my bags so that I only have two. As soon as I sit down, I put my purse and my laptop bag under the seat in front of me and my suitcase in the overhead bin. Forcing me to put my purse in my suitcase accomplishes nothing because I am just going to remove it and put it under the seat anyway.

Thank you.

Growth Of The Internet Passes Ukraine By

Andy over at Siberian Light has a post about this interesting article. It's an interactive map on the BBC site about the spread of the Internet. Below is a screenshot from the map in 2008. Do you all notice something strange?


The massive Internet growth seems bypassed Ukraine. Does anyone know why? It seems very odd to me.

Yanukovych's Personal Life

Ukraine has a new president. His name is Viktor Fyodorovich Yanukovych and he was inaugurated on February 25 of this year. Contrary to what his detractors say, Yanukovych is neither lazy nor stupid. He has gotten right to work as president and made official visits to Brussels and Moscow.

But those are all ordinary, well-known facts. I am interested in Yanukovych's personal life as well. While I was supposed to be reading for my classes yesterday afternoon, I was searching the Internet for information about Yanukovych. I came across the following two interesting photo essays. The first is from RIA Novosti (they have some of the most interesting photo essays) and it's about Lyudmila Yanukovych, Viktor Yanukovych's wife. Here is the happy couple in 1985:


Go to the entire essay for the rest.

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Breaking News--New Prime Minister Appointed In Ukraine

I have been following the political situation in Ukraine very closely ever since former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's government collapsed. I don't like Tymoshenko so I was not sorry to see her go.

I have just read that, after about a week of suspense, a new government in Ukraine has been formed, so Ukraine finally has a new prime minister. His name is Nikolai (Mykola) Azarov and he is viewed as being close to Yanukovych.

This is quite a shock to me. I thought for sure that Sergey Tigipko would be the next prime minister. Azarov is a relative unknown to me. I will be doing more investigation about him, so be sure to check back in the next few days.

Half-Black, Three-Quarters Gay

I came across the following article earlier today. It may be old (from July 2008) but it's quite funny. In all honesty, I'm not entirely sure if the author is truly anti-Obama or just enjoys making fun of everyone, but it is still a great laugh. My personal favorite quote from the hilarious piece (the "he' mentioned is referring to Obama):

He's effete. He's well-dressed. He eats arugula -- which he buys at Whole Foods. He mocks those who use guns. He is, as we mentioned, quite thin. He may only be half-black, but he's three-quarters gay.

The whole thing is hilarious and I'd highly recommend reading it.

Yeltsin's Daughter Talks About Her Father

Boris Yeltsin was famous (and rightfully so) for his drunkenness. The man drank way too much and is remembered as a perpetually inebriated failure.

His daughter Tatyana seeks to correct this perception in a rare interview. She is, of course, seeking to rehabilitate her father and therefore whitewashes him quite a bit, but it still makes for an interesting read.

Russia Kills Islamic Terrorists Involved in Nevsky Express Bombing

One thing I really admire about the Russians is how they handle terrorists in their country. There usually isn't much moralizing and theorizing about how to give those mass-murderers we call terrorists a "fair trial". Instead, Russia handles terrorism the way it should be handled. Thanks to Robert at Jihad Watch for posting about this story.

Russian authorities on Saturday blamed a group of Islamic militants killed and captured in an offensive last week for the November bombing of a luxury train to St. Petersburg, the deadliest terrorist attack on Russian soil outside the volatile North Caucasus in years.

Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Federal Security Service, said explosive components recovered in the raid in the troubled Ingushetia province, located west of Chechnya, and DNA taken from the alleged rebels matched those found after the attack on the Nevsky Express train, which left 28 people dead and more than 90 others injured.

"These materials give grounds to presume that these very people were involved in that crime," he said, reporting that 10 militants were detained and eight killed in the operation Tuesday and Wednesday in the village of Ekazhevo, where police seized more than a ton of explosives and a large cache of guns.

Speaking in a televised meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev, Bortnikov said the group is also suspected in 15 other attacks, including bombings and the slaying of security officers.

Among those killed in the raid, he said, was Alexander Tikhomirov, a young preacher who had emerged as a major figure in the violent radical Muslim insurgency that has evolved from the Chechen separatist movement and spread across the mountains of Russia's southwest frontier.

Tikhomirov's death could represent an important victory for Russian forces in the North Caucasus, because he was considered an effective propagandist and seemed to play a key role in rallying the insurgency's ethnic and local factions around the goal of establishing a fundamentalist Caucasus Emirate.

A convert to Islam from Siberia who studied in Egypt and was thought to be in his late 20s, he had appeared in Internet videos taking credit for suicide attacks on the Ingush governor's motorcade and on a police station in Ingushetia's largest city, Nazran. The latter showed him sitting with what appeared to be a barrel of explosives, which he described as "a small present for our apostates and infidels."

The emphasis is mine.

I will be shocked if the human rights groups are not up in arms over this (after all, aren't all those Chechens "freedom fighters"?) but I completely support Russia. What they did is almost as amazing as the recent assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (the reason why al-Mabhouh's murder is slightly more awesome is it sounds like something out of a spy novel).

Karadzic Trial, Day Two

If Dr. Radovan Karadzic's trial is handled correctly, I do think it could become the trial of the century. On day two of his opening statement, Dr. Karadzic is continuing to make a strong case. He was scheduled to be in court tomorrow as well, but this has been cancelled (see, I told you they make last-minute changes all the time).

The BBC has an article about Dr. Karadzic's opening statement today called Karadzic: Sarajevo and Srebrenica crimes are myths. Here are some choice excerpts:

Ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has dismissed as myths the alleged two worst atrocities of the 1992-95 Bosnian war and denied his involvement.

Mr Karadzic told his trial at The Hague that Sarajevo, where some 12,000 people died in 44 months, was "not a city under siege" by Bosnian Serb forces.

He said claims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys were based on "false myths".

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Karadzic Nails Opening Statement

Due to the time zone difference, I was unable to watch Dr. Karadzic's opening statement in court today. If only they had scheduled his court appearance during the second session instead of the first, I would have been able to watch. I guess I will just have to wait for the transcripts to be available.

The Associated Press has a story about Karadzic's day in court and from what it sounds like, he did really, really well.

Wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, defending himself against charges of Europe's worst genocide since the Holocaust, told judges Monday he was not the barbarian depicted by U.N. prosecutors, but was protecting his people against a fundamentalist Muslim plot.

During a four-hour opening defense statement at the U.N. war crimes tribunal, Karadzic barely referred to specific allegations of mass murder at Srebrenica, indiscriminate shelling of Sarajevo, the destruction of Bosnian Muslim and Croat villages or the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

But he took personal responsibility for Serb actions, as Yugoslavia dissolved and the region descended into a war in which some 100,000 people were killed, saying he was standing up for ethnic Serbs against Muslim Bosnians.

"I don't want to defend myself by saying that I wasn't important or that I didn't occupy an important post while I was serving my people. Nor will I shift the blame to someone else," he said. "I will defend that nation of ours and their cause, which is just and holy."

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Karadzic Trial: An Introductory Guide

A very important event is starting tomorrow, an event that the vast majority of Americans probably do not know about. It is the trial of Dr. Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb president. Dr. Karadzic's trial is extremely important. He is a former world leader being tried for crimes that he is not guilty of.

I have prepared this introductory guide to Dr. Karadzic's trial so that readers can learn more about this grave miscarriage of justice.

Watching the trial

Anyone can watch the trial. It is broadcast from the ICTY website (with a thirty-minute delay, if I remember correctly) in an effort to make the tribunal seem more open and legitimate (do not be fooled; it is neither legitimate nor open). The schedule of courtroom appearances is here. If you intend to watch something, be sure to check the schedule--I have seen trial times shifted around even at the last minute. To watch the streaming video or hear the audio, go to the homepage and click on the video or audio links in the left sidebar. Note that there are three courtrooms, which often have cases going on simultaneously. Finally, do not forget about the time difference. The times listed on the schedule are Netherlands time, which is six hours ahead of Eastern Time in the United States.

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Obama's Medical Checkup

First off, I'm not sure why he needed this checkup--isn't he The Anointed One who is always perfect in every way?

Second, does anyone else find it a bit odd that his medical checkup was a top story on Google News the entire day? I mean, I do not remember Bush's medical checkups getting this much attention. I can understand the interest in a president's medical checkup to an extent, but the attention surrounding Obama's seems a bit excessive.

Finally, I think it would be very strange to have the entire country know about your medical condition. Becoming president puts a person very much in the public eye and obviously someone would know this before becoming president, but the whole idea does seem kind of strange to me.

I Have Returned

Dear readers, please forgive my long absence. I got caught up in my schoolwork and have literally been reading nonstop the past couple of weeks. Spring break is coming up, so everyone feels obliged to assign papers and schedule exams before we have a week of rest. This weekend, I had to read two Shakespeare plays. I do love Shakespeare, but that was a bit much, even for me.

Luckily, I think I have finally caught up with everything. One of my papers is nearly finished, the other I plan to have drafted by tomorrow night, and I am working my way through my reading. I hope to post on a more regular basis, so be sure to check back.

Yanukovych's Inauguration

Yulia Tymoshenko's supporters are sore losers. They're out for blood, saying that they will go to the courts to get the recent Ukrainian vote annulled. Yulia herself isn't taking the entire thing very well:

Ms. Tymoshenko was characteristically blunt in a televised address Saturday. "Yanukovych is not our president," she said. "He will never become the legitimately elected president of Ukraine."

Sorry Yulechka, he has been elected president (he actually was in 2004 as well!).

Meanwhile, the rest of the world has moved on and accepted that Yanukovych will be the country's next president. He is due to be inaugurated on February 25. Not only that, but Yanukovych's Party of Regions is reportedly in talks to form a new coalition in the parliament and force Tymoshenko from the post as Prime Minister.

Dmitry Medvedev, the president of Russia, has invited Yanukovych to visit Russia soon. There should be no further obstacles to the resumption of diplomatic relations between Ukraine and Russia.

Image credit.