Word: ethnicities
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...that outcome has taken eight years, consumed billions of dollars and entangled a legion of diplomats. It's not working. By Dec. 10, Serb and Albanian negotiators are supposed to sign on to a detailed, internationally vouchsafed plan for a peaceful separation of Kosovo from Serbia. But Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders are on the verge of scuppering the already deadlocked talks by unilaterally declaring independence. And Serbia, backed by Russia, remains loudly opposed to Kosovo's independence under any circumstances. "We're looking at a slow-motion train wreck," says Tomas Valasek, a Balkan specialist at the London-based...
...United Nations resolution that ended the Kosovo war. Under pressure from U.S. warplanes, Serbia's then President Slobodan Milosevic agreed to withdraw troops from Kosovo and cede control to the U.N., provided the province legally remained part of Serbia. But that condition has proved unacceptable to ethnic Albanians, who make up 90% of Kosovo's population. A subsequent U.N. plan to grant Kosovo full but "supervised" independence foundered on Russian threats of a veto in the U.N. Security Council. So last summer, the U.S., Russia and the European Union decided to give the two sides until December to make their...
...willingness of other countries to recognize the new nation. In Kosovo's case, the U.S. has already indicated its intention to do so. But the E.U. is divided: Greece, Slovakia and Spain have said they oppose self-declared independence, largely on the grounds that it would encourage separatism among ethnic minorities in their own countries. Differences within the E.U. not only undermine the unity the West has been keen to uphold, but also could complicate the E.U.'s appointed task of helping to administer an independent Kosovo. "It is Europe that would pay the price if the status process fails...
...this group of beleaguered soldiers transformed itself into a professional force, opening the West Point-inspired Defense Services Academy. The military also burnished its legitimacy in another way, claiming to be the only force that could keep the country together. Burma is composed of more than 100 ethnic groups, many of which waged wars and insurgencies against the central government for decades. Politicians, the generals asserted, represented feuding ethnic interests. In Burma's last election - back in 1990 - as many as 20 ethnically based political parties contested the polls. Who better, the military argued, to keep peace among all these...
...such civic-wide obsession began to wane as television crept in during the 1980s and Indians were exposed to the wider, far superior world of sports. "The knowledge seeped in that we weren't very good," says Bhimani. The militant sense of east-west ethnic pride faded with the partition generation and today support for the two clubs has to do less with regional identity and more with plain club loyalty. Imported Brazilian and Nigerian players now star for both sides and routinely swap teams. The bulk of the upper and middle classes who once passionately cared about Kolkata football...