THE PARTY´S OVER — It was planned as a grand celebration. The occasion: the 25th anniversary of the Spanish Socialist Party´s first election victory following the restoration of democracy in Spain after nearly four decades of Franco Fascism. The evening was all the more festive because the Socialists (PSOE) were back in power under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Even so, the hero of the evening was Felipé Gonzalez, architect of the first election victory in October 1982, but a rather forgotten man among the new generation of Socialists. With new elections scheduled for March, however, the party at the grandly [...]
PRISTINA, Kosovo — “When I travel through Albanian areas, I use my Kosovo license plate and when I reach Serbia or I’m back in Strpce I change it [to the Serbian plate],” says Milorad, a small retail shop owner. “I need to take these precautions, I don’t want to endanger my family,” he says. Milorad is from Strpce, one of the most southern Serb enclaves in the majority Albanian province of Kosovo. Strpce can only be reached by passing through a Kosovo Police Service (KPS) checkpoint and another manned by Ukrainian troops that are part of NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR). [...]
TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s visit to Singapore late last month for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) must have come as something of a relief to the challenges and confusion reigning at home. At the meeting, Fukuda had a chance to reconfirm the warming nature of the relationship between Japan and China, which had become strained under former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, while ASEAN nations also made a point of praising the Fukuda Doctrine as outlined by his father and former prime minister, Takeo Fukuda, which emphasized mutual confidence-building between Japan and the [...]
