The World Today

The exodus into neighbouring republics of refugees from war-torn Chechnya threatens to upset the delicate balance within the ethnically diverse North Caucasus. The international community has no access to Chechnya and this has hindered the provision of aid for the thousands who have fled. The bulk of them have sought shelter in Ingushetia where estimates put the number of registered refugees at almost three hundred thousand.

The Chechen war has focused world attention on the politically fragile and potentially explosive Caucasus region. Beset by domestic instability, economic crises, failing states and widespread corruption, the entire area has been in a very precarious state since the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Europe Incorporated : The New Challenge by Gianni Montezemolo

The only foreigners who visit Serbia these days are journalists, aid workers or disaster tourists. The Serbs cater well for the latter. Postcards for sale throughout Belgrade depict horrific scenes from last year’s NATO ‘mistakes’ – the train on the bridge, the refugee convoy and the Chinese embassy. Isolated by sanctions, Serbs are increasingly impoverished and bemused about what ordinary people can do to escape their predicament.

There are to be municipal elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 8 April. They are, in theory, the last under provisional rules drawn up by the international community after the 1992-1995 war. A general election, scheduled for the autumn, is supposed to be regulated by a new, locally agreed election law – although, intriguingly enough, the fact that the state parliament has so far failed to adopt this law has thrown the autumn election into doubt.

As Zimbabwe approaches the twentieth anniversary of its independence, political change is in the air. Although it survived Africa’s so-called wave of democratisation, which brought transitions in Zambia and Malawi in the early 1990s, the Mugabe regime is faltering. Having lost a key constitutional referendum, is power slipping from the government’s grip?