The World
Blair's No Good, Very Bad Day
Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party took, as the Brits say, a drubbing in local elections, winning just 26 percent of the vote to the Conservatives' 40 percent. In Britain, where a variety of government scandals and general Blair fatigue influenced voting, there is political pressure for Blair to step aside early in favor of his presumed Labor Party successor, treasury chief Gordon Brown. Blair announced a cabinet shuffle that dumped several ministers and elevated Margaret Beckett, formerly in charge of the environment and rural affairs, to foreign secretary, the first woman to hold that job.
On That, We'll Have to Get Back to You
It's easy to lose count of how many times government officials in Serbia have promised to turn over fugitive Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic to the U.N. war crimes tribunal. Over the past few weeks, there again was buzz from Belgrade that authorities were closing in on Mladic, and officials predicted they would meet the European Union's April 30 deadline to send him to the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. Once again, though, no Mladic. This time there are consequences: The Europeans last week put on indefinite hold aid and trade talks, including those about possible EU membership. Mladic was indicted by the U.N. court for genocide for his alleged role in the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Bosnia's enclave of Srebrenica.
With Associated Press
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