Radovan Karadzic, the leader of the “Serb Republic” in Bosnia during the conflict following the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1991, has been found guilty of war crimes during that conflict. In particular, he was to be responsible for the murder of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica. It took the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague a very long time to bring Karadzic to justice, but the conviction is a large step toward establishing the precedent of holding leaders responsible for crimes committed during war.
North Korea continues to disregard the sanctions placed on it for its nuclear program. It announced the successful test of a solid fuel missile. Solid fueled missiles are less accurate than liquid fueled missiles, but have the distinct advantage of being ready at a moment’s notice (liquid-fueled missiles need to be fueled up before they can be launched giving opponents the ability to prepare themselves for an attack). At the same time, North Korea announced that it was ready to test its fifth nuclear weapon. The sanctions appear to have had little effect on North Korean behavior.
As the global economy sputters along with no real sense of direction, concern is rising about how long political systems can handle the extended slowdown. Economic stress makes demands on political institutions that are difficult to manage because those demands usually involve some actions that almost inevitably disadvantage some constituencies. The internal competition for resources among the different constituencies fragments a polity and makes compromise difficult.
World Politics News 
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