Albanians proud, Croats cool on joining NATO

Croatia and Albania are the newest members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.  According to this article, Albania has shown much more enthusiasm with regard to its membership.  While Albanians are brimming with pride, Croatia still has its sights set on EU membership, which has been a goal for quite some time.  Albania, one of the poorest countries in Europe, views NATO membership as great progress.  For Croatia, however, there was very little excitement over its membership, as it will not do much for Croatia's EU membership.  While this may be the goal, the progress of NATO membership is a positive sign.  And the lack of excitement shows the progress Croats have come to expect, especially when compared to a poor country like Albania.  Hopefully, the talks with Slovenia will continue, and EU membership is somewhere on the horizon for Croatia.

- Matt Orminski (Croatia)

Berlusconi puts NATO on hold

This article about Berlusconi's arrival at the NATO meeting where he is to meet German leader Angela Merkel on the red carpet and incredibly rudely took a phone call right as the car door opens. Lucky for all news audience members who want to see this rude entrance there is a video of this occurrance along with the audio of him giggling and pacing along a waterfront. Though it was later revealed that this phone call was with Turkey's prime minister regarding a the Danish Prime minister as new NATO chief. Though it was not a casual call to a friend, the act itself was rude, the uncomfortable public wait of Merkel was painful to watch.

This week Berlusconi has insulted the Queen of England with his loud voice and greetings, as well as complimenting Obama on his "tan". This is yet another example of the high status Berlusconi holds, he can get away with rude behavior and no one reprimands him. This will certainly not be the last story of his poor manners.

Becca Hallac
Italy Group

Croatia: Slovenia OKs accession to NATO

On Friday, Slovenia “formally ratified Croatia’s accession to NATO,” allowing the country to join the alliance as scheduled next week. This is significant because, last week, a border dispute with Slovenia threatened to impede Croatia’s admittance. While the Slovenian government continue to maintain that it supported Croatia joining NATO, a nationalist group, the Party of the Slovenian Nation, strongly opposed. This group attempted to quickly gather the 40,000 signatures needed to “force a referendum on Croatia’s NATO bid,” but, by the Thursday deadline, ultimately fell short.

This is not Croatia’s first disagreement with Slovenia – in December, Slovenia vetoed Croatia’s European Union bid.

I found two articles describing these events: one from an English-language Ukrainian newspaper and one from the New York Times. I find it very interesting that the New York Times article is significantly shorter and less detailed…

-- Ellen Leto

Russia Creates New Military Structure

The military strategies that have long defined Russia are now being completely retooled. The nation that was once almost untouchable because of it's sheer number of soldiers and surrounding advantageous demography has now decided to drastically cut back on troop numbers and focus on improving their military technology and strategies.
The Russia goverment is going to be putting an estimated $140 billion dollars into buying new arms for their military over the next two years. But why such drastic changes?
It seems Russia has two main motivating fears:1. NATO and 2. Islamic insurgents.
Russia has no real immediate fear of NATO, and in fact seems to be modeling it's new military system after NATO sanctioned militaries. Though Russia is suspicious of Ukraine's involvement with NATO, to some it looks like Russia may be making a push to in the future join NATO.
The immediate fear of the Russian army is fundamentalist Muslims. Muslims currently account for roughly 17% of the Russian population and are the only growing community in Russian society. Many feel the massive cutback in military forces was to push as many Muslims out as possible.
So what does this mean for journalists? It is too early to tell, but if Russia is putting itself in line to perhaps join NATO, it would go a long way in helping journalists have a fighting chance. The protection of democracy and individual liberty is a fundamental stance of NATO, and though it isn't iron clad, it could only help Russia in terms of loosening its grip on journalists.
If Russia instead decided to focus it's efforts on Mulsims. things might go down hill quickly. The United Nations is not going to stand by and let Russia commit genocide. If Russia turns on it's Islamic population you can bet they're going to be shutting down every media system in the country that isn't run by the government. It could be the end of any chance of journalistic freedom in Russia, at least for a good while.

Wes Culp
Team Russia
3/22/09

Croatia: Blocked from NATO and EU

There is concern that politics in Slovenia might prevent China from formally joining NATO in early April.  Nato Secretary General Jaapde Hoop Scheffer said. "... we might not see a situation at the summit in Strasbourg and Kehl that we can greet Albania and Croatia in the NATO family."

The article further explains that although Slovenian lawmakers approved Croatia's entry to NATO, two nationalist groups in Slovenia petitioned for a referendum on Croatia's NATO membership, do to territorial disputes.  For this act to be successful the two groups need 40,000 votes and have 5 weeks to acquire these.  The NATO summit however was barely six weeks away when the petition was filed, making Croatia's acceptance a possible delay regardless if the referendum is successful or not.

According to Bloomberg Press, Slovenia's government has also stalled Croatia from joining the EU, and aims to do the same with NATO.  The admission of Croatia into both the EU and NATO are strongly encouraged, as stated on Freedom House.  Croatia has worked to facilitate the return of refugees, repair war-damaged houses, and improve minority rights in order to meet the conditions for European Union accession (found on Freedom House).

Lindsey Nass (Croatia)