People wait to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in Zagreb, Croatia, in November 2021. Countries throughout central and eastern Europe have high COVID-19 infection and death rates, but for a surprising reason — the post-communism privatization of health care.
(AP Photo/Darko Bandic)
COVID-19 infection and death rates in former Eastern Bloc countries suggest the fall of communism was detrimental to the health and well-being of eastern Europeans.
Local residents help exhume the body of a 16-year-old Ukrainian girl, killed by Russian forces, in Kherson, Ukraine in November 2022.
Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Prosecuting a leader like Vladimir Putin accused of war crimes is difficult. But the trial of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in the early 2000s offers a potential playbook.
In Canada, the French and English languages generally peacefully coexist.
Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
It’s common for people to live near others who speak a different – but similar – language. But generally, they handle their differences without violence.
Which side are you on? Well, actually …
Milos Miskov/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Not all nations have joined in a united front against Russia’s invasion. The conflict and talk of a new Cold War could reignite the nonaligned movement.
Celebrating Montenegrin independence on May 21, 2006.
Diminar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images
Western leaders learned the hard way 25 years ago that conflict in the Balkans can become ethnic cleansing. Add Russia into the mix, and Montenegro’s new problems are US and European problems, too.
Police officers push back demonstrators next to St. John’s Episcopal Church outside of the White House, June 1, 2020 in Washington D.C.
Jose Luis Magana/AFP via Getty Images
Demonstrations by Macedonian villagers in the 1980s, which helped spark the end of Communist rule in the former Yugoslavia, hold vital lessons for Americans peacefully protesting for police reform.
Jean-Pierre Bemba during his trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, The Netherlands.
EPA-EFE/Michael Kooren
Former commander of the Bosnian Serb army Ratko Mladic has been found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Survivors of the atrocities have today welcomed the long-awaited news.
General Ratko Mladić – convicted of war crimes and genocide.
Surian Soosay
Brian Grodsky, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
How long does it take to make peace? Decades after the end of the Bosnian war, just one in six residents felt that country had reached reconciliation.
By engaging a broad base of people on a popular level, film has a much more immediate and visceral impact than formal lustration proceedings.
Before the Rain (1994)
Cinema can be instrumental in opening up dialogue on collective culpability for the past. Manchevski’s Before the Rain and Angelopoulos’ Ulysses’ Gaze are perfect examples of this.
‘Make America Great Again’ or the projected visions of President Trump for Americans.
Carlo Allegri/Reuters
The countries ripped apart by the Yugoslav wars have seen this kind of nationalism before.
Former Chadian leader Hissene Habre being escorted in to stand trial at the Palais de Justice in Dakar, Senegal in 2015. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in 2016 by judges of the Extraordinary African Chambers for crimes against humanity, rape, sexual slavery.
EPA/Stringer
There are fears that the withdrawal of countries from the ICC would mark the end of international criminal justice in Africa. This need not be the case.
A four year trial and several years of deliberation later, and an international tribunal is to decide on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.