...The buying and selling of organs is a huge business for Europe's poorest country, Moldova. According to organ trafficking specialists, Moldova is one of the key suppliers to the world organ trade and Moldovan kidneys are the cheapest priced in Europe. The country is one of the top 3 suppliers in the thriving global black market in organ sales, according to a just-released report on organ trafficking. According to the report, a record rise in human organ-farming has made Moldova one of the leading source countries although with just over 3 million inhabitants it is much smaller in size than the world's two other organ trafficking centers, Brazil (184 million people) and India (1.12 billion people). The prominent position of Moldova in the illegal organ trade is because "this place is a black hole, no one cares about the population and government officials can just do what they want," in the words of a lawyer who recently left Moldova and today lives near Copenhagen, Denmark. Along with Brazil and India, Reuters has named Moldova is one of the top 3 source countries in the world for organs. Worldwide, the buying and selling of organs is a huge business, and the export of human raw material is bringing hard currency to Moldova. Officially listed as Europe's poorest country, Moldova is now the West's center for the illegal organ trade. The country shares a common border with the European Union, but is officially outside EU jurisdiction and not subject to international scrutiny...
Words: 1202 - Pages: 5
...To what extent can “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia be attributed to the manipulative influence of elites? In the years before the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1990-91, ethnic relations were neighbourly and cooperative. However, Yugoslavia had been made up of six republics and it was a multi-ethnic country in which ‘nations and nascent states did not coincide’. Bosnia in particular was multi-ethnic. Its population consisted of Serbs, Croats and Muslims. There was undoubtedly potential for ethnic conflict and with the failure of communism and the disintegration of Yugoslavia, ethnic relation deteriorated rapidly. This was in large part due to the manipulative influence of elites who sought to establish nation states. Serbian nationalists looking to create a “Greater Serbia”, and Croatian nationalists attempting to establish a “Greater Croatia” manipulated ethnic relations with repetitive propaganda and “expert” opinion. Added to this, the fear and uncertainty created by the disintegration itself was a factor that led to ethnic cleansing, spawning nationalist ideologies and giving credibility rumours spread by elites. Furthermore, a history of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans made the transition from nationalism to ethnic cleansing short and easy, as well as making people more receptive to the influence of elite propaganda. Existing communal conflicts in Bosnia were also in small part responsible for the levels of ethnic cleansing however these were exaggerated and intensified...
Words: 1886 - Pages: 8
...Genocide: Worse Than War explores many different aspects as to why genocides happen, and why it is that we are seemingly powerless to stop it. In my opinion, our power to stop such acts politically is limited by countries’ general reluctance to engage in an armed conflict. Since corrupt regimes are often responsible for genocide in the first place, it is usually up to foreign governments to intervene. When we don’t intervene, these genocides tend to get worse and worse. I’m from the inner city in Chicago, which is home to thousands of Bosnian Muslims who took refuge from the war. In fact, my best friend from my childhood is Bosnian, and I constantly heard stories that were unbearably brutal. Yet it wasn’t until I saw this documentary that I started asking the question as to why the rest of the world, especially powerful industrial countries, are so reluctant to stop it. The reality is that international politics is so complex that if something doesn’t directly effect our country in America, we have a tendency to ignore or downplay genocide as inevitable or unstoppable. Although as a nation we almost unanimously are morally against genocide, our reluctance to stop in my opinion reflects our value system. The cost of war and the notion that most genocides don’t directly affect us provides an easy excuse to put our moral obligations to the side in favor of capitalistic policies. Some say that money is the root of all evil, and in this case our obsession with capital appears...
Words: 372 - Pages: 2
...1999: The First Cyberwar Up until now, wars and conflicts have been fought on domestic and foreign battlefields. As computers become more essential to our daily lives, they also become the new battlegrounds of a new type of war-“cyberwar”. With the rapid progression of technology, wars are no longer only fought with rifles and bombs but with scripts and codes. Although the definition and guidelines of cyberwarfare are still relatively unclear, the 1999 Kosovo conflict introduced this new concept. The 1999 Kosovo conflict was a war between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FR of Yugoslavia) and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The KLA was formed to fight the oppression caused by the Serbians. Their tactics and methods increasingly became more brutal when they began killing Serbian police officers throughout the country (Haney, 1999). This ignited outrage and retaliation from the FR of Yugoslavia. FR of Yugoslavia began to send troops to retake KLA controlled areas. Civilian casualties caused by Serbian troops have been estimated to be roughly around 10,000. NATO then entered the conflict on humanitarian grounds. As NATO began their aerial bombing campaign, hackers, or people who illegally access a computer system (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hacker) disabled and took control of the international web servers. Serbian hackers attacked NATO and US government websites using the denial of service, where computer resources were unavailable (http://en.wikipedia...
Words: 837 - Pages: 4
...Ellie Austin 0536816 # 6 Dear Lawrence Weschler, Your essay, Vermeer in Bosnia, I have found to be fascinating. Recently, while at the Frick Collection, I had taken yet another look at Vermeer and found myself viewing the paintings in the light of Vermeer in Bosnia. The Europe of Vermeer’s youth was as scarred, scary and violent as Bosnia during the Balkan war. There is a strikingly unexpected connection between the high art and the horrors of war crimes. I can certainly relate to the ideas and experiences of Vermeer in Bosnia. In the 1990s, I had worked in various war zones, including Bosnia, first as a media stringer, later as a security contractor. When I realized that the toxic environment was becoming addictive, a distraction and a substitute for something else, a normal way of life, perhaps, and after getting into a serious legal trouble in Saudi Arabia, I had quit working the hot spots for good, as I then thought. On September 11, 2001, a warm sunny day, when I was at all looking for trouble, all the troubles had found me at the World Trade Center, of all places. My last brush with a dangerous adventure had come at on the New Year Eve of 2003, outside the restaurant Nabil in Karrada, an upscale restaurant in Iraq. I was watching the perimeter as a security contractor, when the restaurant bas car-bombed with high explosives, destroying two square blocks of buildings and killing or injuring everyone within the...
Words: 928 - Pages: 4
...ethnic groups that are the Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Serbs, and Croats. If not for these factors Bosnia would not have had this war and one hundred thousand plus people would not have been killed and close to two million people displaced during the war. The war had caused both economic and even more social problems. One of the major causes of the war was the breakup of Yugoslavia. With already years of tension built up from the differences in ethnicities, the breakup had caused a major crisis that was the final straw and tipped the balance and caused the war. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had ceased to exist and had dissolved into its constituent states. In an article written by the Office of the Historian for the U.S. Department of State, it talks about the breakup of Yugoslavia and says, “Yugoslavia will cease to function as a federal state within a year… serious intercommunal conflict will accompany the breakup and will continue afterward… [And] there is little the United States and its European allies can do to preserve Yugoslav unity” (Breakup). The quote is simply saying that once Yugoslavia had broken up it was expected that violence would break out and there was nothing that could be done to stop the on coming violence. This...
Words: 1607 - Pages: 7
...Chapter 13 Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Nations, States, and Nation-States A. Logistics Students’ Time Requirements Activity 1: The Rise of Nationalism and the Fall of Yugoslavia Readings 60-90 minutes Fill in the blanks 75-90 minutes Activity 2: Iraqaphobia Readings 60-90 minutes Fill in the blanks 75-90 minutes The fill-in-the-blanks activity works very well as an in-class group project. It helps for students to be able to discuss the questions and readings with other students. If so, it is absolutely essential that students read the assigned articles in advance of the discussion. They will need to consult the readings to find pertinent passages, but if they are reading it for the first time during group work, they will either not finish or not contribute. I remind my students of this fact several times in the days leading up to the project. If students don’t finish during class, they can finish at home. If done in groups in class, you may wish to suggest that a different student act as recorder for each block of questions. Also, assign a different student to be the discussion leader/gatekeeper to keep the discussion on track and prevent any single individual from dominating the discussion. A third student could function as timekeeper. See Chapter 11 and 14 role-playing activities for further discussion of these tasks. Remind students that Balkan and Middle East politics are always changing and can get...
Words: 32987 - Pages: 132
...Identification. The name Yugoslavia previously designated six republics (Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzogovia, Croatia, and Slovenia), but now includes just Serbia and Montenegro. The word means "land of the southern Slavs." Montenegro, which means "black mountain," takes its name from its rugged terrain. Within Serbia there are several national cultures. In addition to the dominant Serb tradition, there is a large Hungarian population in the northern province of Vojvodina, where Hungarian is the common language and the culture is highly influenced by Hungary (which borders the province to the north). In southern Serbia, the province of Kosovo is primarily Albanian, and has an Islamic culture that bears many remnants of the earlier Turkish conquest. Location and Geography. Serbia is a landlocked territory in the Balkan Peninsula of Eastern Europe, bordering Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Albania. Montenegro is to the west of Serbia, also bordering Bosnia and Herzogovina, Albania, and the Adriatic Sea. Serbia covers 34,136 square miles (88,412 square kilometers); Montenegro has an area of 5,299 square miles (13,724 square kilometers). Together they are slightly smaller than the state of Kentucky. The terrain varies widely. In the north there are fertile plains that produce most of Serbia's crops, as well as marshlands along the Sava and Danube Rivers. At the northern border, the Danube River runs along the Iron...
Words: 6477 - Pages: 26
...or nation. The term was created after the holocaust when Hitler systematically tried to eradicate all the Jews. Genocide still happens today, and the effects will always be there. The Bosnian genocide is still a big issue in Eastern Europe. The Bosnian genocide fits into two different categories of genocide is ideological. They fit into these categories because Serbia generally thought they were better, they only attacked Bosnians, and treated them like the Nazi’s did with Jews. After WW2 ended many countries in east Europe formed The People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. These countries included Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia. In the late 80’s and early 90’s Serbia started to dislike the other countries. When the Serbian National Assembly was created it boosted national pride. Slabadon Milosevic, the head of the Assembly started to give Serbian’s pride. He promoted the fact that Serbians mainly made up the most of the Yugoslavia military, and said that they are the strongest race because they are the most represented group in the military. What they did with the military is a whole different story....
Words: 449 - Pages: 2
...of Serbia from 1989 to 1997 and then President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000. He was charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, or the ICTY, on the basis of both individual and superior criminal responsibility with genocide, crimes against humanity, violations of the laws or customs of war and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. These crimes were allegedly committed in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia during the war in former Yugoslavia. On September 26, 2002, the trial of Slobodan Milosevic before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was put into affect. Milosevic began his journey to the Hague as a legal matter when, on May 24, 1999, the first of three indictments against him were handed down. The indictment, referred to as the Kosovo Indictment, charged Milosevic with the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the expulsion of more than eight hundred thousand ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, as well as the deaths of nine hundred others from 1998 to 1999. Milosevic's indictment was considered both legally and politically significant because it was the first indictment to be issued by an international court against a current head of state. In September 2000, Milosevic was voted out of office and relinquished his position as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He was subsequently surrendered to the court on June 28, 2001 by Yugoslavian...
Words: 684 - Pages: 3
...Macedonia: Economic History and Current Economic Environment The economy of Macedonia was almost none existent before its independence in 1991. During the period of the former Republic of Yugoslavia control “Macedonia only produced 5% of the total output of federal goods” (CIA, Macedonia Economy-overview), compared to all other former Yugoslav states. In Macedonia from 1991-1996 the economy was very unstable due to no government aid, which it formerly received from the Republic of Yugoslavia. Macedonia also had embargoes and trade sanctions from Greece and the United Nations respectively during this period. In 1996, the economy began steady growth until 2001. In 2001 internal conflict caused a decrease in GDP but rebounded quickly after. The economy took a hit in 2008 when the world economic problems caused a worldwide recession. With little effect on GDP from the recession, late in 2008 the Macedonian economy began recovering with a rise in exports and strengthening the infrastructure. During 1991-1996 the economic growth rate was minimal at best. From 1991 to 1994 the GDP declined because there was no foreign direct investment and the economy was drastically affected with a decline in growth. “The economy settled on a positive growth path from 1996 onwards but this was interrupted in 2001, the year of internal civil conflict.”(ILO, p.10) The change from a socialist economy to a market economy has had its ups and downs; the unemployment rate is very high at 29.1%(CIA)...
Words: 670 - Pages: 3
...Brief Outline: The idea for my feature article is to highlight the influenced social commentary of East Europeans in the public eye (in particularly Bosnians and Serbians) as a result of lack of knowledge of past events such as the Yugoslavian war. This exposure has a vast impact on the way in which East-Europeans, including myself are perceived and treated in society. My feature article will include personal experiences that will assist in projecting the message. As my mother works as an interpreter she comes into contact with those who suffer the same problem, many of which she has fulfilled a relationship with. I will use these as potential interviewees to further enhance the argument. Other potential interviewees could be Doctors or Psychologists in which my mother has interpreted for. Although they cannot disclose personal information about clients – I could receive a general overview of their understanding of the topic as a result of the Yugoslavian war and the common post-traumatic stresses that occur regularly. Possible questions: * Is it common for social backlash to affect those suffering post-traumatic stress from events such as this? * If so, how does one cope with this sort of derogatory commentary on top of their own personal issues? Possible research sources: Personal research: As a result of lack of knowledge on the Yugoslavian war I have experienced verbal and physical attacks based on my ethnicity. These attacks occurred when I was in high school...
Words: 547 - Pages: 3
...Dan Rensberger Sports In Society Garth Pleasant 10-17-2013 Yugoslavia In the country of Yugoslavia, there were three different religions that had been there since the country was formed. There are the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, and some Muslim. The Slavs were a group of people that were fleeing Russia to escape persecution and they were split up by a group of mountains. The people on the west side of the mountain range were Roman Catholic, called the Croats of Croatia, and the people to the east were called Orthodox, called the Serbs of Serbia. They were joined together by the country of Yugoslavia, and this country brought together one of the best international basketball teams of the time. This team starred Drazen Petrovich and Vlade Divac among others. The team was a very tight knit group, and they were like brothers. They were all best friends and had great team chemistry, and that was one of the reasons that they were so successful. They seemed to have brought the country together from a time of violence toward each other, but they would also end up tearing the country apart. The Yugoslavian national team was very good, and they were just starting to hit stride. Drazen Petrovich was one of the best players in the world, and surrounded by Divac and Tony Kukoc, they were going to be a tough team to beat. The team was playing a lot together through the late 80’s and early 90’s, including playing the Boston Celtics, the NBA champions in 1988 featuring...
Words: 703 - Pages: 3
...The Bosnian territory is a mountainous country about a third the size of England. The territory lies next to the Adriatic Sea, to the south of Croatia and west of Serbia. The population is less than half of London. Bosnia was part of the Turkish empire until 1878 and then became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until World War 1. After the war Bosnia along with other surrounding Slav territories were united to form the country of Yugoslavia, which was run by communist President Josip Broz Tito until his death in 1980. (the history place genocide in the 20th century).The 3 main groups fighting were the Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, and Croats. Under the leadership of President Tito, the ethnic cultural tensions that plagued Yugoslavia were...
Words: 1306 - Pages: 6
...Author Note This paper was prepared for PHI 100: Introduction to Philosophy Homework Module #8 Taught by Professor David Smith 1. “Our obligation is to give meaning to life, and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life” a quote by quote by Elie Wiesel, Nobel laureate for peace, Holocaust survivor and author. I do not know, I find times I believe life does not have meaning, and agree with the Nihilists, Taylor and Schopenhauer. There are times I believe I tread my own destiny and find meaning in what I do, like R. M. Hare Self-Chosen Commitment. I still have many questions left unanswered. I think we all, at one time or another ponders the meaning of life. I have concluded, and it is not 42, Elie is right, my world or my meaning of life is a succession of obligations. I do not know if it is good or not so good. Growing up, I had obligations to my mom and dad, later in life to God, as a solider I sought obligations to my country, then my wife and daughters and now to myself. Could I have lived my life differently and shied away from any obligation? I do not think so; something is side giving you the drive to seek what others will not. I do not know what that is, God? Maybe. So this one I would have to agree with Elie, and Hare, we give our own life meaning, or not 2. Of course human history is progressing, in science, technology, standards of living, socially and governing. Yet there were nearly 10,000 rapes last year and 16,254...
Words: 736 - Pages: 3
