The half-pregnanacy solution
Business Times - 19 Aug 2008 When seceding gets ugly, half pregnancy may be best By LEON HADAR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT RUSSIAN Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has complained that while the United States and its Nato allies have demanded that the province of Kosovo be allowed to declare its independence from Serbia and be recognised by the United Nations as an independent state, they have rejected Russian demands that the provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia be permitted to secede from Georgia and either become independent or join the Russian Federation. So, in a way, the fate of Kosovo depends very much on the future of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. For the US and its allies, it makes a lot of sense that Kosovo be split from Serbia and that the Albanian-Muslim majority in the province enjoy the 'right' of self-determination. To the Russians, who have traditionally regarded the Serbs as historical and cultural allies, the decision to divide Serbia (and before that Yugoslavia) wa...