Serbia rejects UN legal ruling on Kosovo's secession

Serbia has said it will never recognise Kosovo's independence after UN judges ruled that its secession in 2008 had not broken international law.

Their non-binding decision found no reason to prohibit the Serbian province's declaration, made after nine years of de facto independence.

Belgrade, which lost Kosovo after a Nato bombing campaign, argues the move violated its territorial integrity.

The US welcomed the ruling and urged European nations to unite behind it.

Kosovo's government hopes the result will prompt many countries that have not recognised an independent Kosovo to follow the 69 states that have done so.

The decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague opens up the possibility that Serbia will fight in the UN General Assembly to solve the dispute through negotiations, the BBC's Mark Lowen reports from Belgrade.
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Other countries facing their own secessionist problems, from Spain to China, may view the result with concern, our correspondent notes.

"Serbia will never recognise the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo," Serbian President Boris Tadic told reporters in Belgrade after the ruling.

Mr Tadic, a reformist, stressed that Serbia would not resort to violence and would prefer to negotiate a compromise with Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders.
Analysis
Continue reading the main story
Jonathan Marcus BBC diplomatic correspondent

This opinion will not change any facts on the ground. Kosovo will still regard itself as independent. Serbia will still want what it sees as its territory back.

But the decision will nonetheless have significant ramifications. There is nothing more sensitive in international affairs than sovereignty and borders.

If Kosovo's independence is in accordance with international law, Moscow may ask, why shouldn't Abkhazia and South Ossetia's independence from Georgia be viewed in the same way?

Indeed, why shouldn't other disputed border questions be revisited? Bosnia's borders may be a case in point.

The implications will make any country with separatist movements worry about the future.

He acknowledged the ruling was "a difficult decision for Serbia" but said Belgrade would continue to try for a UN resolution that would urge both sides to start a dialogue.

Russia, which has historic ties with Serbia, said its position of not recognising Kosovo's independence remained unchanged.

In Spain, the biggest of the five EU states not to have recognised Kosovo, a foreign ministry spokesperson said Madrid respected the court ruling. The spokesperson would not be drawn on whether it would lead Spain to reconsider its decision on non-recognition.

Cyprus reaffirmed its support for Serbia's sovereignty and territorial integrity "which includes the Kosovo and Metohija province".
Diplomatic victory

Kosovan Foreign Minister Skender Hyseni said there was no alternative for Belgrade but to work together with Pristina "on a joint European and Nato perspective".

"This is the time for co-operation and constructive approaches rather than for the destruction that we used to see," he said.

Our correspondent says memories of that destruction - the 1990s war in Kosovo between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian separatists - are still raw in the region.
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And he adds that although Kosovo has never truly recovered - its economy is weak, unemployment chronically high and its infrastructure still devastated - it has just scored a major diplomatic victory and now has the momentum.

Kosovo Albanians have been celebrating in the streets, waving the flags of both Kosovo and neighbouring Albania.

Serbian troops were driven out of Kosovo in 1999 after a Nato bombing campaign aimed at halting the violent repression of a separatist campaign by the ethnic Albanian majority.

Kosovo was then administered by the UN with the support of the Nato-led peacekeepers (K-For) until February 2008, when its parliament voted to declare independence.

Storm Threat Forces Ships to Leave Work at Oil Spill Site

As the threat of a storm stalled efforts to permanently seal BP’s blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico, the government said Thursday that the well would be left closed off and unattended if ships had to leave the area.

By late Thursday evening, Thad W. Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral who leads the federal response effort, said many vessels at the well site were preparing to leave now that a tropical depression had developed into a tropical storm, Bonnie, that was headed into the gulf.

Among those preparing to evacuate, he said, was a drill rig that is working on a relief well, which is considered the ultimate way to seal the well. It was beginning the process of disconnecting a riser pipe from the rig to the seabed and pulling it up, a process expected to take up to 12 hours.

The decision to leave the well capped, which was made at the recommendation of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, means that scientists with the government and with BP think that the well is undamaged and that there is little risk it would deteriorate if kept under pressure, as it has been since valves on a new cap were closed a week ago. Reopening the valves would mean that oil, which has not flowed since they were closed, would once again pour into the gulf.

“We have enough confidence to leave the well shut in,” Kent Wells, a senior vice president of BP, said in a conference call with reporters in Houston.

At the well site, 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, most work was halted during the day in advance of the storm’s arrival.

“While this is not a hurricane, it’s a storm that will have some significant impacts,” Admiral Allen said.

Mr. Wells said the storm would delay operations 10 to 12 days, depending on its severity and how close it passed by the site. That would push back completion of a relief well to the middle of August, he said.

The drill rig that is working on the relief well is most likely to be among the first to leave because it travels very slowly. Other ships that are better able to handle higher seas and travel faster would leave later, Admiral Allen said. Support ships for submersibles that have been monitoring the well would be among the last to leave, so the well would probably be unattended for only a few days, he said.

The relief well has been temporarily plugged because of the weather worries, Admiral Allen said. If the decision is made that the rig evacuate, it would take 8 to 12 hours to detach a riser pipe from the seafloor and pull it back up so the rig could move.

“We would be watching the weather closely,” he said. “If conditions allow us to resume, we would do that.”

On Thursday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency, telling reporters that some low-lying coastal communities might need to be evacuated. But did not order a mandatory state evacuation.

By Thursday afternoon, though, BP and the Coast Guard had already started moving some surplus materials and equipment from low-lying areas into secure staging areas in Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, the federal on-scene coordinator, said at a news conference in New Orleans on Thursday.

Admiral Zukunft said that officials were “re-positioning and re-anchoring” the protective boom in some areas. Only the boom that was staged and waiting to be used would be moved to higher ground, he said.

But this actions prompted heated debate in some of Louisiana’s coastal parishes.

Kevin Davis, the president of St. Tammany Parish, was upset that the Coast Guard told him it was planning to move inland barges that had blocked oil from entering Lake Pontchartrain. He issued an executive order saying that anybody who would move such equipment could be arrested.

In St. Bernard Parish, officials worried about whether the protective boom would be moved too far away to be re-deployed quickly after the storm passes. Admiral Zukunft said that moving supplies and equipment was necessary to protect resources so they can quickly be re-deployed after the storm. “We don’t want to lose this material,” he said.

Once the storm has passed, officials can resume their work on drilling the relief wells.

And when the rig is back in place and operating, about two days of work are needed to install and cement a last section of steel casing pipe in the relief well. After that, BP plans to first try another well-sealing procedure, called a static kill, in which heavy drilling mud would be pumped into the well in an effort to permanently stop the flow of oil and gas.

If the static kill is successful, the only need for the relief well may be to confirm that the well is permanently sealed. If the results from the static kill are ambiguous, though, it would then take at least several days, and perhaps several weeks, to permanently shut the flow from the bad well by pumping mud down the relief well.

The National Weather Service said Thursday that the tropical depression, the third in what is expected to be a busy hurricane season, had formed in the Bahamas. Now a storm, its track was expected to run to the northwest into the gulf.

A spokesman for the private weather service AccuWeather said the storm would probably reach the area of the well site late Saturday or early Sunday.

Liz Robbins contributed reporting from New Orleans and Campbell Robertson contributed from Hopedale, La.

Four more H1N1 cases in city

KOLKATA: Four new cases of H1N1 were reported in the city on Thursday, taking the total number of swine flu-affected in the state to 31 this monsoon. Seven persons had tested positive on Wednesday. Virologists fear there would be a further rise in H1N1 cases as the climate was favourable for the virus to thrive.

Fifteen people are currently receiving treatment for the influenza and the condition of two, who are admitted in private hospitals, continues to be critical. Both the patients are in their 20s. Though one person has completed the Tamiflu dosage and treatment, his condition has not improved due to renal failure.

"The chronic renal failure patient at a private hospital has undergone the full course of treatment. His follow-up
swab report confirms he is now H1N1 negative. But his condition continues to be critical due to other ailments," said Dr Asit Biswas, state swine flu nodal officer.

Virologists say the H1N1 virus is more virulent this time. Also, unlike the outbreak last year — when the influenza was largely restricted to people aged between five and 35 years — this time it is attacking people from all age groups. H1N1 had affected 130 people in the state last year and there were no deaths.

Though swine flu can prove dangerous for all, the most vulnerable are those with chronic ailments as their immune system has become weak. People with cardio-vascular diseases, respiratory distress and cancer fall in the high-risk category.

While vaccine for swine flu can play a preventive role, so far the vaccine from the health department is made available only to doctors and health workers. An Indian vaccine manufacturing company launched an intra-nasal vaccine for swine flu a few days ago. But chemists in the city said due to lack of information, the response to the vaccine had been lukewarm

Source : timesofindia