Ian Traynor
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/ 2 December 2003

Rug pulled out from under the grey fox

The most famous and influential Georgian in world politics since Joseph Stalin, Eduard Shevardnadze, finally bowed out last weekend after controlling his small, but strategically crucial, country for more than a generation. This is how Shevardnadze went from glasnost hero to hated lame duck.

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/ 18 November 2003

The nastiest man in the game

Sinisa Mihajlovic seems to have a Faustian fascination with controversy. Lazio’s Serbia-Montenegro international heaped more shame on himself and his team during their 4-0 home defeat by Chelsea when he spat at Adrian Mutu. Anyone who has followed his career, though, will not have been surprised.

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/ 19 September 2003

Now Saudis want the big one

Saudi Arabia, in response to the current upheaval in the Middle East, has embarked on a strategic review that includes acquiring nuclear weapons. This new threat of proliferation in one of the world’s most dangerous regions comes on top of a crisis over Iran’s alleged nuclear programme.

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/ 16 March 2003

Power vacuum in Serbia

Serbian commentators and Western diplomats have been talking darkly about the ‘capture of the state’. Twosniper bullets that killed Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. His murder and the boldness with which it was executed raise the question: who is really running Serbia?

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/ 29 November 2002

Saddam’s smuggled arms

Yugoslavia is the hub for East European arms smugglers and military experts who have been supplying Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with crucial equipment and know-how to help him frustrate a United States air campaign against Iraq.