What has not changed since the 1992 crisis is that European policymakers and their economic advisers still lack a basic understanding of how financial markets react to policies or, in this case, to a lack of policies.

It is enough that Serbia is a member of the Partnership for Peace programme. If it became a Nato member, it could not retain its close ties with the important group of nonaligned countries, nor could it preserve its reputation as a country that participates in UN peace missions.

The U.S.-U.K. intelligence services under the covers of their diplomatic corps took advantage of the chaotic atmosphere, artfully promoted by the landed aristocracy and their spokesmen in the national congress and Mossadegh's administration.

Still fresh in the memories of both the U.S. and China is the recent trade flair up, when Obama imposed taxes on Chinese imports; and China responded with protectionist measures against U.S. companies, which brings us to the heart of the matter.

We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But a new year has come. A new decade stretches before us. We don't quit. I don't quit. Let's seize this moment -- to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more.

The next president of Ukraine will not find the doors of the EU or NATO opened any wider. EFTA and an "associated status" with NATO may have seemed like half a loaf to Ukrainians who believed they were promised full and complete integration into the Euro-Atlantic world.

Today, mainstream Americans are going on a financial diet amid deteriorating family finances. They know now that they cannot spend what they don't have, as the painful consequences of spending levels that were artificially pumped up by too much debt have hit home.

Mr. Jeremic refused to say what Serbia would demand if it managed to force Kosovo back to the negotiating table by winning its case before the International Court of Justice. He insisted that the mistake the United States and its allies made before Kosovo’s declaration was dictating rather than discussing terms.

Obama’s decision to commit more soldiers is in fact the third surge in Afghanistan since 2008, when the much-reviled Bush administration started increasing troop levels after six years of military and governmental ineffectiveness. Obama announced the second surge in March. And now we have a third surge.

Liberalism in the U.S. is already dead for all intents and purposes, but not everyone has recognized it, or acted upon it. Nevertheless, the first steps in achieving political independence – which amounts to breaking completely with the Democratic Party – have begun.