"Week in Review"

It's been "too darned hot" (as the song goes) to do much except plug along through the Dialogue, through our meetings with speakers (most of whom have been great!), and otherwise help students survive this brutal heat wave. These students have been "troopers" - amazing, really. No complaints. None! I don't get it ... are they really that nice? That understanding? That appreciative? (Yes is the answer - they're a great group, they are 23 great people.)

So, this week we have:

• met with Special Prosecutor for war crimes and organized crime (see below)
  
• had lectures (Mladen, Yiannis)
• met with two MPs of Serbia's Parliament, both of whom are with the progressive Democratic Party, and both of whom I hope to welcome to Northeastern soon! (see below)
• met with two women from CANVAS (below)
• visited the NGO Center for Security Policy
• visited with Professor Radovan Bigovic, a Serbian Priest and author
• survived the heat by heading to Usce mall (and some students catching Harry Potter 7!)
• enjoyed a boat ride along the Sava and Danube rivers, and survived the ear-splitting speakers and eclectic array of music - from Frank Sinatra (yay!) to Bosnian punk, Serbian folk songs, Italian pop, Beethoven, and Gypsy Kings (Volare!)
• heard from a lawyer from the NGO Veritas, the first Serbian NGO to work with the Hague, and which works on behalf of Serbian victims of war crimes committed in Croatia and Bosnia
• heard from anti-EU, anti-NATO members of right-wing parties of Serbia (we actually were looking hard to find anti-EU people, so this was great to get this view!)

Tomorrow, we go to what I am now calling "Tito land" - Tito's grave, the Yugoslavia Museum, and exhibit rooms with (a) photos of Tito and his wife and their global encounters with various heads of State; and (b) gifts given to Tito in his 35 years as President of Yugoslavia (1945-80).

And then I hope to escape tomorrow afternoon to a nearby theater and catch HP-7 myself!