Belgrade Foreign Visitors Club

From B92:

One in two Serbian citizens is overweight while a fifth of the population is clinically obese.

An international conference on obesity has begun at the Serbian Science Academy, with the goal of looking at all the ways of countering weight problems in Serbia, an increasing phenomenon.”

This is hard to believe looking at Belgrade’s women, but the response from one of my colleagues was “You have not spent much time in the countryside have you?”.

The Boston Globe:

“A unilateral lunge for independence by Kosovo could spur Serbs in Bosnia and Herzogovina - half that country’s population - to follow suit. And Kremlin warnings against the imposition of any Kosovo formula not acceptable to Serbia raises the specter of Russian backing for independence movements in Georgia, Moldova, and even Ukraine. This would be a prescription for armed conflict around the periphery of Europe.

…Some European diplomats also worry about the United Nations carving new countries out of older countries’ provinces. They recognize that separatist reflexes persist in regions such as Catalonia and the Basque country. Even the Flemish and Walloon populations of tiny Belgium may want a nationalist divorce.”

 From Channel 4 website:

A video obtained by a charity shows the life for many inside Serb mental hospitals amounts to a version of hell. Unending cruelty if not by design, then by neglect. And yet tonight Serbia’s Prime Minister said it’s all “fabricated” and “malicious”. Source: Channel 4 - News - Serbia’s secret shame

This is the last thing Serbia needs, A Romanian Orphans style public disaster debacle where inhumane treatment of the vulnerable is uncovered and publicized around the world.

I was not surprised at all by this report. In the summer of 2006, babies at Belgrade’s main maternity hospital were dying from hyperthermia because of overheated wards. A charity drive by an expatriate magazine Cord arranged for air-conditioners to be installed (I suspect those air conditioners saved many little lives in the 2007 heat wave where daily temperatures exceeded 40 degrees for three weeks).

Around that time I also learned from impeccable sources of serious abuses against expectant mothers if they did not bribe hospital staff. It seemed to be understood that one had to bribe the staff to get normal treatment - there was even some sympathy for the practice, with people pointing out to me that they are paid very little.

If the government has no money to put in Air conditioners in maternity hospitals in the capital, and there are routine abuses of patients in the same hospital, it comes as no surprise that there are dire circumstances and abuses at regional facilities.

Like anyone, I am outraged at the mistreatment of these helpless people, but before we sit too comfortably on out high horse, perhaps it should be noted that Westerners have to bear at least some responsibility for this.

The illegal and unfair bombing of Serbia is 1999 caused massive damage to the government and he economy. The entire country is still reeling from it. At least some of the horror Channel 4 viewers witnessed is directly attributable to the bombing.

Under-staffed, under-paid, under-resourced, under-supervised, under-funded…all of this is party NATO’s fault.

So whilst we condemn this dreadfulness and make sure it is stopped, contain your moral outrage. If you are reading this in Europe or America, its party your fault. 

From Blic:

“The years of sanctions and other problems resulted in the managing staff in Serbia that is below the European level. Large number of executives still behaves as at the time of socialism, experts claim.

‘The management in public enterprises is horrible. The executives are disoriented and appointed as per political party’s membership and not professional qualification. When private sector is concerned, there are foreign nationals who immediately applied world experience. There are also more or less successful private companies. Some managers still have not forgotten what they learned at the time of socialism’, economist Miroslav Kovacevic says for ‘Blic’.”

(Via Blic OnLine.)

As I have written elsewhere, the problem is the Tenured Incompetents one finds at every level of Serbian management.

One cannot fire them for “political” reasons, so you are left having to deal with hostile nest-featherers actively resisting all change whilst draining resources and time.

From Serbianna.com:

“Echoing the IMF assessment, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic noted that the expected 7% growth puts Serbia as the highest growth economy in Europe.

Despite the current 21% unemployment, Djelic said that the trend is down from 70% just few years ago and said that Serbia is well on the way of sustainable growth which, according to him, will be ‘based on expertise, energy efficiency and recycling of secondary raw materials.’”