In journalism, there are few moments less inspiring than writing about the hypothetical ramifications that balls being pulled from a bowl might have six months down the line.

The difference between a politician and a statesman is that the latter approaches every issue with an open mind, a politician with an open mouth.

The UN’s top human rights official has urged nations to save Syria’s embattled and dying children and to rally behind a 14-year-old girl shot in the head by the Taliban for promoting female education.

Accused mass murderer Radovan Karadzic portrayed himself as a peace-loving tolerant man as he opened his defence today in his war crimes trial.

A 4.6 magnitude earthquake hit the central Bosnian town of Zenica early this morning, causing minor damage but no injuries.

Prosecutors are outlining their evidence against ex-Bosnian Serb army chief General Ratko Mladic over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

A BOSNIAN Serb accused of race crimes so brutal her victims called her the “Female Monster” has been arrested.

A lone gunman was shot and captured after launching a terrorist attack outside the US Embassy in Sarajevo today.

FORMER Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic faced the UN war crimes tribunal yesterday as a defiant general who never lost a battle, denying the charges against him as “obnoxious” and “monstrous”.

FORMER Bosnian Serb military commander Radtko Mladic must be held to account for using his power to commit atrocities that tore a nation apart, a UN war crimes prosecutor said.

THE lawyer for war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic says he has formally filed an appeal against the former general’s detention — a move that will likely delay his extradition for at least a day.

Serbia today increased its reward for the capture of Europe’s most wanted war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic from €1m to €10m.

The family of Europe’s most wanted fugitive Ratko Mladic today asked a Serbian court to declare him officially dead.

SERBIA launched a major search yesterday for war crimes fugitive General Ratko Mladic, sending scores of special police to comb through a western town on orders from Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor.

The real Dragan Dabic has emerged- a 66-year-old peasant and construction worker who was shocked to find his identity had apparently been stolen by one of the world’s most notorious war crimes suspects.

HIDING behind a long white beard and glasses, Europe’s most wanted man Radovan Karadzic was living a new life, practicing alternative medicine, when he was finally arrested.

The most wanted man in Europe was hidden behind a Dumbledore-style beard and working in an alternative medicine clinic when he was finally brought to justice.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern begins a four-day visit to the Balkans today amid political unrest in the region.

A fire at an orphanage in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo killed five children and injured at least 17 today, police said.

GARDA Commissioner Noel Conroy has placed unsolved crimes as a major priority in his last year in charge of the force.

The husband of missing Dublin woman Winnie Brady is expected to formally identify her remains in Medjugorje today.

Forensic experts have exhumed the remains of 277 people from a mass grave in north-eastern Bosnia containing the victims of Serb forces’ ethnic cleansing campaign, a forensic expert said today.

A European Union deadline for Serbia to surrender war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic has expired with no sign of the former army commander, threatening the nation’s efforts to join the bloc.

War crimes fugitive General Ratko Mladic has been located and authorities are negotiating his surrender, a senior state security official told The Associated Press today.

Croatia’s top war crimes fugitive has been jailed in Madrid following his capture at a luxury resort on the Canary Islands after four years on the run, officials said.

British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft will today lead a delegation of high-ranking international and local officials who will visit a mass grave believed to contain the bodies of dozens of Srebrenica massacre victims found in north-eastern Bosnia, the British embassy said.

Forensic experts today began identifying 38 bodies recently exhumed from a mass grave in Bosnia, including nine children and a woman who was eight months pregnant when she died.

A Frenchman believed to be linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network may have been in Japan during the 2002 World Cup finals, when the country was on alert for a possible terror strike, a Japanese newspaper said.

Japanese police today arrested four people in raids on homes and businesses linked to a Frenchman suspected of al-Qaida connections.

British troops failed in yet another bid to capture the world’s most wanted suspected war criminal in a Bosnian raid that left a priest and his son near death today.

Nato troops today failed in an apparent attempt to arrest former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic after converging on a building in Pale, the stronghold of the world’s top war crimes suspect at large, amid bursts of gunfire and an explosion.

In critical evidence at Slobodan Milosevic’s war crimes trial, former Nato commander General Wesley Clark testified that the former Serbian president knew a civilian massacre was planned in the Bosnian town Srebrenica.

A BOSNIAN Serb doctor was jailed for life yesterday for exterminating and persecuting Muslims, but the UN war crimes court cleared him of genocide.

POPE John Paul II reached out to this embittered Balkan nation yesterday, asking God’s forgiveness for “so much suffering and bloodshed” inflicted by Roman Catholics and others.

Pope John Paul II reached out to the embittered people of Bosnia-Herzegovina today, asking God’s forgiveness for “so much suffering and bloodshed” inflicted by Roman Catholics and others.

CHALLENGING both the UN war crimes tribunal and world opinion, the Bosnian Serb government said yesterday far fewer Muslims were killed at Srebrenica than the 8,000 commonly reported.

At least 207 bodies have been exhumed from a mass grave found near the Bosnian town of Srebrenica - the site of Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

The last Irish Defence Forces Company which will serve in Bosnia has begun its tour of duty.

Serb forces pillaged Kosovar Albanian villages in 1999, leaving the bodies of children and even a crippled old woman in the smouldering ruins, a retired farmer testified at Slobodan Milosevic’s war crimes trial today.

UN prosecutors have shown graphic film of gaunt prisoners in Bosnian camps at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic.

The latest Irish troops to join the international stabilisation force in Bosnia are leaving today to take up their duties.