One fledgling nation can learn from triumphs and mistakes of another

TO a sea of Albanian and American flags, Prime Minister Hasim Thaci called the republic of Kosovo into being last Sunday week, setting off a diplomatic firestorm, raising Russian- backed Serbian ire and sparking fears that minority ethnic groups from Spain to China would have a new basis for resistance.

Kosovo can draw from examples elsewhere, as well as set what Sri Lanka described as “an unmanageable precedent”.

East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta awoke from an induced coma on Thursday, after an assassination/coup attempt by his former military police chief. The 1996 Nobel peace laureate will have seen Kosovo follow Montenegro and his own former Indonesian garrison into statehood.